Mudanças curriculares no ensino médio na percepção e vivência dos alunos em colégio particular de São Paulo

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the opinion of high school students, about their perception of the curricular changes that started in 2016 in a traditional private school in the city of São Paulo. Little consideration and low participation of students in the construction and implementation of the school’s curriculum has been one of the weaknesses of public policies as well as of the school system as a whole. The perceptions of the students and their direct involvement in the operation of the curriculum are valuable for education since they are the main point - the subjects of learning - to achieve an effective and quality educational reform. Historically, it is neither an easy nor an obvious task to adapt the curriculum to modern learning conditions, consistent with the contradictions of the globalized world, which centralize the student as an active subject, working on discussion skills and critical analysis. Curricular differentiation is precisely in line with this new way of seeing the student and education. To account for this investigation on the perceptions of students and alumni about themselves as apprentices and as operating subjects of a curriculum, and who have experienced more or less significant learning in their trajectories, a qualitative research was carried out, divided into two stages - in stage 1, 117 students (from 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades of high school) were interviewed, applying a questionnaire that used 26 images, by Sebastião Salgado and works of art by FILE (Contemporary Art Festival) as a way of to raise students' feelings and perceptions, in order to obtain non-obvious answers. The second stage of the research consisted of structured interviews with a group of 9 students, with the objective of deepening the issues worked on stage one, and 6 former students of the College, who graduated from high school between the years of 2015 to 2018 and, therefore, some had no exposure at all to the current curriculum and others had a small participation, as they only participated in the initial phases of the implementation of the new curriculum. It was found among the students' statements that living in society is as important as linguistic or mathematical development and, to be effective, teaching has to be worked on in an interdisciplinary way. The data presented in detail can be found in the chapter “Presentation and Organization of the data obtained”. The School and the function of their curriculum were interpreted by them in a more comprehensive and rich way. The photos brought them an imagination space that facilitated their analysis. Thus, the function of the School appears to them as that of an Institution that must promote the personal and social development of students, without losing focus on its function of preparing them to enter the best universities and higher education courses, an objective of most of the students. It was also found, for the purpose of organizational categorization, that these young people, belonging to the Z generation, are curious, accept diversity, have social responsibility and are detached from geographical boundaries. For this reason, they value group activities, acting based on ethics, thoughtful knowledge about the consequences of an action, as well as perceiving the importance of assessing risks and taking responsibility for their own actions. They attribute to the School the role of providing, through autonomous and group work strategies, the use of diverse teaching methodologies that make the explanation of the subjects more meaningful, uncomplicated and interesting for the students. This research is able to achieve its objectives of identifying the students' evaluation towards the curriculum, as well as experiencing their participation in its continuous construction