Família negra como resistência: o uso de fontes em sala de aula para um ensino de História antirracista

Abstract

Starting from the hypothesis that the school is a propitious space to question the racial discrimination present in our society, this work discusses the black family in the transition from the 19th to the 20th century as a mediating theme for promoting debates on ethnic-racial issues with the students from the 9th grade classes at the school “Centro Educacional Mosaico”, located in Belém, Pará, Brazil. When reflecting on the knowledge that I have mobilized to deal with sensitive issues such as racism throughout my professional career, I relate the concepts “teaching knowledge” and “epistemology of professional practice” by Maurice Tardif (2014) with the intention of promoting teaching of anti-racist history. I seek in the national debate on slavery and post-abolition to find references for the study of the black family through the perspective that interprets enslaved, freed and free as subjects, the result of approaches based on renewed sources and documentary research, which show the relative autonomy of Africans (and their descendants), and the advances in the fight for an Afro-Brazilian history, through Law 10.639/03, which made the study of African History mandatory in the Basic Education school curriculum. I propose the use of iconographic historical sources (photographs and paintings), through a digital themed black family album, as the final purposeful dimension of this work, containing images that portray the daily life of black people in the Amazon and in other regions of the country in different situations: urban work, family moments, clothes used, body adornments, as well as their expressions and postures that give us clues that help us to reveal their identities, family life and possible similarities with black families in contemporary times. I note the positive results when using the album as a pedagogical tool to present students with a vision of the black person as a historical subject, permeating the study of black slavery and post-abolition in Brazil through paths that make learning more productive and challenging. I conclude that working with iconographic sources in the teaching process provides a privileged space for the production of school historical knowledge, as well as promoting reflections and debates on ethnic-racial issues with students in the Final Years of Elementary School.