Geometria na educação infantil : da manipulação empirista ao concreto piagetiano

Abstract

The aim of this study is to reflect on children's teachers geometry knowledge and the epistemological conception that characterize their educational conducts. Therefore, we had a qualitative research, semi-structured interview and a written report used as resources to get the private and public school six teachers' discourse collection in one city of Paraná state. The discourses analysis shows us the good teachers' willing with the geometry study, however the non-acquaintance theory and the rooted epistemological empiricist conception indicate that the knowledge is in the objects and these objects manipulation is enough to achieve the learning. It was possible to confirm the empiricist conception supremacy through the educational conduct where the children discover the geometrical form in the objects and in the world by the stimulus and material organized by the teachers. According to the teacher's work, we used Jean Piaget genetic epistemology and the standard identification purpose as basis for teachers' performance reflection. At the attempt to cause discussion in this area, we raised some questions, we elicited a constructivist view for geometric idea for child education and we tried to help teachers with the learning practice changes. In this context, we selected some suggestions with constructivist approach: geometric illustrations, geometry solid, logical block, games, children's drawings, geographical space observation and scale model production. We can see that these resources are good ways to learn geometry. Besides that, there are other possibilities that require a constant research in this area.