A pequena grande Escola da Ponte
Na disciplina de Realidade Escolar ministrada pela Professora Piedade Vaz Rebelo, oferecida no Mestrado em Ensino da Matemática na Universidade de Coimbra, tem-se o hábito de visitar diversas escolas em Portugal. O intuito é o de aproximar os mestrandos ao sistema educacional e também apresentar metodologias diferenciadas de ensino.
Uma das visitas foi a famosa “Escola da Ponte”, situada em Vila das Aves, uma freguesia portuguesa do distrito de Porto. Essa escola, criada em 1976 pelo educador José Pacheco, possui um sistema que foge do modelo tradicional e é baseada em três valores: a liberdade, a responsabilidade e a solidariedade.
Ao chegar frente ao portão principal da escola, cercada por uma pequena cerca em arame, pude perceber a pintura em uma parede que começava na altura do portão e terminava no chão frente a área de entrada da escola. Eram desenhos pintados pelos alunos com frases como, “Eu gosto de ser diferente, torna-me especial!”, “Caixa surpresa dos direitos e deveres” e algumas palavras como “liberdade”, “educação”, entre outros desenhos.
Figura 1: Parede com a pintura feita pelos alunos
Ao entrar fomos recepcionados por um professor de História da escola, ele nos explicou resumidamente como funciona o sistema educativo e chamou dois alunos para nos apresentar a escola, uma garota do grupo do “aprofundamento” e um garoto da “consolidação”. Os alunos explicaram no que consiste o modelo de ensino e nos apresentaram os ambientes de trabalho da escola. Embora crianças falavam e explicavam tudo muito bem como duas pessoas que houvessem sido preparadas para isso, porém todos os alunos fazem esse papel por estarem inseridos nesse sistema.
Basicamente, a escola se organiza em três núcleos: iniciação, consolidação e aprofundamento, cada qual ocupa um determinado ambiente de aprendizagem. Os alunos se agrupam, em três ou quatro, de acordo com os interesses comuns para progredir seus estudos. Não há um professor encarregado de uma turma, ao invés disso, todos os alunos trabalham em conjunto com todos os educadores.
Ao entrarmos pela porta principal da escola, sempre aberta aos visitantes, os dois alunos nos mostraram os quadros gerais com os direitos e deveres dos alunos e, posteriormente, os dos visitantes. Dentre nossos direitos, estava o de fotografar e o de circular pelos ambientes de trabalho dos alunos e foi por este que as fotos aqui estão. Uma frase me chamou bastante atenção, em um papel que estava fixado em cima de um dos quadros, dizia “Mude, mas comece devagar, porque a direção é mais importante que a velocidade”.
Passamos pelos ambientes de trabalho dos três núcleos, entrávamos nas salas e os alunos continuavam a trabalhar sem perder a concentração, é como se não estivéssemos ali. A figura 2 mostra um dos ambientes de trabalho que passamos.
Figura 2: Ambiente destinado ao núcleo de consolidação
De fundo é possível ouvir uma música clássica bem baixinha que fica tocando durante todo tempo. Na parede, um quadro de anotações para cada disciplina com os respectivos temas a serem seguidos. No canto de um dos quadros perto da porta, alguns papéis me chamaram bastante atenção e apresentavam os seguintes títulos:
- Acho bem: Nesse papel os alunos escreviam fatos que viam ou presenciavam que achavam legal, por exemplo, em um dos papéis encontrei “Acho bem que haja responsabilidade de todos os alunos”.
- Acho mal: Nesse papel, ao contrário do anterior, os alunos escreviam fatos que aconteciam e que não gostavam, por exemplo, pude encontrar frases como “Acho mal que haja barulho no espaço”, “Acho mal que o Jorge não ouviste os outros”, “Acho mal que o José Pedro não me ensina”.
- Posso ajudar em: Nesse os alunos escrevem os temas que já estudaram e que possivelmente poderão ajudar os colegas que precisarem.
- Preciso de ajuda em: Nesse os alunos escrevem os temas que precisam de ajuda para estudar, por exemplo, um aluno está com certa dificuldade em usar o teorema de Pitágoras, ele vai até a folha e escreve “Teorema de Pitágoras”. Um aluno que já tenha dominado o assunto, vai até a folha e vê que seu colega está precisando de ajuda, posteriormente, ajuda o colega a entender o tema.
Perguntamos a menina que estava nos guiando o que acontece quando um caso escrito no “Acho mal” não se resolve. Ela nos respondeu que quando algo sai do controle é levado à “Assembleia Geral”. Em seguida nos explicou: “Aqui, cada aluno faz parte de um grupo de responsabilidade. Temos vários grupos de responsabilidade, os que cuidam do jardim, da limpeza, das visitas, das organizações de material, e vários outros. Todas as sextas-feiras esses grupos se reúnem, primeiramente entre si, para discutirem os fatos semanais e, posteriormente, é feita a assembleia geral que reúne todos os grupos de responsabilidade. Nela são discutidos os assuntos mais importantes da semana colocados em pauta pelos próprios alunos.”
Depois de apresentar-nos todos os ambientes da escola, que não demorou muito tempo pois a escola é pequena, esperamos para assistir a assembleia geral dos alunos. Ficamos espantados ao ver a discussão comandada pelos próprios alunos. Todos tinham direito à palavra, bastava levantar a mão que o microfone era levado por um aluno até o miúdo para que ela falasse, parte desta assembleia é mostrada na Figura 3.
Figura 3: Assembleia geral dos alunos
Foi sem dúvida uma experiência incrível poder conferir de perto o que antes ouvia ou lia da Escola da Ponte. Fiquei encantado em ver que tudo o que falam realmente é verdade, a organização, a disciplina, a solidariedade, o trabalho em equipe, afinal, tudo que todos os educadores sempre sonham para uma escola, presente em uma delas. É exatamente por esse motivo que apesar de tão pequena, a Escola da Ponte é tão grande.
Renan Mercuri Pinto
The Little Big “Escola da Ponte”
In the discipline of Reality School taught by teacher Piedade Vaz Rebelo, offered in the Masters in Teaching Mathematics at the University of Coimbra, has the habit of visiting several schools in Portugal. The aim is to bring the masters to the educational system and also present different methodologies of teaching.
One of the visits was the famous "Escola da Ponte", located in Vila das Aves, district of Oporto. This school, founded in 1976 by educator José Pacheco, has a system that avoids the traditional model and is based on three values: freedom, responsibility and solidarity.
Arriving outside the main gate of the school, surrounded by a small wire fence, I could see the painting on a wall which began at the height of the gate and finished the floor in front of the entrance area of the school. Drawings were painted by students with phrases like, "I like being different, makes me special!", "surprise box of rights and duties" and some words like "freedom", "education", among other designs.
Upon entering we were welcomed by a professor of history at school, he explained briefly how the education system and called two students to introduce ourselves to school, a girl in the group of "deepening" and a boy of "consolidation ". Students explain what is the teaching model and introduced us to the work environments of the school. While children talked and explained everything very well as two old people who had been prepared for this, but all students do this role by being inserted in the system.
Basically, the school is organized into three sections: initiation, consolidation and deepening, each occupies a particular learning environment. Students are grouped in three or four, according to common interests to advance their studies. All the students work closely with all educators.
Upon entering the main door of the school, always open to visitors, the students showed us the two frameworks with the rights and duties of pupils, and later the visitors. Among my duties was to photograph and to circulate through students' work environments and for this was that the photos are here. One sentence caught my attention enough in a role that was set atop one of the pictures, saying "Move on, but start slowly, because the direction is more important than speed."
We visit the working environments of the three cores, we entered the rooms and the students continued to work without losing concentration, it is as if we were not there. Figure 2 shows one of the workplaces that go on.
Background you can hear a classical music that is playing softly all the time. On the wall, a bulletin board for each subject with the respective subjects to be followed. In the corner of one of the tables near the door, some papers have called me a lot of attention and had the following titles:
- I think nice: In this paper the students wrote down what they saw or witnessed events that felt nice, for example, in one of the roles found "Well I guess there is the responsibility of all students."
- I think evil: In this paper, unlike the previous one, students write facts that happened and who did not like, for example, could find phrases like "I think there is bad sound in space", "I think that the evil George does not hear the other", " I think that the evil José Pedro did not teach me."
- Can I help you: In that students write things that have already studied and which may possibly help others who need it.
- I need help on: In that students write the topics that need help to study, for example, a student is having some difficulty in using the Pythagorean theorem, it goes to the sheet and write "Pythagorean Theorem". A student who has mastered the subject, go to the sheet and sees that his colleague is in need of help, then help the fellow to understand the subject.
Asked the girl who was guiding us what happens when an event written in the "think evil" is not solved. She told us that when something gets out of control is taken to the "General Assembly". Then we explained: "Here every student is part of a group of responsibility. We have several groups of responsibility, taking care of the garden, cleaning, visits, organizations of material, and several others. Fridays All these groups meet, first among themselves to discuss the facts and weekly thereafter is made to the general assembly that brings together all groups of responsibility. In it are discussed the most important issues placed on the agenda this week by the students. "
After showing us all the places within the school, which did not take long for the school is small, we hope to attend the general assembly of students. We were amazed to see the discussion led by students themselves. Everyone had the right to speak, raise your hand enough that the microphone was taken by a student until the kid to her talk, part of this assembly is shown in Figure 3.
It was certainly an amazing experience to go and check closely what I heard or read before the Escola da Ponte. I was delighted to see that everything you say is really true, organization, discipline, solidarity, teamwork, after all, everything that all educators always dream for a school, in this one. It is precisely for this reason that although so small, Escola da Ponte is so big.
- I think nice: In this paper the students wrote down what they saw or witnessed events that felt nice, for example, in one of the roles found "Well I guess there is the responsibility of all students."
- I think evil: In this paper, unlike the previous one, students write facts that happened and who did not like, for example, could find phrases like "I think there is bad sound in space", "I think that the evil George does not hear the other", " I think that the evil José Pedro did not teach me."
- Can I help you: In that students write things that have already studied and which may possibly help others who need it.
- I need help on: In that students write the topics that need help to study, for example, a student is having some difficulty in using the Pythagorean theorem, it goes to the sheet and write "Pythagorean Theorem". A student who has mastered the subject, go to the sheet and sees that his colleague is in need of help, then help the fellow to understand the subject.
Asked the girl who was guiding us what happens when an event written in the "think evil" is not solved. She told us that when something gets out of control is taken to the "General Assembly". Then we explained: "Here every student is part of a group of responsibility. We have several groups of responsibility, taking care of the garden, cleaning, visits, organizations of material, and several others. Fridays All these groups meet, first among themselves to discuss the facts and weekly thereafter is made to the general assembly that brings together all groups of responsibility. In it are discussed the most important issues placed on the agenda this week by the students. "
After showing us all the places within the school, which did not take long for the school is small, we hope to attend the general assembly of students. We were amazed to see the discussion led by students themselves. Everyone had the right to speak, raise your hand enough that the microphone was taken by a student until the kid to her talk, part of this assembly is shown in Figure 3.
It was certainly an amazing experience to go and check closely what I heard or read before the Escola da Ponte. I was delighted to see that everything you say is really true, organization, discipline, solidarity, teamwork, after all, everything that all educators always dream for a school, in this one. It is precisely for this reason that although so small, Escola da Ponte is so big.
Renan Mercuri Pinto
