ABSTRACT

By understanding the importance of highlighting the theme of childhood, social movements, curriculum and training, this article, based on Paulo Freire and Mikhail Bakhtin, intends to focus on the challenges imposed on the work of children educators who work with children in Rural Early Childhood Education (EIC) in Agrarian Reform settlements. Among the data from the doctoral research, for this article we have selected narratives from a semi-structured interview with two educators who work in EIC. Data shows that the educators understand the importance of the work they do with the children, but they emphasize the challenges and structural precariousness of the conditions in which this work is carried out, such as the lack of support and teaching materials. They also point to the lack of training on the part of the municipalities, which ends up being the responsibility of the social movement. The article is part of the EIC agenda and calls for research, studies and coordination with public institutions in order to make the countryside and its people visible, especially the rights of children to appropriate spaces in their communities, in the territories they inhabit.

Keywords:
Landless Children; Early Childhood Education In The Countryside; Teacher Training

RESUMO

Por compreender a importância de visibilizar a temática acerca das infâncias, movimentos sociais, currículo e formação, o artigo, alicerçado em Paulo Freire e Mikhail Bakhtin, tem como objetivo focalizar os desafios impostos ao trabalho de educadoras infantis que atuam com as crianças na Educação Infantil do Campo (EIC), em assentamentos de Reforma Agrária. Dentre os dados que integram a pesquisa de doutorado, para este artigo, selecionamos narrativas oriundas de entrevista semiestruturada, realizada com duas educadoras que atuam na EIC. Com os dados, demonstramos que as educadoras compreendem a importância do trabalho que realizam com as crianças, mas evidenciam os desafios e as precariedades estruturais acerca das condições em que este trabalho é realizado, como a falta de apoio e materiais pedagógicos. Evidenciam também a falta de formação continuada por parte dos municípios, ficando sob a responsabilidade do movimento social. O artigo se insere na pauta da EIC e conclama pesquisas, estudos e articulações junto aos órgãos públicos, a fim de visibilizar o campo e sua gente, sobretudo os direitos das crianças aos espaços apropriados em suas comunidades, nos territórios que habitam.

Palavras-chave:
Crianças Sem Terrinha; Educação infantil do campo; Formação de Professores

Introduction

Through a discussion of childhood, social movements, curriculum and teacher training, and with an understanding of the importance and need to make visible the actions that lead the countryside and its people, especially in the context of struggles for the right to land, housing, health and education (Santos et al. 2014), this article seeks to focus on the challenges posed by the work of child educators who work with children in settlements of the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) in the state of Espírito Santo, 2020), this article seeks to focus on the challenges of the work of child educators who work with children in the settlements of the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) in the state of Espírito Santo (ES), the focus of our study, as well as the demands for training related to the work they do with this public in this territory.

This proposal is part of the narrative doctoral research in which, based on the testimonies of the graduates of the courses of rural teaching and pedagogy, held in partnership with the Federal University of Espírito Santo (Ufes), we sought to understand the teaching training trajectories of the subjects involved in this training process. From the material resulting from the research (documentary survey, online questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and writing pedagogical letters to the MST), for this article we present the data related to the semi-structured interview we conducted with two educators who work with children in early childhood education in the countryside (EIC), in MST settlements.

It is important to note that the State of Espírito Santo, in the course of 39 years of struggle, has brought together landless families in search of better living conditions in the countryside. At present, the MST is present in 25 municipalities of Espírito Santo, with 65 settlements and about 2,800 settled families.

There are 10 organized camps with 1,235 families fighting for a piece of land. Thus, in its history of struggles for land and education, we remember the first articulations, the result of the 1st National Seminar on Education in Settlements, held in this State, in the municipality of São Mateus, in 1987. This meeting consolidated the national base of the educational sector of the MST.

Since then, the education sector has been fighting to guarantee spaces that meet the specific needs of people living in rural areas, as well as partnerships with organizations and public institutions, such as universities, in an effort to guarantee access to training that meets the needs of rural areas (Vieira, 2023VIEIRA, Marle Aparecida Fideles de Oliveira. Trajetórias de atuação e de formação docente na educação infantil do campo: narrativas dos egressos dos cursos Magistério e Pedagogia da Terra - MST. Tese (Doutorado em Educação) - Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Vitória, 2023.).

In this context, we would like to point out that, although it is not possible within the limits of this article to carry out a literature review on the challenges of the work of educators who work in settlements, we would like to highlight some studies that focus on education in the countryside and social movements, with the aim of recognizing the research and researchers who focus on the countryside and its subjects, making the issue of childhood visible in the context of MST. In this broader discussion that covers the countryside, we focus on the production of knowledge on the subject (Souza, 2016SOUZA, Maria Antônia de. Educação e movimentos sociais do campo: a produção do conhecimento no período de 1987 a 2015. 2. ed. atual., ampl. e rev. Curitiba: Ed. UFPR, 2016.), listing the pedagogical practices of MST (Souza, 2006), with a focus on the National Program for Education in Agrarian Reform - PRONERA (Moreira; Lima, 2016MOREIRA, Érika Macedo; LIMA, Mariana Cruz de Almeida. Educação do Campo: Programa Nacional de Educação na Reforma Agrária. Santa Maria: Caxias, 2016.).

With regard to EIC, we list the national study characterization of educational practices with children aged 0 to 6 living in rural areas (Barbosa et al., 2012BARBOSA, Maria Carmen Silveira; SILVA, Ana Paula Soares de; PASUCH, Jaqueline; LEAL, Fernanda de Lourdes Almeida; SILVA, Isabel de Oliveira e; FREITAS, Maria Natalia Mendes; ALBUQUERQUE, Simone Santos (Org.). Oferta e demanda da educação Infantil no campo. Porto Alegre: Evangraf, 2012.), which helps us to map the conditions in which care is provided in all regions of the country, as well as the study that focuses on academic production on rural education in the countryside and the historical paths of early childhood education in this context (Vieira; Côco, 2016VIEIRA, Marle Aparecida Fideles de Oliveira; CÔCO, Valdete. Da educação rural à educação do campo: percursos históricos da educação infantil a partir das produções acadêmicas e da legislação brasileira. In: SOUZA, Elizeu Clementino de; CHAVES, Vera Lucia Jacob (Org.). Documentação, memória e história da educação no Brasil: diálogos sobre políticas de educação e diversidade. Tubarão/SC: Copiart, 2016. v. 1. p. 83-105.).

With Conde and Costa (2019CONDE, Soraya Franzoni; COSTA, Maicon Jackson. Contribuições da pedagogia socialista para a educação da infância no movimento dos trabalhadores rurais sem terra. Perspectiva, v. 37, n. 4, p. 887-903, 2019. https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-795X.2019.e54987
https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-795X.2019.e... ), we deepen our reflections on the contributions of socialist pedagogy to the MST’s conception of early childhood education; and with Ramos and Aquino (2019RAMOS, Márcia Mara; AQUINO, Ligia Leão. As crianças sem terrinha e as mobilizações infantis no Brasil. Praxis & Saber, v. 10, n. 23, p. 157-176, 2019. https://doi.org/10.19053/22160159.v10.n23.2019.9728
https://doi.org/10.19053/22160159.v10.n2... ), who discuss children in the context of the land struggle in Brazil, we understand how children are mobilized in the context of the movement. We incorporate studies that are part of the cirandas of children of the MST (Rossetto, 2009ROSSETTO, Edna Rodrigues Araujo. Essa ciranda não é minha só, ela é de todos nós: a educação das crianças sem terrinha no MST. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação) -Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, 2009.; Luedke, 2013LUEDKE, Ana Marieli dos Santos. A formação da criança e a ciranda infantil do MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra). Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, 2013.), with a focus on the education of popular children (Freitas, 2015FREITAS, Fabio Accardo de. Educação Infantil Popular: possibilidades a partir da Ciranda Infantil do MST. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, 2015.) and the education of children in the countryside (Arenhart, 2005ARENHART, Deise. A educação da infância no MST: o olhar das crianças sobre uma Pedagogia em movimento, 2005. Trabalho apresentado no GT07 - Educação de Crianças de 0 a 6 anos na REUNIÃO CIENTÍFICA DA ANPEd, 28, Caxambu, MG. Outubro de 2005. Anais... http://28reuniao.anped.org.br/textos/gt07/gt07309int.rtf
http://28reuniao.anped.org.br/textos/gt0... ; Bihain, 2001BIHAIN, Neiva Marisa. A trajetória da educação infantil no MST: de ciranda em ciranda aprendendo a cirandar. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação) - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, 2001.; Méliga, 2014MÉLIGA, Laura Luvison. Educação infantil do campo: a educação das crianças pequenas nas proposições do Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação) - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, 2014.). We consider these studies to be fundamental to the discussions in which we participate, although there are certainly many others.

In relation to the training of educators working in rural areas, we have the study by Côco (2011CÔCO, Valdete. Educação Infantil do campo: aproximações com o cenário do Espírito Santo. 2011. Trabalho Apresentado no GT07 - Educação de Crianças de 0 a 6 anos. Anais da 34ª Reunião Científica da ANPEd. Natal - RN, Outubro de 2011. http://34reuniao.anped.org.br/images/trabalhos/GT03/GT03-379%20int.pdf
http://34reuniao.anped.org.br/images/tra... ), which discusses early childhood education in rural areas from a perspective closer to the scenario in Espírito Santo; rural education and childhood, with an approach to experiences in different rural contexts (Foerste et al., 2015FOERSTE, Erineu; CÔCO, Valdete; SCHÜTZ-FOERSTE, Gerda Margit; FICHTNER, Bernd; BEHNKEN, Imbke (Org.). Educação do Campo e infâncias. Curitiba: CRV, 2015.); the teaching work of teachers in settlements (Martins, 2012MARTINS, Marilda da Conceição. “A Pedagogia dos aços”: as implicações da ação política do MST para o trabalho docente das (os) professoras (es) do assentamento diamante Negro Jutaih. 2012. Trabalho Apresentado GT03 - Movimentos Sociais, Sujeitos e Processos Educativos. REUNIÃO ANUAL DA ANPEd, 35, Porto de Galinhas - PE, Outubro de 2012. http://www.anped.org.br/sites/default/files/gt03-2035_int.pdf
http://www.anped.org.br/sites/default/fi... ) and in contexts in Para, Amazon (Hage; Feldmann, 2015HAGE, Maria do Socorro Castro; FELDMANN, Marina Graziela. Histórias e memórias docentes na Amazônia Paraense: o cenário da formação do professor de educação infantil. 2015. Trabalho Apresentado GT08 - Formação de Professores. REUNIÃO NACIONAL DA ANPEd, 37, Florianópolis/SC, Outubro de 2015. http://www.anped.org.br/biblioteca/item/historias-e-memorias-docentes-na-amazonia-paraense-o-cenario-da-formacao-do
http://www.anped.org.br/biblioteca/item/... ); pedagogical practices that focus on childhood, the university and the MST (Bahia; Felipe; Pimentel, 2005BAHIA, Celi da Costa Silva; FELIPE, Eliana da Silva; PIMENTEL, Maria Olinda Silva de Souza. Práticas pedagógicas em movimento: infância, universidade e MST. Belém: EDUFPA, 2005.); a study on the curriculum of early childhood education in rural areas (Santos, 2016SANTOS, Adriana Pacheco da Silva. Significações do currículo da educação infantil do/no campo para a comunidade escolar de um assentamento de reforma agrária na região norte de Mato Grosso. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação) - Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso, Cárceres, 2016.) and highlighting reflections on care in agrarian reform settlements (Vieira; Côco, 2019VIEIRA, Marle Aparecida Fideles de Oliveira; CÔCO, Valdete. Educação infantil do campo: reflexões sobre o atendimento em contextos de assentamentos. Perspectiva, v. 37, n. 4, p. 805-819, 2019.).

These are studies that we have listed (and we don’t ignore many others) that allow us to highlight the achievements and challenges that are part of the nuances that permeate the pedagogical work with children without land. Studies that, in our opinion, should be part of the debate to highlight issues that are sometimes silenced in the context of public policies, such as early childhood education in the countryside and the training of educators who work with children in rural areas, especially in agrarian reform settlements.

In this sense, the article is divided into four parts, the first of which is the introduction. In the second part, we discuss the right of the children of Sem Terrinha to EIC; then, in the third part, we try to narrate the challenges of the work of two child educators who work with children in MST settlements and their training requirements; finally, we present some reflections that place us in the continuity of the conversation with the countryside, with the children, with the educators, with the social movements, and with the research that has focused on the peasant territory.

Rural early childhood education: the right of Landless Children

It is important to note that in the context of rural education, children were not visible in policy or educational research, and only became more prominent in the 1990s (Vieira; Côco, 2016VIEIRA, Marle Aparecida Fideles de Oliveira; CÔCO, Valdete. Da educação rural à educação do campo: percursos históricos da educação infantil a partir das produções acadêmicas e da legislação brasileira. In: SOUZA, Elizeu Clementino de; CHAVES, Vera Lucia Jacob (Org.). Documentação, memória e história da educação no Brasil: diálogos sobre políticas de educação e diversidade. Tubarão/SC: Copiart, 2016. v. 1. p. 83-105.), a period in which mobilizations around the education of the subjects who inhabit this territory began to be highlighted. In this trajectory, EIC, a recent theme that materialized from peasant struggles, debates, field education (Caldart, 2012CALDART, Roseli Salete. Educação do campo. In: CALDART, Roseli Salete; PEREIRA, Isabel Brasil; ALENTEJANO, Paulo; FRIGOTTO, Gaudêncio (Org.). Dicionário da educação do campo. Rio de Janeiro/São Paulo: Escola Politécnica de Saúde Joaquim Venâncio/Expressão Popular, 2012. p. 257-265.) and early childhood education (Rosemberg, 1999ROSEMBERG, Fúlvia. Expansão da educação infantil e processos de exclusão. Cadernos de Pesquisa, n. 107, p. 7-40, 1999. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0100-15741999000200001
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0100-1574199900... ), supports the specificity of the children who inhabit this space (Silva; Pasuch, 2010SILVA, Ana Paula Soares da; PASUCH, Jaqueline. Orientações Curriculares para a Educação Infantil do Campo. In: SEMINÁRIO NACIONAL: CURRÍCULO EM MOVIMENTO - Perspectivas Atuais, 1., Belo Horizonte, novembro de 2010. Anais... Belo Horizonte, 2010. 20p.).

Research on EIC (Barbosa et al., 2012BARBOSA, Maria Carmen Silveira; SILVA, Ana Paula Soares de; PASUCH, Jaqueline; LEAL, Fernanda de Lourdes Almeida; SILVA, Isabel de Oliveira e; FREITAS, Maria Natalia Mendes; ALBUQUERQUE, Simone Santos (Org.). Oferta e demanda da educação Infantil no campo. Porto Alegre: Evangraf, 2012.; Gonçalves, 2013GONÇALVES, Raphaela Dany Freitas Silveira. O estado da arte da infância e da educação infantil do campo: debates históricos, construções atuais. Dissertação (Mestrado Acadêmico em Educação) - Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana, Feira de Santana, 2013.; Silva; Silva; Martins, 2013SILVA, Isabel de Oliveira; SILVA, Ana Paula Soares da; MARTINS, Aracy Alves Martins (Org.). Infâncias do Campo. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2013. (Coleção Caminhos da Educação do Campo).) has shown the need to focus on children living in rural areas, who are potential targets of public education policies. In this context, we refer to the children of family farmers, extractive workers, artisanal fishers, river dwellers, agrarian reform settlers and campesinos, quilombolas, caiçaras, water and forest peoples. We therefore argue that policies for children should also address these specific needs. With regard to the issue highlighted here, we will focus on the challenges faced by two early childhood educators in their work with children in agrarian reform settlements and the training requirements they believe are necessary to improve care at this stage of basic education.

Hence, when we focus on the children of Sem Terrinha, we emphasize the fact that they are present in the land occupations, the marches, the mobilizations in public spaces, and in the internal activities of the movement. In other words, they are part of the MST and, together with their families, they build their Sem Terrinha identity. In this theme, “[...] the Sem Terrinha identity is worked from different matrices of knowledge and also from the dynamics of social life” (Barros, 2013BARROS, Monyse Ravenna de Sousa. Os Sem terrinha: uma história da luta social no Brasil (1981-2012). São Paulo: Expressão Popular, 2013., p. 125). These are children who are not isolated from society. They experience social contradictions on a daily basis and learn from an early age to fight for their rights.

An example of this tireless struggle are the Sem Terrinha meetings, which usually take place in the month around Children’s Month. These meetings are not only festive and commemorative, but also spaces to demand children’s rights to land, food, education, leisure, health and appropriate spaces in their communities, such as schools.

In 2018, the First National Meeting of Landless Children was held in Brasilia. And, as part of the National Day organized by the MST with the children and with the slogan “Sem Terrinha in Struggle: Towards 40 Years” (do MST, on October 9, 2023, the XI State Meeting of Landless Children was held in the state of Espírito Santo. Approximately 500 children occupied the spaces of the University with their songs and slogans and presented their demands to the authorities of the capital, as well as participating in various recreational workshops. These are spaces for leisure and training that show children, adults, public authorities and society that they exist, in order to (re)understand their demands.

In the public hearing at the end of the meeting, we participated in the reading of the Letter of the Landless Children to the capixabas, in which they presented to the authorities the demands arising from the spaces and times they experience in their territories. In the letter, they express the importance of the schools in the settlements, the fruit of their families’ struggle and perseverance; they commit themselves to continue fighting against the closure of the schools; they ask for better infrastructure conditions, access to water, sanitation, roads, playgrounds, libraries, quality food; and they end the letter with the commitment to continue fighting for a school, a state and a country that is fair and equal for all people (MST, 2023a).

Among their demands is the right to education, based on access to schools, but not just any school. In this agenda, “[...] we see that instead of valuing and promoting education in the countryside, the closure of schools in rural communities has often prevailed” (Pasuch; Santos, 2012PASUCH, Jaqueline; SANTOS, Tânia Mara Dornellas dos Santos. A importância da educação infantil na constituição da identidade das crianças como sujeitos do campo. In: BARBOSA, Maria Carmen Silveira; SILVA, Ana Paula Soares de; PASUCH, Jaqueline; LEAL, Fernanda de Lourdes Almeida; SILVA, Isabel de Oliveira e; FREITAS, Maria Natalia Mendes; ALBUQUERQUE, Simone Santos (Org.). Oferta e demanda da educação infantil no campo. Porto Alegre: Evangraf, 2012. p. 107-151., p. 127). Thus, the defense of an EIC that serves children without land is based on the right, “[...] on the otherness of rural children [...]” (Ramos, 2021RAMOS, Márcia Mara. Infância do campo: uma análise do papel educativo da luta pela terra e suas implicações na formação das crianças Sem Terrinha do MST. Tese (Doutorado em Educação) - Faculdade de Educação, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, 2021., p. 108).

In order to work with this specificity of the EIC, the MST has sought partnerships with universities in order to develop training processes that, together with the people who work and/or will work in rural areas, can contribute to an education that meets the needs of the rural population. We understand that educators who work with children in a rural school must cover the spaces and times of this place, such as territorials, environmental, economic, political and social conflicts. They must start from the specificity of the territory and of the children who inhabit it, in order to expand proposals that put people at the center and forge an education based on people, not in their name.

In this direction, our studies have focused on the training of educators in the context of social movements (Vieira; Côco, 2017VIEIRA, Marle Aparecida Fideles de Oliveira; CÔCO, Valdete. Educação infantil do campo e formação de professores. Cadernos Cedes, v. 37, p. 319-334, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1590/CC0101-32622017176084
https://doi.org/10.1590/CC0101-326220171... , 2018), drawing attention to the responsibility of public authorities for training. In the context of Espírito Santo, the continuous training of educators working in the settlements is the responsibility of the social movement (Vieira, 2016).

The 35th State Meeting of Agrarian Reform Educators, held in June 2023, with the slogan “MST towards 40 years: strengthening our pedagogy in the art of struggle”, addressed emerging issues in Espírito Santo (MST, 2023b). This meeting, organized by the Education Sector of the MST, made it possible to articulate by areas of knowledge, thus materializing the second meeting of EIC educators working in the Movement’s settlements. It was a space for dialogue, for sharing experiences, for discussing the difficulties, the beauties and, above all, the need to continue meeting by area in order to strengthen the EIC.

With this in mind, we sought to highlight, through the narratives of two educators who work with these children in MST settlements, the challenges they face in working with the children, as well as the training requirements, data that will be explored in the following topic.

EIC in MST settlements: the challenges of working with children

When we refer to the context of agrarian reform settlements, we enter a territory of struggles for rights, access and permanence, both in the territory and in the educational institutions. The spaces that serve children in the EIC are sometimes provided by the community, rooms attached to public schools, or even improvised spaces. Research has shown that “[...] poorer children from rural areas [...] tend to attend early childhood education institutions of lower quality than non-poor children from urban areas” (Rosemberg; Artes, 2012ROSEMBERG, Fúlvia; ARTES, Amélia. O rural e o urbano na oferta de educação para crianças de até 06 anos. In: BARBOSA, Maria Carmen Silveira; SILVA, Ana Paula Soares de; PASUCH, Jaqueline; LEAL, Fernanda de Lourdes Almeida; SILVA, Isabel de Oliveira e; FREITAS, Maria Natalia Mendes; ALBUQUERQUE, Simone Santos (Org.). Oferta e demanda da educação infantil no campo. Porto Alegre: Evangraf, 2012. p. 13-69., p. 19). This reality is evident in França’s narrative, where she emphasizes,

In addition to the struggle to create a class to attend to the children, the teacher recounts the various demands for basic items. In this direction, the study of Leal and Ramos (2012LEAL, Fernanda de Lourdes; RAMOS, Fabiana. Educação Infantil do campo em foco: infraestrutura e proposta pedagógica em escolas do Nordeste. In: BARBOSA, Maria Carmen Silveira; SILVA, Ana Paula Soares de; PASUCH, Jaqueline; LEAL, Fernanda de Lourdes Almeida; SILVA, Isabel de Oliveira e; FREITAS, Maria Natalia Mendes; ALBUQUERQUE, Simone Santos (Org.). Oferta e demanda da educação infantil no campo. Porto Alegre: Evangraf, 2012. p. 153-179., p. 162) shows that

We believe that taking into account the links with the territories is essential for a healthy, quality environment. An environment that considers cultural and social issues as fundamental to work with children. In the territories of the MST, these issues materialize in the effective participation of the children in the celebrations of the settlement, in the commemoration of the anniversary of the conquest of the land, in the actions coordinated by the children, such as the organization of children’s assemblies, the preparation and participation in the meetings of the children of Sem Terrinha, among the various activities of the Movement in which they are present and participate on a daily basis. These are topics that should underpin the curriculum of educational institutions, which are sometimes controversial (Arroyo, 2013ARROYO, Miguel. Currículo, território em disputa. 5. ed. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2013.) because they represent the reality of the peasant territory. In this context, we envision a “[...] school [and community] that becomes a space where children, whether they are from the working class or not, are able to learn and create, to take risks, to ask questions, to grow” (Freire, 2001FREIRE, Paulo. A educação na cidade. 5. ed. São Paulo, Cortez, 2001., p. 42).

Considering work with children in institutions means addressing issues such as the lack of teaching materials, which has a direct impact on the work. Ferreira reports that

A closer look at this narrative reveals an articulation that helps to demand from those in charge of public spaces the improvements that should reach rural institutions. The educator points out that achievements in the city are not always achievements for rural schools. She highlights the work of the Rural Education Committee in the collective articulations around the demands presented to the municipal managers. In addition to the lack of infrastructure to serve the children, there is also a lack of material to support the pedagogical work of the teachers. This is a constant theme in the MST when they ask: “What collective spaces do we have for children in our community? If we do what can, we improve so that children of all ages can enjoy them, and if we don’t, what can we do?” (MST, 2011, p. 27). And we continue: “What are the working conditions for educators who work with this age group in agrarian reform settlements?

When asked what she would like to ask of her community, França is emphatic:

What we see is that if we compare the simplest institution in the city, it has better structural conditions than an institution in the countryside. Therefore, it is important to note that, for us, “[...] settlement childhood is not defined by its opposition to other childhoods, especially urban ones, but by its coexistence, combining social relations of different historical origins” (Felipe, 2013FELIPE, Eliana da Silva. Infância de assentamento e suas temporalidades históricas. In: SILVA, Isabel Oliveira e; SILVA, Ana Paula Soares da; MARTINS, Aracy Alves (Org.). Infâncias do campo. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2013. (Coleção Caminhos da Educação do Campo)., p. 26), which must be taken into account in educational policies.

Regarding the issues that resonate with the land and its subjects, we reflect with Freire (2004FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da Autonomia. Editado por Paz e Terra e licenciado gratuitamente para Anca/MST, 2004., p. 68) that “[...] it is not possible for the school, if it is really committed to the formation of educators, to be detached from the social, cultural and economic conditions of its students, their families, their neighbors [their community]” and, above all, from the structural conditions that guarantee quality access to education. We also agree with Freire (2001, p. 38) that “[...] you can’t think about changing the face of the school, you can’t think about helping the school to become serious, rigorous, competent and joyful without thinking about the ongoing training of the educator”.

With regard to her work with the children, Ferreira underscores in her narrative that, for her, the community should

This respect and autonomy tells us how each community understands, understands, and dialogues with rural education, with the needs of children, educators, and the community. Sometimes, “[...] this being, which involves your permanent relationship with the world, also involves your action on it” (Freire, 2013FREIRE, Paulo. Comunicação ou Extensão? Tradução de Rosika Darcy de Oliveira. 16. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2013., p. 46). This is understood by those who have a relationship with the countryside or who recognize the importance of an education that takes into account the people, their knowledge, their territories and their rights.

If the people who work in education, in the management of public spaces and policies, are not aware of this specificity, the work becomes more difficult, because it is up to the rural people to fight for the guarantee of this right, which is not always respected, because it is not always understood. We need people who are part of the EIC agenda, who are committed to the children, to the territory and to the social movement to which they belong. We need to fight, organize and mobilize in order to guarantee quality childcare spaces in early childhood education (Brasil, 2006; 2009). This analysis is highlighted in França’s narrative, in which, for her.

The data shows, based on the narratives, that when there is a rural education committee organized in the municipalities and states, the agendas resonate with a chorus that reaches those who have the power to make decisions. This strengthening of the committees is fundamental for the articulations around the defense of rural education, in which “[...] each word presents itself as a miniature arena where social values of contradictory orientation intersect and struggle [...] it reveals itself, at the moment of its expression, as the product of the living interaction of social forces” (Bakhtin, 2014BAKHTIN, Mikhail. Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem. São Paulo: Hucitec, 2014., p. 67). Hence, it is necessary to say it, it is necessary to put it on the agenda, so that the demand is not forgotten.

The lack of pedagogical support is one of the ways in which the EIC is run in some communities. In the room attached to the public school where she works with the children in the EIC, Ferreira demonstrates how this monitoring is done, which, according to the narrative below, amounts to one visit per week.

The discontinuities with each municipal administration also confirm the discontinuities in the agendas and approaches to the demands. The mayor changes, the policy changes. With the understanding that “[...] there is neither the first nor the last word, and there are no limits to the dialogical context” (Bakhtin, 2011BAKHTIN, Mikhail. Estética da criação verbal. 6. ed. São Paulo: WMF/Martins Fontes, 2011., p. 410), we want to raise the issue of children, their contexts, their rights, in order to give visibility to rural childhood, together with the municipal administrations, with the support of social movements.

We call for initiatives (actions, studies, researches, etc.) that address the specificity of this group of children, in order to mobilize services that can favor the care of children in qualified spaces, the pedagogical work carried out, as well as the training of educators. There are many challenges and we still have a long way to go to ensure that children from rural areas are highlighted, made visible and, above all, remembered in public policies.

Conclusions

It is with the possibility of dialoguing on a subject so dear to us, with issues that concern childhood, social movements, curriculum and teacher training, that we have sought to develop this article. We are going through a period of dismantling of social and educational policies in Brazil (Molina; Santos; Brito, 2020SANTOS, Clarice Aparecida dos; KOLLING, Edgar Jorge; ROCHA, Eliene Novaes; MOLINA, Mônica Castagna; Caldart, Roseli Salete. Dossiê educação do campo: documentos 1998-2018. Brasília: Editora Universidade de Brasília, 2020.), and we understand that we must continue to fight against any setback, with the commitment to make the countryside and its children visible.

We reaffirm our commitment to the countryside and its people, in defense of access to land, to the goods of nature, to education as a right of all people and not of a minority. Thus, the narratives of the educators who work with the children of Sem Terrinha in the context of the EIC help us to understand the need to manage this territory. Sometimes it’s not enough to have services in the countryside. It is necessary to meet the specific needs of the children of the land, the water and the forest. Educators who work with this stage of basic education need to understand the nuances that inhabit this space, understand the struggles of the place, the contradictions that emerge daily and reach the floor of the educational institutions. Therefore, they must be guaranteed the right to training as a means of qualifying their work.

In the context of the struggle for the training of educators, we highlight the links that exist in the State of Espírito Santo with public institutions, such as the University. As a result of this coordination, we highlight the course “Pedagogy of the Land” and, currently, the implementation of the Degree in Rural Education, which welcomes subjects from the different rural territories, bringing the agendas and demands of this place to the University (Vieira, 2023VIEIRA, Marle Aparecida Fideles de Oliveira. Trajetórias de atuação e de formação docente na educação infantil do campo: narrativas dos egressos dos cursos Magistério e Pedagogia da Terra - MST. Tese (Doutorado em Educação) - Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Vitória, 2023.). As a result of a collective struggle, these individuals are working in their rural communities, echoing the demands, desires and hopes that everyone has the right to access and quality education in the territories where they live. With the social movements, we chant that rural education is a right and not a handout.

In this context, children have the right to be cared for in the countryside, but in a countryside that sees them as subjects, as people, as children who live their childhood in a place that has specific characteristics: struggles for land, occupations, evictions, violence and contradictions. Also to recognize that in the countryside people produce and reproduce their lives based on a collectivity in which it is possible to rebirth hope, social justice and the desire to build beautiful stories with their families in a space free from the exploitation of land, people and the goods of nature. It is with these families that we will build the EIC, based on the right to access and remain in the peasant territory and in the educational institutions.

We call on the leaders of public policies to look at the people who live in the countryside, so that together we can build an EIC that has children and their territories as its foundation.

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