Early Childhood Education and Emergency Remote Teaching in Brazil

• In Event: Cultivating Equitable and Racially Just Teaching in Brazilian Public Schools Amid COVID-19, Racism, and Entangled Pandemics

Abstract

Due to the unexpected situation engendered by the new coronavirus pandemic in Brazil, we are living, since March 2020, a time of great social and educational transformations. For this reason, teachers were required to have a critical and creative attitude in order to envision and implement transformative alternatives to their work. A new educational modality, the emergency remote teaching, was organized to enable the continuity of the child-teacher bond, which would allow for some kind of pedagogical experience. Thus, in the unequal precariousness of the digital world, digital learning platforms have imposed themselves as a solution for social distancing, although printed activities have also been used for those children who do not have access to technology. Our goal here is to understand how teachers, in different roles at the municipal Early Childhood Education system, comprehend aspects and processes of the emergency remote teaching resulting from the lockdown imposed by the pandemic crisis. Our Theoretical / Methodological framework is based on Subjectivity Theory in a Cultural-Historical Perspective, articulated to Qualitative Epistemology and the constructive-interpretive principle. Evidence: a friendly relationship has been made with the research teachers’ collaborators, mediated by different dialogic and written instruments. Substantiated conclusion: In Brazil, the gap of social inequality in relation to educational opportunities is linked to the historical neglect of education. In times of crisis, it grew and deepened more and more. In Early Childhood Education, only 20% of children in the municipality were able to attend emergency remote education. It is a complex issue that points to several direct and indirect aspects. However, it is the teachers and the coordinators who needed to live in this daily routine of abandonment, the professionals who felt subjectively responsible for this situation. Scientific significance: The singularity to comprehend complex transformative political contexts between teachers and children's relationships gain new intelligibility as symbolic-emotional experiences of those who are involved in these cultural lived conditions

Authors

• Cristina Massot Madeira-Coelho, Universidade de Brasilia

• Carolina Velho, Universidade de Brasília

• Luciana Oliveira Lemes, Instituto de Psicologia/Universidade de Brasília

• Rhaisa Pael Farias