Resumo

SANGUINETTO, Evandro de Castro  e  SANTOS, Maria Terezinha C. T.. School timing: implementation of block scheduling in rural schools in the countryside of Brazil. Escritos educ. [online]. 2005, vol.4, n.2, pp.23-38. ISSN 1677-9843.

This paper aims to outline the implementation process of an innovative class schedule in two rural schools in Três Corações, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The schedule, referred to as Block Scheduling, is intended to replace the current Serial Scheduling, when classes last 50 minutes each, as the first is argued to produce better results for both teachers and students when class time is extended up to 250 minutes. By adopting a dialogical and planning process, as well as participative assessment with all the professionals involved, this study reports the strenuous efforts for the persuasion and convincement of the urgency of trying a new approach: the acknowledgement of the necessity to review class schedules as one of the pillars that ties us to old structures which no longer satisfy our current needs. This paper also delivers the results of a research carried out after a trial period in the last weeks of 2005, enabling the Block Scheduling full implementation in the first school weeks of the following year. The initial results were highly promising concerning alternatives for the evolution of the education in the country and the "reform of thinking", as proposed by Morin. The proposed changes in the class schedule seem to have facilitated the overcome of a linear mental structure considered up to now cartesian, reductionist and fractionated while enhancing freedom, creativity, complexity, systemic vision, sense and relevance to knowledge.

Palavras-chave : Ecoeducation; School time; Block scheduling; Participative planning.