Indigenous peoples and school education in the Brazilian Amazon: teaching experiences

Abstract

This article presents educational experiences developed with indigenous peoples in the Brazilian Amazon, based on documentary research in dialogue with reports of teaching experiences of the first authors of this text. Thus, we propose to dialogue based on the following question: how is indigenous knowledge mobilized in the Amazonian school context? To this end, we established as a general objective to reflect on the way indigenous knowledge is conceived in the Amazonian school context, based on a dialogue with the reports of teaching experiences with indigenous school education. From this perspective, we understand that Indigenous School Education comprises formal educational actions offered under the supervision of the State to indigenous peoples, unlike indigenous education, which is carried out in the community through social coexistence, depending on the diverse perspectives of each indigenous people. We observed that although there are laws and public policies, conquered by indigenous collectives, that advocate a differentiated, bilingual, intercultural and community school education, as well as provide the conditions for its implementation, in practice this right is still a distant reality of many indigenous schools. To this end, it is necessary to open dialogue and epistemic exchanges that understand diverse knowledges in an equitable way. This premise confronts us with the challenge of the decolonization of knowledge, especially that conveyed in indigenous schools.

Keywords

• indigenous peoples
• indigenous knowledge
• school education
• brazilian amazon.