Omar Schneider

Amarílio Ferreira Neto

Silvana Ventorim

Wagner dos Santos

Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo VITÓRIA, Espírito Santo, Brasil

ABSTRACT: The study aims to understand a theme still little known in the literature regarding Physical Education at school, i.e., the relationship of the pupils with the knowledges shared in the Physical Education classes. Using as a reference Charlot's studies (2000) regarding the patterns of learning and the distinction he makes between object knowledges, dominium knowledges and relational knowledges, one seeks to propose a new investigation possibility for pupils’ relationship with knowledge. Based on Charlot’s (2000) proposition it is possible to draw a methodological itinerary and to obtain results different from the ones generally reached when one uses the pupil as a source of information to know what they learn and systematize in the Physical Education classes.

Key-words: Physical Education, knowledge, Bernard Charlot

L’ÉDUCATION PHYSIQUE ET LES RELATIONS ÉPISTÉMOLOGISTES AVEC LE SAVOIR:UNE INCURSION DANS LA PENSÉE DE BERNARD CHARLOT

RÉSUMÉ: l’étude a pour but la compréhension d’un sujet peu encore privilégiédans la littérature sur l’Éducation physique scolaire, ceci dit, la relation des élèves avec les savoirs partagés dans les cours d’éducation physique. En utilisant comme référence les études de Charlot (2000), relativement aux figures de l’apprentissage et la distinction qu’on fait entre “savoirs objets”, “savoirs domaines” et “savoirs relationnels”, on cherche une nouvelle possibilitéd’investigation pour le thème concernant la rélation des élèves et le savoir. Sous la base des propositions de Charlot (2000) est possible réaliser un itinéraire vers une autre méthode et l’obtention des résultats différents de ceux qu’on habituellement observe lorsqu’on prend l’élève en tant que source d’information pour savoir ce qu’ils apprennent et systématisent dans les cours d’Education physique.

Mots-clefs: Education Physique, Savoirs, Bernard Charlot.

LA EDUCACIÓN FÍSICA Y LAS RELACIONES EPISTÉMICAS CON EL SABER: UNA INCURSIÓN EN EL PENSAMIENTO DE BERNARD CHARLOT

RESUMEN: El estudio posee como objetivo la comprensión de un tema aún poco privilegiado en la literatura sobre la Educación Física escolar, sea cual sea, la relación de los alumnos con los conocimientos compartidos en las clases de Educación Física. Utilizando como referencia los estudios de Chariot (2000), en relación a las figuras del aprendizaje y la distinción que hace entre conocimiento objeto, conocimiento de dominio y conocimientos relacionales, se busca proponer una nueva posibilidad de investigación para el tema de la relación de los alumnos con el conocimiento. Con base en las proposiciones de Charlot (2000) es posible realizar otro itinerario metodológico y obtención de resultados diferentes de los que habitualmente se evidencian cuando se toma al alumno como fuente de información para saber lo que aprenden y sistematizan en las clases de Educación Física.

Palabras claves: Educación Física, Conocimientos, Bernard Charlot

A EDUCAÇÃO FÍSICA E AS RELAÇÕES EPISTÊMICAS COM O SABER: UMA INCURSÃO NO PENSAMENTO DE BERNARD CHARLOT

RESUMO: O estudo possui como objetivo a compreensão de um tema ainda pouco privilegiado na literatura sobre a Educação Física escolar, qual seja, a relação dos alunos com os saberes compartilhados nas aulas de Educação Física. Utilizando como referência os estudos de Charlot (2000), em relação às figuras do aprender e a distinção que faz entre saberes objeto, saberes de domínio e saberes relacionais, se busca propor uma nova possibilidade de investigação para o tema da relação dos alunos com o saber. Com base nas proposições de Charlot (2000) épossível realizar um outro itinerário metodológico e obtenção de resultados diferentes dos que costumeiramente se evidenciam quanto se toma o aluno como fonte de informação para se saber o que aprendem e sistematizam nas aulas de Educação Física. Palavras-chave: Educação Física, Saberes, Bernard Charlot

Elements for a theory: a study about the knowledge shared in Physical Education classes

According to Charlot (2000) sociological theories have for a long time made a negative reading regarding the schooling process. From the more well known theories like the one produced by Pierre Bordieu about reproduction up to the ones based on the general understanding that insist on explaining the differences in terms of gift/talent, it has always been asked what the pupils that do not know, what they could not learn, i.e., what lacks in them. Regarding Charlot (2000), in order to surpass some negative analysis that were produced in relation to the schooling process it is necessary to produce a positive reading of the relationship between knowledges and the situations of school failure. According to the author (2000 p.30), “[...] to practice a positive reading^[1]is to pay attention [...] to what people do, get, have and are and not only to what they fail and lack”. For the author this way of inquiring school reality “[...] is, above all, an epistemological and methodological posture” (CHARLOT, 2000, p. 30). This new posture of the researcher, for the author, allows us to question school reality regarding not only the knowledge acquired together with what it lacks but it allows us to read, “[...] in another way, what is read as lack by the more negative reading”.

When discussing on the patterns of learning, Charlot (2000, p 66) indicates that there are four ways they can be:

-  one is related to knowledge-objects, objects in which the knowledges are incorporated in, such as books, works of art, etc.;

-  other is related to objects whose use must be learned, such as tying shoelaces up to more elaborate things as using the computer;

-  there is also the pattern projected in activities to be dominated, the ones that have varied stages, such as reading, swimming or disassembling an engine; and finally,

-   the pattern of learning that appears in relational devices such as to know how to behave socially which can only be acquired in the relationship with others.

According to the author (p. 66),

[...] in face of these objects, these activities, these devices and ways, the individual that ‘learns’ does not do the same thing; the learning does not follow the same processes. There is in this a problem whose dimension is not only cognitive and didactic. The question is more radical: is learning to perform this kind of activity?

These epistemic relationships with knowledge, according to Charlot (2000), happen in two ways: one in which the knowledge takes the form of the object, especially through the written language, and the other through the command of an activity, either in the making oneself able to use an object correctly, i.e., from the non-command to the command. This command, according to the author, is inscribed in the body. Quoting Merleau-Ponty, Charlot (2000, p. 69), states that “[...] the body is the place of appropriation in the world, a ‘set of lived significations’, a system of actions in direction to the world, open to real situations but also to virtual ones”. This relationship does not necessarily “[...] plan a product that could become autonomous in the shape of knowledge-object that could be named without reference to an activity”.

“The school is a universe of written culture”. With this affirmation Lahire (1997, p20) awakens a set o questionings to the subject of Physical Education. According to this author the school is the place where the knowledge is made pedagogical, delimited and encoded. At school the knowledges are formalized and aimed at written practices in a movement that is related to both teacher and pupils. If the school space is the privileged universe of the written culture, one can ask: would there be in this universe space for school subjects that do not deal with this support? 

According to Chartier (2002), there is, unquestionably, a hierarchy among the school subjects. There are those considered more important. In the case of France the emphasis is on Mathematics and French. According to the author, these school subjects are considered more important because they leave traces and make use of at least two devices that state their importance, in this case the file and the notebook. The disciplines that do not have the right to these registering devices, where the pupils take note of what is discussed in class and systematize the learning, tend to be considered less relevant in terms of institutions.

The Physical Education in a school environment, when seen from the standards of learning proposed by Charlot (2000), points to its singularity as it does not deal, as the other school subjects do, with the written support (using or producing in the schooling process knowledge-objects). The systematization of the knowledge happens, then, both by the command of the activity and the command of the devices aimed at relational situations. Thus, would this fact des-legitimize Physical Education from being considered a curricular component as the knowledges it sharesdo not make use of written support?

Highlighting the epistemic relation with knowledge projected in terms of an adequate command of an object or the command of an activity, Charlot (2000) uses the swimming case as reference. He says that a kind of knowledge that comes from the swimming activity is not disconnected from the action of swimming, more specifically “[...] to learn how to swim is to learn the activity itself, so that the product of learning in this case can not be separated from the activity” (CHARLOT, 2000, p. 69). For the author, the knowledges that are inscribed in the body through the command of an activity are more difficult to be expressed and many times an exhaustive expression is impossible. Referring to Schawrtz, the author defines that “[...] not everything can be expressed, subsisting a frontier between ‘experience’ and ‘knowledge’” (CHARLOT, 2000, p. 75) what, on the other hand, indicates that “[...] the appropriation of the expressed, no matter how exhaustive it can be, is never equivalent to the command of the activity” (CHARLOT, 2000, p. 75).

According to Hebrard (1990, 67) “[...] since two centuries ago elementary knowledgeshave been made similar to the written culture basic practices”. How to deal with this question? To take on the status of singular discipline that deals with another set of knowledges through a set of procedures, or to seek similarity to other school subjects through the adoption of the

²   In the study we use the term shared in substitution to the notion of transmission, notion that shows the teaching-learning process as something linear where only the teacher has something to teach. The distribution of knowledges in the teaching-learning process is a two way process in which the teacher learns at the same time he teaches and the pupil also learns and at the same time teaches, but each of the characters taking different holes in the process. This way the pupil is not only reception nor the teacher is only in the position of transmission, both exchange experiences, intentionally or not, sharing knowledge, expectations, desires, spaces and time.

³   For Hebrard (1999) the elementary knowledges are the reading-writing-counting, knowledges that have not always been united but dispersed in other institutions such as the ecclesiastic and the mercantile.

same register procedures? But one should ask: would the register of shared knowledges by this school subject be able to integrate the Physical Education into the written culture. Would the adoption of this procedure be able to ensure its institutional relevance? I do not believe that this is the best option, because even if the written culture is the ‘school language’ the fact of possessing accessible registers would ensure neither its institutional relevance nor its integration into this universe of intellectual knowledges, as the knowledges it deals with are, in a certain way, different from those themed/shared by the other school subjects.

The knowledges themed by Physical Education are, in their majority, knowledges that project by the command of an activity, in this case sport activities where there is no reference to a knowledge-object, at least on the pupils’ part, but to the ability to know how to adequately use an object. This way, as Charlot (2000) indicates, when questioning the knowledges the pupils could systematize, one possibility is not to emphasize only what they could not define as their learning regarding the knowledges shared by Physical Education, but to ask them to demonstrate what they can do with the objects or which activities they can perform. So, a possibility that opens for future investigations, when one seeks to understand what the pupils know or could systematize about Physical Education in their schooling process, is not only to have them talk aboutbut to perform with.The knowledges with which the subject Physical Education deals with, such as sports, games, dance and gymnastics are activities constantly submitted to mini-variations regarding the situations of application, in so lies, as indicates Charlot (2000), the difficulty to expose them integrally in terms of expressions.

According to Charlot (2000) the more knowledges inscribed in the body, the more difficult will their expressions in terms of verbal or written language be. For the author, “[...] it would be interesting to ask children if they are learning how to swim or if they are learning swimming, analyzing under this point of view their behavior during the activity [...]” (CHARLOT, 2000, p. 70), because to learn how to swim and to learn swimming constitute themselves as two different epistemic relations: “[...] to learn how to swim is to seek to dominate an activity, to learn swimming is to refer to this activity as a set of expressions (normative) that constitute the knowledge-object (CHARLOT, 2000, p. 70). So, to perform withmobilizes another group of questionings because one asks for the command the pupils have in certain knowledge regarding the uses that they can have for this knowledge in a specific situation”.

References

CHARLOT, Bernard. Da relação com o saber: elementos para uma teoria. Porto Alegre: Artimed Editora, 2000.

__________ . Os jovens e o saber: perspectivas mundiais. Porto Alegre: Artimed Editora, 2001.

CHARTIER, Anne-Marie. Um dispositivo sem autor: cadernos e fichários na escola primária. Revista Brasileira de História da Educação, Campinas - SP, Editora Autores Associados, n. 3, p. 9-26, jan./jun. 2002.

HÉBRARD, Jean. A escolarização dos saberes elementares na época moderna. Teoria & Educação, Porto Alegre, n. 2, p. 65-107, [s. m]. 1990.

LAHIRE, Bernard. Sucesso escolar nos meios populares: as razões do improvável. São Paulo: Editora Ática, 1997.

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Omar Schneider

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