Challenges in the training of new teachers of Geography. Knowledge and experience exchanges with fishermen from Batoque, Aquiraz-Ceará.

Abstract

An account on a teaching experiment carried out on the Extractive Reserve of Batoque-Ceará, involving fourteen fishermen whose great majority was unable to read or write. This reflection focuses on how a Geography licensed teacher can act in face of a community need to learn how to use a GPS device. The methodology consisted in the setting up of a 20-hour workshop using cardboard signs (drawings and numbers), followed by the individual handling of a GPS device, this way increasing the value of the fishermen’s knowledge. The exercises drilled gave the group the opportunity to learn about the importance of using technology in its fish-catching activity (marking and entering a position, wind direction, distances in metres, quilometres, course, degrees, compass and route). It was observed that the incorporation of technology means a change in tradition, in the “secret of doing the thing.” There was an exchange of ideas and information between university scholarship and the fishermen’s everyday knowledge.