The escrevivência of black teachers: Early Childhood Education and ethnic-racial relations

Abstract

This article brings to light, through the methodological tool of the escrevivência (Machado; Soares, 2017), the experience of two black teachers from the working classes who work in public Early Childhood Education spaces. They are spaces located in different municipalities, in the city of Niterói and Nilópolis; however, they have presented us with daily challenges, especially with regard to racist practices at school. From this, we aim to expand discussions about affirmative micro-actions (Jesus, 2004) that emerge in these spaces, in the face of the pedagogical practice of black women, teachers and researchers committed to an engaged pedagogy (hooks, 2017), as a movement of political activism in school spaces. We act respectively as a teacher and pedagogical advisor, with the similarity being the forms of resistance to existing standards in society, producing resistance in school spaces and trying to overcome absenteeism from teaching duties, gaps in the school routine and different ways of opposing racism, in search for an education that addresses a positive identity for black children, proposing other ways of being in the world for black and non-black children. As final notes, we bring the need to continue the anti-racist debate in schools, expanding affirmative micro-actions at school.