Researcher launches book on the training of indigenous Suruí teachers

Credit: Disclosure

By: Gabriel Murga / Lupa do Bem – Favela em Pauta

Mirivan Carneiro Rios, professor and researcher from the city of Cacoal, in Rondônia, recently released the book “The formation of Suruí indigenous teachers”, by the publisher Dialectic. In the work, the teacher and researcher addresses the issues and challenges that cross the training of teachers of this indigenous ethnicity.

The Suruí have their territory between the states of Rondônia and Mato Grosso and the book deals with the teachers who inhabit the municipality of Cacoal, in the Sete de Setembro Indigenous Land.

“The work deals with the imposition of pedagogical models that, although intended for teacher training, do not consider the different realities and needs of indigenous communities,” Mirivan told to the journalist Júlio Olivar of Portal Amazônia.

Lupa do Bem: What are the main challenges in the training of teachers of the Suruí ethnic group?

One of the biggest challenges to be faced was the logistical one; teachers had to travel from their villages twice a year and travel almost 500 km to reach the state capital – Porto Velho – in order to participate in the didactic-pedagogical training process. In addition to this issue, the distance from family members, and physical accommodation spaces, in hotels, which generate flu outbreaks. These outbreaks originated from exposure to ambient air conditioning.

Lupa do Bem: In Cacoal, how does the dynamics of education in the public school system work between Suruí teachers and students?

In this network, all the villages have an indigenous school that counts on the presence of a white teacher and an indigenous one. However, the figure of the white teacher in the villages is a supporting role in the teaching-learning process, with the indigenous teacher playing the leading role in this process, due to teaching in their mother tongue.

When comparing the educational process in indigenous schools from the beginning to the present, there are advances, given that the methodologies applied by the white teacher, as a result of their experience, were replaced by the indigenous teachers’ own methods, focused on meeting the needs of their communities.

Lupa do Bem: How are the relationship between the cultures and traditional customs of the ethnic group developed in pedagogical practice?

Here is a question that is always asked; this relationship, between culture and traditional customs, is worked spontaneously in the teacher’s daily life; It starts with the revitalization, together with the teachers, of the importance of keeping alive the customs and traditions of their ethnicity. The main instrument for this to occur is the valorization of one’s own language, that is, teaching children to read and write in their mother tongue and, later, in Portuguese.

Suruí indigenous teachers have developed and are developing literacy materials in their mother tongue (booklets and books) that, throughout the teaching process, have been and are improved, according to their training processes. Today, it is observed that within the Suruí indigenous schools, the teachers are participants and active, highlighted in the state and national scenarios; actors who, since the first training offered by the Rondônia State Department of Education – Projeto Açaí -, continued their studies and are masters in Intercultural Education.

Lupa do Bem: How to bring the traditional practices of the Suruí to the dynamics in the classroom and the opposite, how to bring the traditions to the pedagogical development?

The traditional practices of the Suruí will always be present in the dynamics of the classroom, since the school is fully integrated into the community, and as if it were an extension of the student’s home. One of the first differences we have is that the indigenous schools do not have walls to separate them from the other houses in the community, that is, at any time, a member of the community can be present in the classroom. The elderly are always invited to participate in the classroom, bringing traditional knowledge to the classroom, which allows for the integration of traditional knowledge into the teachers’ pedagogical practice.