Revista Brasileira de Educação do Campo
Brazilian Journal of Rural Education
ARTIGO/ARTICLE/ARTÍCULO
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20873/uft.rbec.e11937
RBEC
Tocantinópolis/Brasil
v. 6
e11937
10.20873/uft.rbec.e11937
2021
ISSN: 2525-4863
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Este conteúdo utiliza a Licença Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Open Access. This content is licensed under a Creative Commons attribution-type BY
The Narrative Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy
of Alternation: contributions to the Professional Project of
the Youth
i
Marcelo Loures dos Santos
1
, Eduarda Santos de Oliveira Carvalho
2
1
Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto - UFOP. Departamento de Educação. Campus Universitário Morro do Cruzeiro, Bairro
Bauxita. Ouro Preto - MG. Brasil.
2
Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto - UFOP.
Author for correspondence: marceloloures@ufop.edu.br
ABSTRACT. The present work aims to assess the contributions
of an Agricultural Family School - EFA in Minas Gerais to the
formation of its students. To do so, semi-structured narrative
interviews were carried out with five students on their life and
student trajectory, besides evaluation interviews on the
development of the Youth Professional Project at the EFA with
the participant students and a teacher from the institution. The
paper has as theoretical-methodological framework the
Methodology of Narrative Productions. The results suggest
approximation between the proposal of the Methodology of
Narrative Productions and references from the pedagogy of
alternation used by the EFAs; the importance of Agricultural
Family Schools for a contextualized education to the rural
people and the difficulties faced by the alumni to the
implementation of the Youth Professional Projects.
Keywords: rural education, pedagogy of alternation, narrative.
Santos, M. L., & Carvalho, E. S. O. (2021). The Narrative Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation: contributions to the Professional Project of the
Youth...
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ISSN: 2525-4863
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A Metodologia das Produções Narrativas na Pedagogia da
Alternância: contribuições para o Projeto Profissional do
Jovem
RESUMO. O presente trabalho busca avaliar as contribuições
de uma Escola Família Agrícola de Minas Gerais para a
formação técnica de seus estudantes. Para tanto, foram
realizadas entrevistas narrativas semiestruturadas com 05
(cinco) estudantes sobre sua trajetória de vida e estudantil, além
de entrevistas de avaliação com os estudantes participantes e
uma professora da instituição sobre o desenvolvimento do
Projeto Profissional do Jovem na EFA. O artigo tem como
marco teórico-metodológico a Metodologia das Produções
Narrativas. Os resultados sugerem aproximação entre a proposta
da Metodologia das Produções Narrativas com os referenciais da
pedagogia da alternância utilizados pelas EFAs; a importância
das Escolas Famílias Agrícola para uma educação
contextualizada para os povos do campo e as dificuldades
enfrentadas pelos egressos para a implementação dos Projetos
Profissionais do Jovem.
Palavras-chave: educação do campo, pedagogia da alternância,
narrativas.
Santos, M. L., & Carvalho, E. S. O. (2021). The Narrative Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation: contributions to the Professional Project of the
Youth...
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La Metodología de las Producciones Narrativas en la
Pedagogía de la Alternancia: aportes al Proyecto
Profesional de la Juventud
RESUMEN. El artículo busca evaluar los aportes de una
Escuela Familiar Agrícola de Minas Gerais a la formación
técnica de sus estudiantes. Se realizaron entrevistas narrativas
semiestructuradas con 05 estudiantes sobre su vida y trayectoria
estudiantil, además de entrevistas de evaluación con los
estudiantes participantes y una profesora de la institución sobre
el desarrollo del Proyecto Profesional Juvenil en EFA. El
artículo tiene como marco teórico y metodológico la
Metodología de las Producciones Narrativas. Los resultados
sugieren una aproximación entre la propuesta de la Metodología
de Producciones Narrativas con los referentes de la pedagogía
de alternancia utilizada por las EFA; la importancia de las
Escuelas Familiares Agrícolas para una educación
contextualizada de la gente del campo y las dificultades que
enfrentan los egresados para la implementación de los Proyectos
Profesionales de la Juventud.
Palabras clave: educación rural, pedagogía de la alternancia,
narrativas.
Santos, M. L., & Carvalho, E. S. O. (2021). The Narrative Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation: contributions to the Professional Project of the
Youth...
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ISSN: 2525-4863
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Countryside Education and its
Specifications
In the past 20 years, Countryside
Education in Brazil has made significant
progress when it comes to building and
implementing educational policies aiming
to attempt the needs of people from the
countryside and their formative demands in
search of a qualified and contextualized
education. The movement for Countryside
Education has as a principle the respect for
countryside people’s reality, therefore, the
understanding and respect for the different
time dynamic and more flexible spaces
considering the susceptibility to bad
weather and the seasonality of their
productions, cultural organization, in short,
to the peasant lifestyle. (Esmeraldo et al.,
2017).
ii
However, data about Rural
Education in Brazil show a notorious
situation of inequality, presenting a group-
age distortion rate 30% higher than the
urban situation (UNICEF, 2017). Although
the progress in educational policies could
be leading to an overcoming of the
situation, the current political scenario
does not seem to be propitious for a
continuous progress of the Rural
Education’s conditions, once that social
and union members’ movements from the
Countryside whom were responsible for
gathering political strengths in the 90’s and
at the beginning of the XXI century are
now ostracized because of the recent
reorganization of the political scenario
toward a far right (Santos, 2018).
Considering the de-population,
especially of young people, in the
countryside, one of the biggest challenges
the schools face is to offer the possibility
of visualizing the future and the aim to
construct a life project for those who aspire
to continue living in the countryside
(Freitas & Santos, 2015). The Escolas
Famílias Agrícolas (EFA)
iii
, are now
considered one of the most promising
alternative to face and confront the de-
population affecting the youth in the
countryside (Freitas & Freitas, 2012),
providing the young people from the
countryside with a contextualized,
humanistic and technical education,
focused on the agricultural activities. The
EFAs work with the Pedagogy of
Alternation, which is organized in order to
articulate between in-school activities and
activities that take place in the community.
The studies and researches made by the
students in those activities are focused on
increasing knowledge about their social
reality and integrating this knowledge to
the curricular content (Gimonet, 2007). At
the end of the graduation process, students
are supposed to elaborate what is called
“Projeto Profissional do Jovem
iv
”, a
Santos, M. L., & Carvalho, E. S. O. (2021). The Narrative Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation: contributions to the Professional Project of the
Youth...
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technical course conclusion project based
on agriculture and integrated into the
secondary program in order to bring
together all the technical learnings
acquired during the graduation process.
When the project is implemented, it is also
used as a professional base and serve as an
income generator to the recently graduated
student, from which the student will be
able to achieve their autonomy and
develop professional activities able to
potencialize the familiar and their
community’s economy.
This scientific article intends on
presenting the results of a research which
objective was to evaluate, by using the
Narrative Production Methodology
(Balasch & Montenegro, 2003), how did
an EFA from Minas Gerais State in Brazil,
contributed to a humanistic and technical
formation of the participants. This research
was guided by the hypothesis that raising
awareness and increasing knowledge about
the social context and historical
background in which students are included
could help the Projeto Profissional do
Jovem be more suitable to their reality and,
therefore, more efficient¹.
In order to present the results
achieved by this research, the present
article is organized in 3 sessions. In the
first one, the pedagogical proposal of the
research will be described and the
instruments used in the Pedagogy of
Alternation will be presented, also as their
articulation with the Narrative Production
Methodology and the explanation about
how the actual field application worked; in
the second session, it will be discussed
about the presented information by
showing data and raised reflexions; finally,
the final considerations will be disclosed.
The relation between the Escolas
Famílias Agrícolas and the Narrative
Production Methodology
Although Pedagogy of Alternation
has received little attention of the Brazilian
academical field until the beginning of the
XXI century (Teixeira et al., 2008), it has
been developed since 1935, from
educational experiences originating and
developed by small agricultural workers
from France and one priest from that
region who has dedicated himself to
educate young people from the countryside
without sending them away from the rural
area (Nosela, 2012). Many changes have
occurred since then, but the Pedagogy of
Alternation still has as fundamental
objective a humanistic formation, the
development of specific technical skills for
young people from the countryside and the
social and economical development of the
area in which the schools are inserted. In
Brazil, the Escolas Famílias Agrícolas
(EFA), as some of the schools oriented by
Santos, M. L., & Carvalho, E. S. O. (2021). The Narrative Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation: contributions to the Professional Project of the
Youth...
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this model
v
of education are called¹,
emerge in the year of 1969 with these
purpose, highlighting the knowledge from
the agricultural workers and the concrete
experiences from the alternation students.
The EFAs are usually organized by the
rural labor unions of each area, aiming to
support local development (Nosella, 2012).
The EFAs expect the engagement of
the student (in alternation) throughout the
entire formative process, anchored on their
life experiences, historical background and
socio-cultural context. The activities are
developed during School Time - intensive
periods of presencial classes - and during
Community Time - intensive periods of
presencial formation in the countryside
communities through oriented pedagogical
practices. Several pedagogical tools
(Gimonet, 2007), or as Begnami (2019),
prefers, didactic mediators are used to
articulate School Time and Community
Time; among them are: (a) Study Plan; (b)
Mutual Placement; and (c) Reality
Notebook.
The Study Plan (SP) organizes the
activities to be carried out in the students
communities and during school meetings.
The SP are usually planned considering
meaningful topics and themes for the
EFA’s community and their students, and
it guides learners' readings about their own
experiences during Community Time
relating those experiences to the academic
content studied. The SP organizes
students’ contents and thoughtful
experiences by presenting different
research and documentation tools about the
specific theme for each elaborated plan
(Gimonet, 2007; Begnami, 2019).
The studies carried out by the
students during Community Time are
organized in texts, figures and graphs in
their Reality Notebooks and are discussed
during an activity called Mutual
Placement. This activity implies the
discussion and questioning of the theme of
study during the reality research after an
oral presentation of the results and data’s
documented by the students during their
Community Time (Begnami, 2019).
During those discussions about personal
experiences and others experiences,
students get an overview of the study
theme put in place by the Study Plan
(Gimonet, 2007).
On the Reality Notebook, students
organize the exchanged information,
insights and thoughts that have emerged
during the studies and debates. The
original proposal assumes each learner
should elaborate “a progressive, detailed
and precise study about the familiar
professional area in which they were
acting” (Gimonet, 2007, p.32).
Santos, M. L., & Carvalho, E. S. O. (2021). The Narrative Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation: contributions to the Professional Project of the
Youth...
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From the knowledge gained and
produced during the application of the
previously described pedagogical tools and
its dialogue with the community, the
student will give their first step forward the
elaboration of their life project through the
Projeto Profissional do Jovem (PPJ). The
PPJ is
... the result of a detailed analysis of
the familiar-background situation, the
agricultural production infrastructure,
production planning, environmental
and climatic conditions, public
policies, market reality and
customers' market, the artistic and
cultural aspects, among other topics
around students’ reality, in their
familiar sphere, their city and area,
which, allied with the knowledge
provided by CEFFA’s
methodological proposal, the
learners’ capacity, their motivation
and planning will constitute their
proposals for professional insertion
(Franca-Begnami, 2013, p. 235).
vi
The PPJ offers the student the
opportunity to plan a professional activity
guided by the professionals from the EFA
through a robust study about its context.
As a result, the EFAs seek to accomplish
both of the Pedagogy of Alternations’
core-activities, the full development of the
student, in the humanistic and technical
spheres, and the development of the
students’ surroundings throughout
technical actions and policies made by
former students in the communities.
However, according to a research
made by Franca-Begnami (2013) with
EFA’s Bontempo former students about
the Projeto Profissional do Jovem (PPJ),
only 14% of the pupils have put their
projects into practice and 34% tried to put
it in practice but gave up because it did not
work out. When it comes to the level of
interest, 38% say they were interested in
implementing the projects. According to
the research made by Couto (2016), 24 of
58 former students from the Agriculture
Technical Course from CFR, Açailândia,
were not able to get public investment
when trying to access the PRONAF -
Jovem (a Brazilian program dedicated to
finance small farmers and agricultural
families in order to invest in their
production); 14 former students had no
interest in implementing the project and 11
did not owe a rural property to implement
it. Nevertheless, 25 of 58 former students
kept on working in their familiar land and
8 have evaded from the rural area to the
urban area. The author of the research
understands that, even though there’s a low
percentage of former students evading the
rural area, the lack of investment and
access to land are the main reasons for the
non-implementation of the PPJ.
According to Galindo (2014), the
lack of effective public policies directed to
youngsters living in the countryside and
Santos, M. L., & Carvalho, E. S. O. (2021). The Narrative Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation: contributions to the Professional Project of the
Youth...
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the difficult access to the ones already
existent present to be the most important
factor for the rural depopulation. The credit
viability and access to land for investment
are seen as priorities when it comes to
building autonomy, emancipation and
dignity for these young people, as a way of
ensuring their continuance in the
countryside instead of demanding their
departure in order to live well. “It is
necessary to think about public policies
that promote autonomy instead of
authority; that promote protagonism
instead of dependency; that consider
youngsters as strategic individuals for the
sustainable and solidary development in
the countryside” (Galindo, 2014, p. 127).
According to this author, it is urgent to
think about policies in accordance with this
youth and not only for her, but with their
effective participation.
In some Escolas Famílias Agrícolas
in which the PPJs’ implementations are
historically more consolidated, as the case
described by Oliveira and Benevenuto
(2019) at a EFA in Jaguaré/ES, the
implementation of the PPJ by the former
students reaches 51% when it comes to the
students applying their projects in their
familiar practices. The other 49% were not
able to develop their projects by a variety
of reasons, such as “natural causes,
financial resources, family modifications”
(Oliveira & Benevenuto, 2019, p. 21).
Given this scenario, it was evaluated,
through narrative interviews, how the EFA
researched has contributed to the human
and technical formation of the participants.
By using the Narrative Productions
Methodology, interviews were made with
students from the last year of the
Secondary School and Technical Course
focused on Agriculture from the EFA
starting on the second semester of 2019.
The EFA’s Study Plan during that period
was connected to the development of the
Projeto Profissional do Jovem, and that
was the focus of the studies. With that in
mind, the objective of using the NPM
would be to evaluate if the methodology
could contribute not only for students’
experiences’ expansion as a countryside
person, but also evaluating how this
experience and identity could attribute
meaning and influence the development of
the PPJ.
The Narrative Productions
Methodology starts from a set of semi
structured interviews, in which the
interviewee presents their experiences and
perceptions about a specific topic. In this
specific research, the interviews were
based on the theme defined by the
institution for the Study Plan in use during
that period of time, about the development
Santos, M. L., & Carvalho, E. S. O. (2021). The Narrative Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation: contributions to the Professional Project of the
Youth...
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Tocantinópolis/Brasil
v. 6
e11937
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2021
ISSN: 2525-4863
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of the PPJ. For that matter, the first
narrative interview approached the familiar
and scholarly background of the student
until the current moment, with the
development of the PPJ. During the
interviews, researcher and interviewee
dialogue about different aspects of the
studied phenomenon, taking under
consideration that the participant, during
this interaction, describes, revisits and
rebuilds their understanding about those
experiences. After the first interview, the
interviewer elaborates a written narrative
about the discussed topics during the
interview and presents it to the student.
During the reading of this first narrative,
researcher and participant discuss those
information’s and they are able to include
new topics to detail the reported facts,
explain aspects shortly explored and/or
expand the current narrative in order to
embrace other topics that could facilitate
the comprehension of the theme in the
context of study. These interviews are
repeated once or twice, and for each
interview the narrative will be completed
with the new elements addressed. At the
end, interviewer and interviewee will have
an elaborated and validated text made in
partnership, able to expand the
comprehension and understanding about
the peasant lifestyle for the interviewees
and contributes to the knowledge
production about the community (Balasch
& Montenegro, 2003) and, therefore, can
subsidize the development of the Projeto
Profissional do Jovem.
Research in motion - on the countryside
Students were selected according to
their interests after a proposal’s
presentation and a conversation with
students from the last year of the EFA’s
Secondary School, also known as Ensino
Médio in Brazil. The researchers were
responsible for preparing the first
interview’s script, considering students’
experiences with the theme of study
according to the Study Plan as the main
topic of the interview.
The first narrative interviews took
place during school time at the EFA in
August, 2019. In these first interviews, 5
students participated and spoke about their
life and school background and trajectory;
they also approached the theme of study
plannings and the writing process of the
PPJ until that moment.
From that, all the interviews were
transcripted and the research team gathered
periodically to analyse those narratives,
notes and hypotheses about the collected
information. Considering the surveys, new
interviews’ scripts were written, this time
they were personalized in order to fit each
Santos, M. L., & Carvalho, E. S. O. (2021). The Narrative Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation: contributions to the Professional Project of the
Youth...
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Tocantinópolis/Brasil
v. 6
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2021
ISSN: 2525-4863
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student’s information, based on the
findings from the first interview.
In October 2019, the second round of
interviews with the students took place,
they started by recapturing what was
discussed in the first interview and after
that, discussing with more details about the
planning process and development of the
PPJ, since students were now in another
moment of the project. After this second
round of interviews, one more time the
researchers made the transcription of them
and got together to analyze data and
information gathered. The narratives are,
finally, brought together in a text and they
become the final narrative from each
student.
Through the first semester of 2020,
participants - former students now - were
interviewed one more time by the
researcher. These semistructured
vii
interviews were elaborated to assess the
process. In those interviews, a few topics
were assessed: 1) the difficulties found
during the process; (2) the importance of
the surveys for the development of the PPJ;
(3) the NPM’s contributions in the
gathering of these informations. In the
first semester of 2020, a monitor from the
EFA was also invited to participate in a
semi structured interview, when school
activities were already finalized. The
procedures used in this research are
characterized as a participant observation.
As the name itself suggests, the participant
observation assumes the researcher as a
participant and, therefore, capable and able
to interfere in the studied context (Flick,
2009). In this author’s view, the participant
observation increasingly applies to other
methodologies, especially ethnography.
Research in motion - discussions and
results obtained from the process
During the interviews, one of the
criteria was to approach the life trajectory
and history of the students, rescuing
memories connected to the peasant context
related to their familiar background and
childhood.
There was also an effort on rescuing their
experiences related to their school
trajectory, from their first time at a school
until the moment they entered the EFA, in
order to discuss the contributions and
changes facilitated by the EFA in their
lives. It also addressed the theme, planning
and writing process of the Projeto
Profissional do Jovem of each student and,
finally, an evaluation or assessment of the
research process and the contributions of
the Narrative Productions Methodology to
their identity, formative and technical
process.
When analysing the final narratives,
built together by interviewer and
Santos, M. L., & Carvalho, E. S. O. (2021). The Narrative Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation: contributions to the Professional Project of the
Youth...
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interviewee, it was possible to identify
some common categories, so that some
themes are interconnected in the
interviewees' narratives becoming,
somehow, more evident. These
characteristics will be presented below,
they were divided in three sessions, 1)
Memory in motion - interpersonal
formation in school life; 2) The PPJ in the
interviewees’ narrative; 3) Former students
and teachers assessment. Results and data
will be presented below.
Memory in motion - interpersonal
formation in school life
In the interviews, 4 out of 5 students
claim they had difficulties with the
communicative skill before entering the
EFA, they affirm to have struggled before
with shyness and the feeling of being
embarrassed to speak. These difficulties
are constantly connected with memories of
distress, in some cases, related to
complicated experiences in urban schools,
before their entrance in the EFA.
Iolanda
viii
, one of the interviewed
students, studied in another EFA during
elementary school, before entering the
researched EFA. She reveals that, ever
since the other EFA in which she studied,
she already experienced a learning process
based on the deconstruction of stigmas
related to the countryside. When she
graduated from the elementary school, she
moved to the researched EFA in order to
complete her basic studies in a school
nearby her house and also because she
knew other former students from the EFA.
She met the researched EFA because of the
school’s principal, who was always trying
to work from the base with the community
around the school, promoting the school’s
proposal, talking about the selection
process for new students and also trying to
communicate to the families about the
school’s proposal, which differs from other
educational institutions.
Before entering the school in which
she has studied during elementary school,
Iolanda states to have studied for a
semester in an urban school, located in the
town to which her sub district belongs to “I
went to study in the town, in a State
School. It was completely different, I
thought I would not be able to follow their
rhythm, that I was not learning anything,
actually. Beyond that, I was not talking to
anyone, I was always by myself, quiet.”
(Iolanda, 2019). It is possible to observe a
distressed and a seclusion situation lived
by the student from the countryside when
in an urban school, announced by the
feeling of not-belonging, being displaced.
If it wasn’t for the EFA I don’t know
what I would be now, I think I would
be extremely shy... I was so shy, so
shy... that when I started studying in
Santos, M. L., & Carvalho, E. S. O. (2021). The Narrative Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation: contributions to the Professional Project of the
Youth...
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that state school, I arrived there and
started to cry… the first day I went
there, I wanted to go home. I didn’t
know anybody and I had no one to
talk to for a long time. (Iolanda,
2019)
From the feeling of being displaced,
Iolanda reports to have intense problems
related to the feelings of being
embarrassed and shy and she also said that,
in the researched EFA, this characteristic
was addressed:
One day I stopped to think about the
process of putting away this shyness
and I started with presenting my
name, because even in [the first EFA
she studied] and also here
[researched EFA] I had to talk to
someone, I had to tell people my
name, had to tell them where I was
from. Then I had to present
everybody from the classroom, and
then I would not be speaking by
myself anymore, I would have other
people to talk to me. That was how I
started to feel less shy, because
whether I wanted it or not, I would
have to start speaking if I wanted to
get good grades, I would have to say
something. (Iolanda, 2019).
This sentence by Iolanda reveals the
importance of the pedagogical strategies
presented by the EFA, strategies that try to
encourage students’ collective participation
and insertion based on their autonomy
development. Besides the deconstruction
of her shyness reported by the student, she
also shows her discoveries regarding her
own identity as a black young woman and
her understanding of herself in the world
and regarding the world, in a context
where other black students encouraged one
another, building a space full of diversity
and possibilities.
... Before [studying in the EFA] I
used to straighten my hair, I didn't
even know what African-ancestry
meant. The [researched] EFA helped
me a lot, with things that I had no
idea of. Like, braids, I never
imagined myself wearing braids. It
was through Carolina, one day Ana
and I said: “let’s make some braids?
Let’s!”. Ana was the first one, she
didn’t like it a lot on the first day…
But then, after some time, she liked
it, and then it was my turn. I was
thinking “should I do it?”, then just
went there and did it. I liked it and
I’m wearing them until nowadays.
All because of Carolina. She thought
that on the day I put it I would
immediately take them off (laughs),
she thought I wouldn’t like it. I told
her I thought the same. I thought I
would like to take them off at the
same time, and now I don’t ever want
to take them off. (Iolanda, 2019).
The deconstruction of shyness and
empowerment of the black identity also
appear on Margarida’s reports who comes
from a Quilombola community in a
different village in Minas Gerais: “the EFA
helped me strengthen my identity. I was
one of those people who had a lot of
stigmas and prejudice around being
quilombola, but the EFA gave us a task of
finding and discovering our own
backgrounds. I realized that there’s nothing
shameful about being a quilombola, it's the
opposite of that.” (Margarida, 2019). That
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also confirms the educational proposal
defended by the EFA, encouraging
students to learn deeper about their own
origin, history and ancestry through
different dynamics in which those themes
are frequently inserted.
... Basically everything about me has
changed ever since I joined the
[researched] EFA, that’s because
here we don’t only learn about
academic subjects, but we also learn
about how to be citizens. I did not
know any of the social movements,
today I know them, I participate, I
know their causes and all. When I
first arrived here I found it weird to
hang out with so many different
people. Today I don’t find it weird, I
hang out, I talk and I interact much
more with visitors. I used to be very
shy, but now I’m not that shy
anymore, I’m still a little, but not as I
was before. (Margarida, 2019)
Communication problems also
appear in Larissa's narrative, a student
from the same community as Margarida.
However, since Larissa is white, she
presents a different point of view when it
comes to her understanding of herself and
the strengthening of her peasant identity.
Larissa comes from a small family located
in a more distant community, far from the
other houses. The interviewee didn’t share
her childhood with other children of the
same age, and therefore she lived more
individual experiences during her
childhood and she only started having
more contact with other kids her own age
when she turned 6 years old and joined a
rural school located 10 km from her place.
In that school, she reports having a less
engaging and non-contextualized
education, in which the pedagogical
proposals followed the same model as the
urban schools, even though it was not
located in an urban area.
It is important to point out the
difference between the rural school and the
countryside school, for the purpose of
better explaining the roots of many
discomforts experienced by the students
before their entrance in the researched
EFA, considering that even though they
were studying in rural schools close to
their homes, they have experienced a
formative process that was different from
what the EFA seeks to offer as a
countryside school.
The urban-centered education
transported to rural schools has
contributed and still contributes to a
discouragement of the young
peasant's process when it comes to
education and sustainability. The lack
of a school focused on the
countryside reality impacts in the
countryside sustainability because it
undermines the familiar agriculture
reproduction. (Franca-Begnami,
2013, p. 232).
The idea of a rural school is
constantly followed by diminishing
stigmas, in which the individuals living in
those locations are usually associated with
lateness, to something outdated, that will
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soon disappear, or stop-existing. “For a
long period of time the rural education
lacked specific policies focused on the
countryside people’s context, at the same
time, the curriculum and the pedagogical
practices were subordinated to the
urbanistic way of teaching.” (Machado,
2017, p. 18323). It is possible to notice an
education model that does not set as
priority a formative process based on
students' protagonism so they can become
active individuals in their own reality and
story.
The activities offered by the EFA
reinforce the need of recognizing the fight
of these people and their experiences in the
countryside as a space for critical, political
and social formation, in order to claim the
acknowledgment and the appreciation of
their cultural practices. With that in mind,
the EFA seeks to deconstruct the relation
between their experiences and existence
with the lack of appreciation for their
lifestyle, recognizing the diversity in the
subjects’ formation process.
Differently from rural education, the
countryside education is proposed by
a diverse range of social movements
connected to the countryside, and
because of that, whenever we talk
about countryside education it is
inevitable not to think about social
fights, workers as the protagonists
and subjects of pedagogical actions.
Thereby, countryside is not only the
opposite of urban, but is a place of
countless possibilities. (Machado,
2017, p. 18326).
From that, it is possible to
understand the impact of a contextualized
education in the life of the students,
through which it is possible for them to
recognize themselves as part of their
formation processes, as the proposal of the
countryside schools and the work that the
Escolas Famílias Agrícolas seek to
develop.
The EFAs propose to put in practice
a pertinent and meaningful education
considering students reality;
therefore, they use and develop,
through the Pedagogy of Alternation,
specific pedagogical instruments,
articulated in a Formation Plan, in
order to relate the school with the
families and the community, the
study with work, experience with
science, in a perspective of learning
in order to transform. (Franca-
Begnami, 2013, p. 232-233).
Regarding the kind of education that
Larissa reported living in the rural schools
before her entrance in the EFA, schools
located in the neighbor district from the
one where she lives, she points out about
how unmotivated she felt regarding the
pedagogical proposals inserted in that
context, speaking about the belonging
feeling when she started at the EFA:
The experience from other schools to
this one is really different, and
regarding the methodology, here
[researched EFA] is way better than
there [other schools], because there
we have a conventional education,
they teach nothing beyond… Here
during our classes they show us our
own reality, and things we didn’t
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know about ourselves. We learn
about our community. I am not
saying that the textbooks are not
efficient, but most of the time the
books are not focused on our own
reality. (Larissa, 2019).
The student also reports having
problems with communication ever since
she was very young, when she talks about
the development of her performance in
public, encouraged by the dynamics
proposed by the EFA.
I changed after I started studying at
the EFA. I used to be very shy and
here the door opened by the school is
wonderful. Here they teach us about
how to live with different people.
And I don’t feel shy anymore when I
have to present a project, I am free.
Sometimes, I feel shy, nervous, but
not as I felt before. Speaking in
public used to be awful, I only did it
at the church. In the beginning it was
hard, but afterwards I got used to it.
Now whenever people call me to
present something, I’m ready
(laughs). (Larissa, 2019).
It is notable the importance of the
EFA in these students’ lives, which is
confirmed once again by the effect of the
proposed practiced based on the critic
reflexion of the Self, the deconstruction of
stigmas and the collective processes
experienced.
... The school helps me to recognize
my identity. Like, the study plans are
focused in the community, which is
our property. The first study plan I
had here at the school was about my
ancestry, family, my family’s origin,
where we came from. It was a rescue
of culture, traditions, and a lot of
things. (Larissa, 2019).
Although the shyness was the
challenge to be overcome by these three
interviewees, the pedagogical proposal was
also capable of contributing to the
overcome of other difficulties, such as
irritation, impatience, strugglings to having
a good partnership with peers, in groups, as
it was reported by Pedro. For him the
insertion strategies proposed by the EFA,
in which the interpersonal skills and
interactions are developed, showed to be
very efficient in his development,
impacting directly in the quality of his
learning process. The enhancement of the
communicative ability supports the
students formation as citizens, with the
understanding that interpersonal relations
are a fundamental part of the full
development of a student, which is one of
the pedagogy of alternation pillars.
The only student who did not report
having any problems related to shyness
was Lúcio, who is part of a family that has
a peasant’s identity well consolidated for a
long time, since his grandparents, and this
was the only family with this characteristic
among all the interviewees. The families of
the other interviewees develop gainful
occupations in other functions, working
with agriculture only for their own
consumption and on a small scale. These
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families do not have a good structure for
the development of the agricultural
activities, they live in properties without an
adequate space for this end.
Lúcio’s parents are farmers who
develop planting activities in their property
that, beyond of being used for their own
consummation, as all the other families of
the other interviewees, also commercialize
their organic and agroecological products.
In this narrative about a familiar trajectory
in which their experiences are centered in
agroecological practices with the soil and
the planting, it is possible to understand
that Lúcio is part of a family in which the
interpersonal formation, understanding of
the Self and of their identity is being
developed collectively. His mother has
already being part of social movements
such as the union of the farmers and
nowadays she develops their activities in
the property with the technical support of
the Rede de Intercâmbio de Tecnologias
Alternativas (Rede), Alternative
Technology Exchange Network (ATEN) in
english, which works in order of the
promotion and qualification of the
agroecological productions experiences
and the popular organization. Through the
follow-ups to families and groups and
through the implementation of training, the
ATEN strengthen experiences and also the
political actions of the base organizations
and leaderships.
In the face of their familiar
experiences, it is possible to see a
connection between the learnings Lúcio
has in his home with the learnings
provided by the EFA, which is
interconnected to the EFA’s proposals, that
has as a pedagogical principle the students’
involvement through their whole learning
process, based on their life experiences,
historical trajectory and sociocultural
context.
The pedagogy of alternation tools are
extremely important for the development
of the activities that are put in practice in
their family’s properties, in which
technical knowledges learned at the EFA
are applied, during the community time;
and deepening theoretically in the activities
developed at home through the
pedagogical tools during school time.
The final narratives of all the
students have revealed the fundamental
role of the researched EFA for their lives
in the countryside and the importance of
the knowledge about agroecology
appreciation, which contributes for the
strengthening of the peasants’ identity
considering the proposals by pedagogy of
alternation in which the goal is to develop
the person and the environment.
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In this EFA, the studies about family,
ancestry and community, the seek for their
origins, are guided in order to promote
contextualization about themselves and
they impact positively in the consolidation
of the students’ identities; the development
of their communicative skills through the
realization of collective activities; the
insertion in social movements and
understanding of themselves in relation to
the world, which shows some of the
purposes present in the strategic tools
proposed by the EFA.
The PPJ in the interviewees’ narrative
The Projeto Profissional do Jovem is
an end of course curricular activity that
seeks to articulate the technical knowledge
learned through the course with the
sociocultural and familiar contexts and also
their perspectives for a life project during
their formation process. The objective is
the elaboration of a detailed academic
paper or project that seeks to project and
provide a strategy of future and income
generation for the former students. This
pedagogical activity is characterized as a
strategy of socio professional insertion of
the youngsters in their countryside
(Franca-Begnami, 2013).
The PPJ integrates into the training
plan of the EFAs as one of the pedagogical
activities developed during the three years
formation of the secondary school. The
students should be, since the beginning,
oriented to dig deeper and plan their
projects themes. The students have
freedom to choose the theme they want to
work with, however, it is necessary that
this choice is made according to the
familiar conditions, the properties’
structure, after a study about their potential
market and the offered possibilities by the
public policies and its vialibities (Franca-
Begnami, 2013).
The interviews had the objective of
reflecting about the specific themes chosen
by the students, about the contribution of
the PPJ to their technical learning and to
their effective socio professional insertion.
When it comes to the PPJs planning
process, in the researched EFA the
guidance and orientation were carried by a
specific monitor, usually once a week. This
orientation also happened online, remotely,
when necessary, because this monitor
divided his working routine between the
EFA and another paid activity.
The students Margarida and Larissa
planned their PPJ together as a pair. Their
projects were about free-range chicken
farming, planned to be implemented in the
property of Larissa’s family, however,
during the interview process, the students
revealed that the implementation would not
be accomplished right after their
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graduation at the EFA. Their main goal
was to enter university, which has raised
some questions by the families about the
implementation and maintenance of the
project. Since the students desired to enter
university - which actually happens to
occur since both of them started a
Countryside Education Course degree -
this maintenance would be compromised
because of their absence, which could
overload the families. According to the
students, even through alternation, during
school time the maintenance would be in
charge of their families. Both of them have
confirmed that, after the conclusion of their
courses and having the possibility of
investment, the implementation could be
accomplished. Therefore, although the
desire of continuing studying is legit and it
has a meaningful contribution to their
developments and professional insertion, it
is possible to see that the realization of the
PPJ did not take under consideration an
analysis of the familiar production context,
which could not only enable its
implementation but bring contributions for
the increase of its production, the
enhancement of the students’ learning and
the deeper understanding of the production
style adopted by their families. On the
other hand, it shows that the learning
offered by the EFA has contributed to the
main goal of the students.
Pedro’s PPJ was about the
production of garlic and its
commercialization, also planned together
with a peer who did not participate in this
research. The implementation would take
place in a ranch in which both of them
were interns during their formation at the
EFA, since none of them had a good
structure in their property for the
implementation, considering that both
Pedro and his partner live in houses in the
urban area. Pedro reported that their plans
were interrupted by the pandemic, but also
by the distancing of his project partner and
lack of investments. Towards this scenario,
there was the need of looking for
employment in a city located close to his
town.
Iolanda planned her PPJ with two
other students, developing the theme of the
project about a paid fishpond in the
property of one of the students from the
group. This theme was not related to the
Iolanda’s real conditions, familiar structure
or life experiences. For a long time, the
student worked with her uncle in the
planting and maintenance of a garden from
which they commercialized their products
in the region. Iolanda revealed her uncle
had to stop his planting activities in order
to develop other paid activities to assure
the family income, emphasizing the needed
pluriactivity
ix
of the peasant and family in
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order to survive in the countryside facing
the lack of access and resources to invest
in agricultural activities. Iolanda was also
not able to implement her PPJ.
Another participant, Lúcio, planned
to develop a mandala garden using only
medicinal herbs in his family’s property.
This planning was integrated with a
familiar project focused on the
establishment of a partnership with the
Alternative Technology Exchange
Network (ATEN, also known as REDE in
portuguese), in which they would provide
the herbs to a manipulation pharmacy in
Belo Horizonte for the production of
homeopathic medicine. The structure of his
PPJ would be used as a guide for the
development of this partnership. Lúcio did
not implement his project because, also
due to COVID-19’s pandemic, his family
did not receive the seedlings in order to
start planting. Because of that, the
partnership with the ATEN had to be,
temporarily, interrupted. In one of the
interviews, Lúcio has affirmed that his
project would be initialized as soon as the
activities were normalized.
The PPJ’s evaluational interviews
with the former students revealed that none
of them were implemented. The fact that
these young students graduated right
before the beginning of the social isolation
due to the pandemic of COVID-19 has
influenced these results. However, the
narratives show that, for some students
with access to land, the PPJ was not
thought in order to integrate and contribute
to the production developed by their family
or their life conditions, revealing itself as a
difficult to be effected proposal because of
the need for extra workers or resources in
order to be implemented.
Other PPJs show what literature
(Breitenbach & Troian, 2020) already
points out about the youngsters from the
countryside’s difficulties, relating to the
lack of access to land and resources to the
development of their activities. In
Iolanda’s narrative, it is possible to notice
that the access to resources issue and the
tough survival possibilities in the
countryside directly affect its population.
The situation is different for Lúcio, whose
family has access to the structures needed
and whose familiar production was
articulated with the PPJ since the
beginning. His narrative makes it clear that
the pandemic was a temporary obstacle.
As for the difficulties faced by the
students to implement their projects, the
narratives suggest that the familiar
articulation affects their development. The
comprehension of the proposals’ objective
and the collective evaluation, together with
the family, is fundamental to its
implementation. As for the challenges in
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order to face these difficulties, according to
Freitas e Santos (2015), the need is
to somatize efforts, policies and
specific programs collectively with
the young peasants in order to
guarantee to them the rights of being
professionally inserted in the
countryside and from the land getting
the needed conditions for their
survival. The strategy might be to bet
on these youngsters’ training and in
the dialogue with their families every
time possible and necessary, in order
to prepare them to access the public
policies. (Freitas & Santos, 2015, p.
182).
Despite the non-implementation of
the projects, all students recognize that the
PPJ is an activity that can generate income
and they affirm that through the PPJ it is
possible to learn how to structure a good
project with all the needed requirements
for its implementation.
Former students and teachers
evaluation
During the evaluation interviews
with former students and a teacher it was a
focus to reflect about the process of
elaborating the PPJ, its dimension as a
pedagogical tool and about the contribution
of the Narrative Productions Methodology
through this process.
Regarding the importance of the
EFA in the full education of the students,
in which it is seeked to train students in the
technical/professional,
intellectual/academic and also
cultural/social skills, for the full
development of the students as subjects
and citizens (Gimonet, 2007), the students’
narratives revealed about the EFAs power
to help develop their identities as
countryside citizens and help them develop
socially in order to participate in public
gatherings, meetings and spaces. This
characteristic appears in Margarida’s
report about the EFA’s contributions
during a post-graduation moment:
Now as a former student I realize that
the EFA brought me many
contributions. For instance, as an
agricultural technician I believe that
it brought me a contribution in
knowledge I get to share with my
family. I can make my ideas be heard
by them, together with their ideas and
then, mix them in order to make
something better. But what the EFA
helped me the most was in my
formation as a citizen. In learning
things that if I was studying in
another school I wouldn’t probably
learn. Today I know how to be more
critical, more constructive.
(Margarida, 2020).
Margarida’s narrative reveals some
contributions surrounding her social and
technical development, in which her
communicative skills were developed, her
interpersonal relations were enhanced and
her technical knowledge was validated.
That reflects in her posture from a positive
self perception, her trust in herself and the
credibility she gained among her familiars
as an agricultural technician.
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The full development of the students
is directly connected to the development of
the environment, pillars that guide the
pedagogical proposal from the Training in
Alternation Family Centers (CEFFAs)
(Gimonet, 2007). During an interview, the
monitor talked about the importance of the
researched EFA in the community’s
development:
The EFA has a great importance in
the community, considering it brings
together many people from the
surroundings, not only students,
because of the Folia dos Reis, the
cultural meetings they have there,
this strengthens the feeling of being
part of a community, the sense of
community. It is very important and
it provides many moments for the
people, moments of being together
with different people, from other
places. So the EFA, beyond
reinforcing the feeling of community,
it is a meeting spot, meeting with
other spaces and ideas. It is quite life-
changing knowing that people want
to make a communitary garden in the
EFA and take this knowledge to their
lives, I feel this happens a lot in those
spaces. (Carmen, 2020).
Regarding the PPJ, the students’
perspective shows they understand the tool
as a potential income generator; a proposal
capable of teaching how to structure
projects focused on the technical
agricultural area.
The PPJ is well structured. Anyone
who reads it after it is 100% ready
will know where it will be
implemented, why it will be
implemented, who will be involved
and how long it is going to take
(Lúcio, 2019).
We can work through the PPJ, make
money through it. (Iolanda, 2019).
Carmen, the monitor, presented her
perceptions and ideas about the
potentialities and limits regarding the tool,
although she says she has a more
superficial vision because of not following
the full process, since she was also in
charge of other teaching functions.
... only a few students get to
implement their PPJs, because
apparently it became a tool that
students do only for red tape, which
is not its actual purpose. There is a
lack of support from the EFA and for
the EFA. It lacks continued training
for teachers, who need to be in
contact with other ideas, keeping up
with the contemporaneity. (Carmen,
2020).
Although Carmen understands the
importance of proposing the PPJ’s
elaboration according to one of the
principals of the pedagogy of alternation,
“in which the student, considering their
professional interest, will discuss together
with the EFA team and their family a
possibility of income and
professionalization” (Gerke de Jesus, 2011,
p. 87), Carmen also highlights the
limitations faced by the monitors and by
the EFA concerning the work conditions
and continued training. Regarding the
financial struggles, since the beginning of
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the research in the year of 2019, the EFA is
used to work with the monitoring staff
reduced, uncertain payment and lower
values than what was applied before.
In the timeline of the Escolas
Famílias Agrícolas of Minas Gerais,
Begnami (2019) characterized the year of
2019 as:
The beginning of a new legislature
and new State Governance. Struggles
to communicate with the new
government. Public audience in the
Legislative Assembly charges
dialogue, the immediate transference
of resources for the EFAs. Attempts
of public funding of Amefa did not
have positive results. The state is
over 6 months late with the transfer
of resources and pays only the per
capita value of FUNDEB. The 1st
year of Zema’s government, the
Permanent Commission of
Countryside Education is not
recomposed nor convened to gather.
The AMEFA faces great difficulties
to keep functioning and dismiss
many employees. In front of this
scenario of zero funding, the
AMEFA’s reduced staff engages
itself in the adventure of elaborating
projects in order to keep themselves
alive and with that optimize the
technical follow-up to the EFA
x
.
According to the presented analysis,
considering the former students and
monitor perspectives about the technical
training provided by the EFA, with the
evaluation about the elaboration process of
the PPJ and the fulfillment of the research,
the reports suggest that although the EFA
develops an important job providing a
contextualized education, it has faced
many problems with the transference of
resources from the state government to the
institution in the year of 2019, which
persists also in the school year of 2020,
getting even worse in function of the
pandemic situation. In this period, the
activities developed by the monitors at the
EFA started competing with other
activities targeted to their livelihood. Still
considering the technical education,
specifically regarding the school year of
2019, Carmen speaks about some of the
difficulties faced by the school that year:
In 2019 I really believe there were
some struggles, because it was a time
when we were lacking an agricultural
teacher for a long period; exactly this
year the school started to stay only 15
days with the students, so the
productive units were in a low and
the monitor who was guiding the PPJ
was working in a home office system
too, which has influenced in the
quality of the projects since there was
no one to take over this role in
person, following-up from the
writing process of the students until
the development of the themes
effectively. (Carmen, 2020).
These difficulties are also present in
Carmen’s report (and practices), who used
to teach three disciplines, Arts, History and
Agroindustry, revealing the overloaded
monitor journey in front of the workload
because of the reduced workforce. These
conditions have impacted the training of
the monitors in order to follow-up with the
themes being developed by the students.
Santos, M. L., & Carvalho, E. S. O. (2021). The Narrative Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation: contributions to the Professional Project of the
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The monitor shared about the limits that, in
her point of view, impacts in the technical
education provided by the institution:
... there are some limits inside the
EFA, I believe they happen because
of the teachers’ team, the way things
are put aside… There is the
pedagogy of alternation which works
pretty well, I believe we connect well
with the pedagogical instruments and
with being away from school, at
home. But at the same time I feel it is
quite a lot and that sometimes things
end up getting lost. There are many
teachers who are not interested in
following-up with the new ways of
teaching and in inserting the identity
discourses in all the disciplines, the
matter of identities, of women's
rights, LGBTQIIA+ matters, race and
ethnicity, the black culture and art,
even because more than 90% of the
students are black, so we still fail a
lot in this matter. (Carmen, 2020).
She reinforces the need of the school
working in a more specific way with the
construction of the projects, such as the
writing and the resources for data
structuring, which could be treated in a
more emphatic way during the orientation.
This situation affects the development of
the activities developed by the EFA.
Larissa’s narrative about the technical
formation at the EFA points to a few
challenges faced by her during her
formation:
Regarding the contributions the EFA
brought about the technical practice I
believe it was really weak, because of
the teachers and their influences. The
teachers should be more well-
prepared. Regarding the technical
part it was weak, but when I think
about the social part, it was good, I
had improvements. About my
learning process at the EFA, it was
not satisfactory, specifically for those
reasons. (Larissa, 2020).
Regarding the contribution of the
Narrative Productions Methodology in the
research process developed at the EFA, in
the perspective of some students, the
narratives helped them to rescue some
meaningful memories and brought them
the opportunity to rethink their practices.
With the narratives I was able to
understand how much I have
changed, I have grown. It helped me
to remember my past and see where I
am now. In the PPJ the narratives did
not contribute as much, but mostly
because it was something more
technical, more specific for the PPJ,
but for my life project I believe it has
helped because when I rethink what I
have lived, I have more
determination following what I want
to achieve. (Margarida, 2020).
The narratives helped me to think
more about the project, and thinking
more, we realize we need to change a
few things. It has influenced the
writing process and made me think
more about the theme because of the
questions asked. (Larissa, 2020).
Regarding the contribution of the
Narrative Productions Methodology as a
pedagogical tool for the EFA, Carmen
reflects about the similarity of the
narratives proposal with what is proposed
by the EFA; regarding an education based
in the importance of the life experience in
Santos, M. L., & Carvalho, E. S. O. (2021). The Narrative Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation: contributions to the Professional Project of the
Youth...
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order to practice and understand the
pedagogy of alternation (Gimonet, 2007)
and in order to build and exchange
knowledge.
I believe the narratives are really
related to the EFA. It connects very
well with the idea of a contextualized
education, which means looking at
one's own history, and also about
what Paulo Freire speaks regarding
emancipation, becoming the
protagonist of one’s own history. So
I believe the narratives contribute a
lot in this direction. The difficulties
came, for sure, from the pandemic,
the reorganization of the time table at
the EFA, because indeed there’s a lot
going on. (Carmen, 2020).
When questioned about noticing any
differences between the PPJs of the
students who participated on the research
and the students who did not participate,
Carmen explained that the students who
participated of the research are already the
ones who naturally stand out in the school
activities, which makes it more difficult to
observe and measure the specific
contributions made by the research in this
activity.
One of the limits presented in the
development of the NPM with the students
is related to the beginning of the research
activities when the students were already
getting more involved with the writing of
their papers through the Study Plan (SP),
they had already started writing and
structuring the proposals. The former
student Larissa, evaluates that “the
narratives could have happen right in the
beginning of the PPJ in order to follow-up
until the end of it, because the interviews
took place when we were almost finished
with our projects and also now after our
graduation, if it was since the beginning it
would be perfect.” (Larissa, 2020).
Regarding the possibility of
articulating the NPM with the contents
worked throughout the secondary and
technical school in agriculture, together
with the Study Plans and the PPJ,
according to the evaluation of Carmen, the
monitor, the combination could contribute
to a better planning of the PPJ through the
reflection of the possibilities and
difficulties for the realization of their
projects, and also for a better
understanding of the learned content
through the pedagogical tools that were
used.
Final considerations
The strengthening of the peasant's
identity and the insertion of the young
adults in the productive processes in the
countryside are structural challenges for
the Countryside Education Movement. The
analyses of the Narrative Productions
Methodology use as a pedagogical activity
articulated with the pedagogy of
alternation tools in an EFA from Minas
Santos, M. L., & Carvalho, E. S. O. (2021). The Narrative Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation: contributions to the Professional Project of the
Youth...
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Gerais with the intention of assisting these
challenges was the goal of the project
presented in this paper.
The narratives of students from the
technical course focused in agriculture
have highlighted the importance of the
EFA in their learning process, not only in
the identification, but also in the reflective
process of these students about the
peasant’s lifestyle, their challenges and
peculiarities. They also emphasized the
importance of this appreciation and of the
pedagogical practices used so that the
young people would assume themselves as
the protagonists in the social processes for
the recognition of their rights and their
identity. The narratives have spotlighted,
therefore, the importance of the EFA in the
development of a full education of the
young people from the countryside,
articulating with curricular content and
their lifestyle.
Although the narratives have
revealed that the development of the PPJ
fulfills a relevant technical role in their
professional training, some of the
questions brought up by the narratives and
evaluation interviews show that this
dimension of the formative process - one
of the main references for the productive
inclusion of the young peasant in the
countryside production - faces some
difficulties. Considering the fact that the
pandemic caused by COVID-19 has
affected directly in the implementation of
the PPJs by the former students, at the
same time the research shows that the
students already faced other problems for
the implementation of their projects related
to the access of land and resources, lack of
articulation connected to their familiar
production and a satisfactory assistance in
order for these difficulties being
considered during the elaboration process.
These problems, however, can not be
evaluated punctually, rather than inserted
in the complexity of the context in which
these youngsters from the countryside live
and the context of the EFA itself.
Concerning the role of the EFA in
the formative process, it is evident that the
development of its activities is severely
compromised by the non-compliance of the
financial transferences, forcing teachers
who are still teaching to share their time
between different paid activities - and the
needed continuous formation - in order to
guarantee theirs and their families
maintenance.
The analysis shows the difficulties
faced by the institution regarding the
technical formation of the students and that
turns into complications related to the lack
of resources for the maintenance of the
institution’s employees and of the
Santos, M. L., & Carvalho, E. S. O. (2021). The Narrative Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation: contributions to the Professional Project of the
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structure, which shows a process of
degradation of the EFAs.
Regarding the Narrative Productions
Methodology as a pedagogical tool for the
EFA and the possibility of articulating the
NPM to the tools of the pedagogy of
alternation, data suggests a similarity
between the proposals of the NPM with the
pedagogy of alternation, in which “the
experience must be considered, at the same
time, as a learning support, knowledge
storage and learning space, considering
experience as the starting point for
learning.” (Gimonet, 2007, p. 29). Through
the narrative, as well as through the
proposal of the pedagogy of alternation by
the EFAs, it is possible to “allow students
to become aware of the process through the
questions asked and thought of” (Gimonet,
2007, p. 35). This articulation allows a
contextualized education, in which
reflecting about the past is a fundamental
part for building a future. When thinking
and reflecting through experience, it is
possible to overcome generalizations and
mistakes about, for instance, the lifestyle
and culture of people from the countryside,
considering their specificities.
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i
This research was realized with financial help of a
scientific initiation scholarship of the Federal
University of Ouro Preto, notice PIP - 2nd
semester/2019-2020.
ii
All quotes and citations from the text were
translated from the original.
iii
“Escolas Famílias Agrícolas” stand for “Schools
of Agricultural Families” in english.
iv
“Projeto Profissional do Jovem” stands for
"Young Professional Project” in english.
v
In Brazil there are other schools called by
different names using the Pedagogy of Alternation
as a model, according to the referrals. (Nosella,
2012; Begnami, 2019)
vi
All translations by Rhaissa Ramon, unless
otherwise noted.
vii
Considering the COVID-19 pandemic and
scenario, starting from the first semester of 2020,
all interviews were held through phone calls or
instant messaging apps, in which, considering the
availability and accessibility of each participant,
one of the written options were chosen.
viii
All names from the interviewees were altered in
order to preserve the identity of the sources.
ix
The pluriactivity is a phenomenon characterized
by Carneiro (1998) and related to the ... reduction
of employed people in the agricultural business,
since there is an association with the increase of
people living in the countryside but working with
non-agricultural activities. (Carneiro, 1998, p. 2);
x
Available at https://amefa.wordpress.com/efas-na-
linha-do-tempo/. Accessed on March 12th, 2021.
Article Information
Received on April 01st, 2021
Accepted on May 04th, 2021
Published on July, 12th, 2021
Author Contributions: The author were responsible for
the designing, delineating, analyzing and interpreting the
data, production of the manuscript, critical revision of the
content and approval of the final version published.
Conflict of Interest: None reported.
Article Peer Review
Double review.
Funding
Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto.
How to cite this article
APA
Santos, M. L., & Carvalho, E. S. O. (2021). The Narrative
Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation:
contributions to the Professional Project of the Youth. Rev.
Bras. Educ. Camp., 6, e11937.
http://dx.doi.org/10.20873/uft.rbec.e11937
ABNT
SANTOS, M. L.; CARVALHO, E. S. O. The Narrative
Productions Methodology in the Pedagogy of Alternation:
contributions to the Professional Project of the Youth. Rev.
Bras. Educ. Camp., Tocantinópolis, v. 6, e11937, 2021.
http://dx.doi.org/10.20873/uft.rbec.e11937
