A pedagogia Waldorf e o lugar do corpo : entre representações e vivências de estudantes do final do ensino fundamental de uma escola em Cuiabá–MT

Abstract

This research seeks to understand the place of the body in the context of Waldorf Pedagogy, established in the school dynamics, and the notion that students express about their own corporeality. The theoretical basis is based on Rudolf Steiner's theoretical and methodological assumptions and on authors who discuss the senses and meanings attributed to the body in contemporary times, especially in David Le Breton's sociological and anthropological formulations about the body. According to the principles and foundations of Waldorf Pedagogy, the pedagogical practices permeate the language area in artistic, rhythmic, playful, and expressive components, which are articulated in a dynamic that predominates living and experience. From this perspective, the research guiding questions were: 1) what is the place occupied by the body of the actors involved in the body practices taught, learned, and that emerge in school times and spaces in Waldorf Pedagogy? 2) what representations do students in the end of elementary school have about the body? Based on these, the general goal of the study was to understand the place of the body in Waldorf Pedagogy. This is qualitative research, oriented to the study of essences, which takes place in existence and in what is lived, and whose main effort was to describe, much more than to explain or analyze. To generate empirical data, we chose the techniques of ethnographic research: systematic observation (exploratory) and systematic, by means of notes in a field journal and image capture through photography, in the different school times and spaces, and the application of semi-structured interviews to ninth grade students at the school under investigation. To understand the data, we resorted to what is usually called triangulation, that is, the crossing and confrontation of the different information gathered in the field and in the theoretical perspectives. The locus of the research was an associative kindergarten and elementary school, located in Cuiabá–MT, which adopts Waldorf Pedagogy. The research findings revealed the centrality of the body in school times and spaces, expressed in the moment of the welcome, the rhythm, the snacks, the meals, the breaks, and the pedagogical practices, observed and reported by the students. The representation of the body was linked to its importance as the only way of being, being, and wanting to act in the world. The lived experiences of the students, from their narratives, indicated that they appreciated their own physical forms and the notion of individuality and singularity from the body condition. In the school-camp, the body was intensely lived in body-immersion, body-moving, body-creator, body-sound, body-presented, and body-active. In this sense, physical tiredness was present in the statements of the students, relating it to the increase of the workload in the ninth grade, thus appearing the tired body. The research also revealed ways of learning and relating, permeated by affection, body-acollecting, body-listening, body-memory, and body-artisan, that learns and teaches, linked to movement and to the body techniques of Waldorf Pedagogy, so valued by the students. We conclude that the Waldorf school is a living body, a space-place where unique student-bodies pulsate, that constitute themselves in relationships and collectively.