AROLDO DE AZEVEDO E A PRODUÇÃO DE COMPÊNDIOS PARA O ENSINO DE GEOGRAFIA (1930–1970)

Abstract

Aroldo de Azevedo (1910-1974), one of the most relevant intellectuals of Brazil’s School Geography between the 1930s and 1970s, was responsable for the work of educational composing that became a mark in the geographic teaching’s path in the country. Even before his graduation, in 1936, he wrote his first work entitled “Geographia”, made for the 1th junior grade and edited by Companhia Editora Nacional. As an indication of the value of that school text, his work made a circulation of more than ten thousand copies. From that moment, his participation inside the school Geography grew exponentially, resulting in the production of educational texts for every grande in elementary school and high school, making more than 130.000 copies per year, between 1960 and 1970. Therefore, for more than three decades, his compendiuns were relevant in the didatic field and studied in almost every part of Brazil territory. Thereby, the historiography of geographic contemplation has in Aroldo de Azevedo a relevant reference that need to be rescued for better understanding about how the Geographic teaching was articulated at the moment, as well for better comprehension about theories, concepts and line of research that guided his didactic work at that moment. This essay has the main objective of analysing and undersand the mission and contente of Aroldo de Azevedo’s scholar texts as for an tool for didactic work and the author’s proposal for the teaching method of Geography between 1930 and 1970. The methodology involved was based on the Didactic Work’s organization, which guided this research, taking as reference this three elements: a) Educational relationship; b) Mediation elements; c) Physical space, with special attention to mediation elements (the school texts). The theoretical-methodological procedures include a bibliographic research in primary and secondary sources that approached: didactic work, didactic work’s organization, didactic work’s tools, school texts, compendiuns and didactic manuals. Beyond that, a documentary historical was made out in the author’s compendiums: Geografia humana do Brasil (1959); Geografia do Brasil (1962); O Brasil e o mundo 3 (1962); O Brasil e o mundo 4 (1963), highlighting the work of Geografia do Brasil (1962), which was fully analyzed to emphasize the role of these didactic work’s tools, as weel to understant how the contente was written, focusing at the zone subject-matter. As a thesis of this research, it is stated that school texts of Geography from historical period between 1930 to 1970, that are called textbooks, showed an greater scientific rigor when compared to didactic manuals used from 1970 onwards. The fact of the student not having educational contact with classical sources, but yet, with syntheses, shows that the gradual changes in the school texts throughout history made another type of knowledge that depends on the mediation elements which, by presenting only a summary of knowledge, creates a profile of student that have a superficial knowledge, with less depth and no theoretical-methodologial bases that would only become acessible for them with a discussion of classical texts whose readings, however, were still suggested at the end of each chapter. This doctoral dissertation is written in four chapters and final considerations.

KEY-WORDS: Didatic work’s organization; School texts; Compendiums, Geography, Aroldo de Azevedo.