Reflecting on School through the Voice of Children
Dárida Fernandes, School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (Portugal)
Catarina Ribeiro, 1School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto (Portugal)
Paula Quadros-Flores, Escola Superior de Educação - Instituto Politécnico do Porto (Portugal)
Ana Luísa Pinto, Unidade Local de Saúde do Nordeste (Portugal)
School is a place for learning and, at the same time, for individual and social growth. But what do children think of this space for socialising and learning? In order to understand this first-person experience, an investigation was carried out as part of the Teaching and Learning Practices for the Master's Degree in Teaching the 1st Cycle of Basic Education (CEB) and Maths and Natural Sciences in the 2nd CEB at the Polytechnic School of Education in Porto, with a group of 50 students aged between 8 and 12, belonging to one class in the 1st CEB and two in the 2nd CEB. Given the pandemic period, in which the school existed in E@D mode, the aim was to give the child a voice, understanding "what do children think of the school?". The focus of the study was on the concept of school, encompassing three dimensions: i) the building; ii) the school institution; iii) the classroom, in a close relationship between pupils and teachers.
This is a case study that includes qualitative and quantitative approaches, using various information gathering resources to enable data triangulation: direct and participant observation; supported narrative diaries; (in)formal dialogues with the children; questionnaire surveys; individual and collective interviews and duly planned and implemented classroom moments. The discussion of results reveals that the concept of school, from the children's point of view, is quite comprehensive, identifying the building as a place to play, socialise and grow interpersonally and intellectually. The children see it as their mission to search for places within the school to study and learn what the teachers are teaching.