An observational and “listening” study in public elementary education schools: the "arts of doing" the assessment of learning of natural sciences teachers

Abstract

This article aims to present part of the results of a broader research that investigated the assessment of learning in Science Education, with special attention to physics whitin the discipline of Science, in public elementary schools in Porto Alegre, RS, coordinated by Municipal Secretary of Education (SMED, in Portuguese). We adopt a qualitative research approach and a "case study" under Robert Stake’s perspective (Stake, 2011). We carry out distinct studies involving, in all, ten public schools. This text results of observation and "listening" observation and "listening" to the daily practices through the promotion and appreciation of “listening” to long dialogues with three teachers of science and immersion in the classroom to understand the ways of assessment these teachers (three case studies, one in each school), as well as the meaning of the evaluation from the perspective of students. From the analysis of the Brazilian legislation and from a review of the literature and theoretical postures, the need arose to seek to understand the "arts of making" the evaluation of learning, the "fabrications" and "anonymous inventions" of science teachers that are revealed as tactics of resistance in the perspective of Certeau (2014) Theory of Practices and Everyday Inventions. We show that teachers make use of strategies and tactics in a creative process of subversion of the norms that are imposed on them to evaluate as a form of "resistance". The three studies show the richness of "giving the word" and the need to "listen" to teachers, which is at the same time an external listening and a "listening to oneself" to understand their ways of doing evaluation, (violence, infrequency, lack of dreams and expectations in students, devaluation of the teaching profession, mismatching policies, lagged salaries, etc.). The word "listening" seems to aid in the reinvention of their stories, as teachers, to reduce anxiety in the face of pressures, and also reveals demands from school to academia. Students say that the teacher should listen to them more and not just assess how much they dominate the content. In this way, "listening" and observing daily school life may be proving to be an indispensable initial step in the construction of public policies and improvements in the evaluation process.