Pedagogy of Alternation as a Rural Development Proposal in Castelo ES Brazil

Abstract

The Pedagogy of Alternation (PA) is a methodology for the organization of schooling that combines different formation experiences spread over different periods and spaces, and aims at a professional training for rural areas. It was established in 1935 by a group of French farmers. PA started in 1969 in the state of Espirito Santo, Brazil, with the first Agricultural Family Schools (AFSs). Current research analyzes the PA educational model and promotes its dissemination. It reveals how, through its adoption by the AFS, it may contribute towards local rural development and influence social change with regard to the organization of homestead families around the AFS of the municipality of Castelo ES Brazil and its relations with partner organizations in order to build survival and maintenance strategies and impacting the lives of rural young people. In fact, the above-mentioned methodology is an alternative to education in the rural area, since education in this context does not address the peculiar needs of the population living in the country. Some educational problems found in schools in rural areas give rise to the need for a specific proposal for the educational field, which include disconnection of schooling from local reality, lack of resources for basic activities in the field, need for students to stay on the farm with the family, difficulties to follow the traditional school timetable, the devaluation of multi-grade school and lack of places in agro-technical schools.