Teacher Patrícia Pinho Andrade, from Brasília (DF), developed a project for valorization of women based on the intellectual operations explored in TIM Faz Ciência. The project “As generalizações do gênero” (Gender generalizations) was successfully carried out from 2nd to 5th grade classes in EC Arniqueira in the first semester, and now is being applied in the 3rd grade of EC 10 de Taguatinga. The workshops managed by Patrícia invites children to think about common biases and generalizations on women, based on five female icons: Coco Chanel, Malala Yousafzai, Frida Kahlo, Carmen Miranda and Clarice Lispector.
In each workshop, the teacher dresses up like one of the characters, introduces her story and promotes debates and activities on subjects related to the image of the woman in the society. A multimedia time line shows the transformations in the society along the centuries and how long it took for women to conquer rights such as working and voting. In the Inventions Game, students have to guess if inventions like pantyhose, life-raft, broom, Wi-Fi technology, among others, were created by men or women. “What were related to mothers and house were from women, and the rest were for men. I was surprised that not even the girls questioned that. They were absolutely sure that who takes care of the children and the house are women”, tells Patrícia. “Reactions with the answer key were priceless.”
The statement that woman is the fragile sex was questioned in one of the workshops on different types of strengths. Patrícia mentioned childbirth as an example of women strength, talked about strong female characters from Brazilian history, such as Dandara dos Palmares, Maria Quitéria and Maria da Penha, and used the students’ mothers and grandmothers as a reference of strong women. The image of woman in the media was also discussed from advertisements associating women to beauty standards and housework. “I asked if in those advertisements they saw their mothers, aunts and grandmothers”, says the teacher.
In the first time the workshops were carried out, EC Arniqueira students changed their point of view about women, respecting their fight along history and realizing the strength and the countless possibilities they have. This was expressed in the essays written by children from the 5th grade at the end of the project. “They wrote beautiful things, that women are not the fragile sex, that they can do everything, that they have the right to choose, to study, to vote, that they’ve conquered many things, they are strong and they must not be treated as objects”, described Patrícia.
Many concepts explored in TIM Faz Ciência were incorporated in the workshops, like observation, hypothesizing, generalization and definition. “I’ve never thought about scientific didactics, and TIM Faz Ciência brought me that pretty clearly. Children have to be provoked, we have to give assistance so they question their concepts”, she states. The work of the teacher was highlighted in the newspaper Correio Braziliense on October 9th. The press team followed one of the workshops and also recorded a video in which Patrícia explains the relationship between TFC and her project. Watch next.
