EXPERIENCE, BODY AND MEMORY IN SCHOOL – REFLECTIONS ON THE TEACHING OF VISUAL ARTS FOR CHILDREN

Abstract

The separation of body and spirit, body and mind experienced by western culture perpetuates denial of embodiment and expression, following and promoting the separation and estrangement between the observed and observer, between Man and Nature. The body, which has been forgotten by the adults at school, is the object of knowledge and learning for children. Contrary to conventional educational forms, the body needs to take and hold other school spaces, increasing the materialization of our desires and possibilities of becoming the world. Trying to understand the issues of embodiment and the Arts at school realized experiences of teaching with research (2007-2009), with students of elementary school of Pelotas, Brazil, in the discipline of Visual Arts. I looked through the artistic process of drawing with chalk on the floor, enabling experiences of being in space and not being in it, as proposed by Merleau-Ponty (1989). In the artistic productions that have made the body and the manner of acting and body movement in the schoolyard, children have reaffirmed the proposition's author. Children are formed in the psychic space of their culture, in touch with people and with pedagogical proposals circulating in the school environment. Thus, there is the experience, students become belonging to a particular culture produced at the time actually experienced it, according to the relationships established among themselves, peers and teacher. Supporting me in Brandão (2008), Josso (2004) and Maturana (2004) long to reflect on the questions of experience and memory, issues considered relevant to the question of teacher education and teaching practices in visual arts.