The mathematical teacher education of indigenous teachers in Brazil in the last decades of the 20 th century: memoirs of a teacher educator

Resumo

This article presents a historical study based on Oral History as a research methodology and on situated learning theory. The data analyzed are the memories of a teacher educator who trained indigenous teachers during the last decades of the 20th century. Based on the reality of indigenous education of some ethnic groups in Brazil, mathematics educators who teach teachers elaborated different proposals from the ones in use. The data were produced from interviews, authorial texts, and recollections of the teacher about her pedagogical actions in training courses for indigenous teachers. The results revealed an intense dialogue between indigenous and non-indigenous knowledge and pedagogical proposals for schools. Those elaborated proposals value the ethnic, cultural, and social diversity of each ethnic group, no longer guided by a Eurocentric and elitist understanding of mathematics but based on knowing the existence of different mathematics typical of different cultures and social groups.