Unicamp is hosting the 14th National Meeting of Teaching Practice in Geography (Enpeg), under the theme “Policies, languages and trajectories”, from June 29th to July 4th. The event brings together more than 700 researchers and undergraduate and postgraduate students in the area of geography teaching in Brazil, as well as basic education teachers who research and work directly on topics related to geography education – they come from all states of the country. country, without exception. The event, which takes place for the first time at the University, is organized by the Geography Teaching Research and Practices Studio (Apegeo), from the Institute of Geosciences.
Rafael Straforini, professor at IG and general coordinator of Enpeg, states that a meeting of this size gains special relevance given the removal of the subject of geography as a mandatory curricular component in the so-called new secondary education. “We are very concerned about current educational policy and the event serves as a space for reflection and political positioning. Geography does not just teach the location of things, it is also a form of cognition: the technologies we have today and the way capital circulates around the world demand special reasoning, about spatiality as an extremely important dimension of social, economic and social relations. policies.”
According to Straforini, the impact goes far beyond geography, as a set of subjects that were equally important in the training of high school students were removed. “It is a macro project, with experiences that have already been taking place in many countries and which are not unanimous. Today, in Europe, for example, the perspective of training in broad areas, such as the human sciences, is already being contested due to its impact on the training of current generations. We are belatedly welcoming a movement that began twenty years ago and without bringing the criticism that is being made after all these years of experience.”
Those enrolled in the 14th Enpeg participated in field work on Saturday and in workshops and mini-courses on Sunday, when the event's opening ceremony also took place. Four round tables were scheduled, the first held on Monday morning, on “Trajectories of geography teaching in Brazil”, under the coordination of professor Helena Copetti Callai (Unijui) and with guests Antonio Carlos Castrogiovanni (UFRGS), Antonio Carlos Pineiro (UFPB), Lana de Souza Cavalcanti (UFG) and Sonia Maria Vanzella Castellar (USP).
“Multiple languages in the production of geographic knowledge” is Tuesday’s table; “Educational and curricular policies and the challenges of teaching geography”, on Wednesday; and “For future geographic education”, on Thursday. The program also features working groups with oral presentations of academic research and educational practices, free forums, exhibition, book launch and the exhibition of 485 works approved after the opinion of a scientific committee.
The National Meeting of Geography Teaching Practice emerged at the end of the 1980s, with emeritus professor Lívia de Oliveira, from Unesp in Rio Claro, who is the first researcher in the area of geography teaching in the country. Each year the event takes place at a university, with the last edition being at UFMG, in Belo Horizonte, in 2017.
