Introduction

This article presents events related to a doctorate research that was concluded in 2019, which meant to interrogate the educational working process focusing on how children construct knowledge, considering the space and the teachers work, in other words, how the teachers, on conversations with boys and girls, potentialize the quality of their experiences and promote the appropriation and the daily construction of knowledge. To write this article, it was established that the goal was comprehending the importance of listening as a possibility to understand how children build senses and meanings to the daily happenings of the educational work.

However, the doctorate thesis comes from a previous research that has been developed since 2010 and that gained strength from an interdisciplinary theoretical framework with a qualitative approach. On this path, a lot of authors have been basic to deepening the concepts about childhood, children, children's culture, (Sarmento, 2003; Barbosa, ²⁰¹⁴). About Childhood Sociology, pair culture and interpretive reproduction, the readings of Corsaro (²⁰⁰⁵; 2009; 2011) and Sarmento (²⁰⁰⁵) are inspiring. Specifically about teachers' works at children's education, it's worthy to bring in Ostetto (²⁰¹⁰; 2015), Nogueira and Ferreira (2018), among others.

In this research it can be seen the need to deepen some subjects, which justifies bringing to light some debates about the pedagogical experience of the teachers at children's education, starting from a point of view that recognizes the children's place, their cultures and the relations that are defined in kindergarten. It can be understood that this is the way that children and adults navigate in kindergarten and elementary schools.

Context and methodology

The empirical research was realized this way: between may and july of 2012, (twice or three times per week), looking carefully at how the children participate and interact with each other and with adults, in addition to an unstructured interview with the regent teachers I and II (between april and august of 2018). However, to write this article, some fragments from the field journals were prioritized. It is important to clarify that teacher I works 16 class-hours and teacher II works with a workload of 4 class-hours. Both of them had between 40 and 46 years old, were graduated between 19 ans 24 years, presenting work experience since 1994, and one of them worked more sporadically as a substitute and only in the last 5 years that has worked continuously in children’s education, at an institution, while the other one have always worked with children’s education.

The methodology adopted shows the investigative characteristic with and about the children considering the position in recognizing “the children as social agents, their competence to act, to communicate and cultural exchange” (Rocha, ²⁰⁰⁸, p. 46).

In the process of generating data (Graue & Walsh, ²⁰⁰³), and due to the need to cross sources when listening, different media were used such as: filming, photographs, audio recordings and field journal records.

Considering this methodological organicity it is worth noticing that the methodological research aspects, essentially when it involves the participation of children, constitute one aspect as important as the other elements of writing. Thus, the study was outlined and permeated by significant problematizations that, procedurally, were presented and re-presented by children and teachers in an “attempt to see and understand what is happening in pedagogical work and what the child is capable of doing without any predetermined structure of expectations and norms” (Dahlberg et al., ²⁰⁰³, p. 192).

In this movement, as a synthesis, the study was developed at a kindergarten, with 12 children at the ages of 2 years and 2 months and 3 years and 11 months, two capable teachers, during 3 months¹. The children who were participating on the research were sons and daughters of the employees that worked at the Federal University of Dourados (UFGD), at the State University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UEMS), and of the students from those universities, as well as children that lived near the Children's Education Center (CEI) UFGD.

It becomes significant the interest of knowing and experiencing together with the research subjects – children and teachers -, the possibility to understand the actions in the context of the observed situation and the dynamics of pedagogical work, as well as how the experiences are built qualitatively, for both children and teachers. Accordingly, “teachers need to be supported and recognized in their practices, valued in their attempts and creations so that the sense and the meanings of practice grow” (Ostetto, ²⁰¹⁵, p. 211). Therefore, it is of utmost importance, as researchers:

[...] to do an observation, perception, penetration, participation and interaction exercise in the “here and now” of children, or even in what constitutes the daily lives of the children, whether in formal educational institutions or in other sociocultural spaces which they occupy or are present. (Martins Filho & Barbosa, 2010, p. 13)

Thus, by interacting attentively with the daily lives of children and teachers, differentiating and recognizing the possibilities of experiences and methodological perspectives, possible ways for acting and researching very young children are created. Therefore, by discovering these spaces and places, it becomes possible to integrate the field into a research that includes participant observation, a strong point in researching children (Martins Filho & Barbosa, 2010). In this investigative approach, the researcher is an instrument for generating data due to their dynamic role in the social world. “Confront, get to know a different point of view from the one we would be able to see and analyze within the social world of adults” (Rocha, 2008, p. 46), without ignoring the dialogue with teachers, also subjects of the research.

Another essential element for studies and research about children is the field journal. The field journal is a tool in which the researchers write their notes. These records and notes generally point out the nature of the connections, the ordering and circumstances in which the episodes unfold, as well as the rules operated and their reflections on the observed events. Whichever way you choose to write, the important thing is the density and coherence of the data, as well as its accessibility. (May, ²⁰⁰⁴).

For data analysis, Bardin's content analysis (1977) was used, as it is a set of communications analysis techniques. This methodology points out indicators, whether qualitative or not, that describe the content of messages, which “allow the inference of knowledge that regards the conditions of production and reception of these messages” (Bardin, ¹⁹⁷⁷, p. 42).

The indispensable proximity to the empirical context revealed that, many times, there is a vertical way of thinking the adult-children relationship and that demands reflections and more knowledge about the teachers’ pedagogical experiences to which this research intends to contribute.

Therefore, based on the information presented above, the proposal of this article is to focus on discussions related to the pedagogy of listening, as pointed out by Rinaldi, (2017) and their possibilities, having the child as a central subject of pedagogical praxis along with the teachers.

The pedagogy of listening is an activity of listening to thoughts, the ethics of an encounter built on receptivity and hospitality to the Other – “an opening to the difference of the Other, to the arriving of the Other. It involves an ethical relationship of openness to the Other, trying to listen to the Other in their own position and experience, without treating the Other as an equal” (Rinaldi, ²⁰¹⁷, p. 43). It is in this place, of openness to others, of openness to otherness, to different points of view that the pedagogy of listening is validated.

Between vertical and horizontal: being a child

The plots experienced between adults and children, when discussed in detail, especially based on an attentive analisis, can contribute for the practices to gain movement, diluting the vertical perspective and creating a relationship of greater horizontality, improving working conditions, life experiences, and educational action.

The details can address the possibilities. Therefore, it is worth remembering Manoel de Barros (¹⁹⁹⁶), and the possibility of “trans-seeing” the world, in order to recognize the rarities that children are always discovering in everyday episodes. From the sound of a helicopter to the noise of a mower engine, according to what was written later in this article, everything is worth paying attention to.

Then, we support the need to understand what “things” are significant for children, who need to learn from adults and their peers in their daily lives as living beings in the world. Besides, if one could change the order in which children learn from adults, and ask: Is it possible that adults learn from children, or even that their 'verticalized' conceptions allow us to look at them horizontally?

Due to the discussions and the questions presented, it is necessary to look at the resolutions made by the legislation on children, brought up in the fourth article of the fifth Resolution (Brasil, 2009, p. 19).

[...] the child, as the center of curriculum planning, is a subject of history and rights that in the interactions, relationships and daily practices they experience, build their personal and collective identity, plays, imagines, fantasizes, desires, learns, observes, experiments, narrates, questions and builds meanings about nature and society, producing culture.

In other words, even if the education is tensioned by power relations, registering the child as a central subject of educational planning in legislation is a starting opportunity in the effort to produce an education that respects them in their singularities. Thus, it is important to highlight that the child's point of view defended in the Opinion of the National Education Council, Chamber of Basic Education (CNE/CEB) nº 20 of 2009 (Brazil, 2009) brings conceptual elements that are aligned with a curricular approach for making proposals and pedagogical practices aimed at overcoming the “adult-centered” ideas.

Therefore, the relevance of the National Curricular Guidelines for Early Childhood Education (DCNEI) is recognized in the effort to qualitatively build an early childhood education that embraces the social rights of the children (Brazil, 2009). However, it is important to observe the challenges that arise with the formulation and implementation of the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC) for early childhood education (Coutinho & Côco, ²⁰²²). Thus, some concerns emerge with the processes to implement the BNCC (Brazil, 2018) of Early Childhood Education especially when observing the gradual way in which the learning objectives appear, which can be treated just as a checklist in the day-to-day activities of institutions and not contributing to overcoming visions of Early Childhood Education only as a preparatory stage for primary education (Barbosa et al., 2019).

On top of that, it is urgent to defend:

[...] the articulation of the children's experiences and consciousness with the knowledge that is part of the cultural, artistic, environmental, scientific and technological heritage, in order to promote the integral development of children from 0 to 5 years of age. (Brazil, 2010, p. 12)

Thereby, efforts to understand how children experience the world and construct their knowledge are being made, beyond lists of content, or 'classes' based on commemorative dates (Ostetto, ²⁰⁰⁰), “without evaluating the meaning and formative value of these celebrations, and also the idea that common sense knowledge is what should be treated with young children” (Oliveira, ²⁰¹⁰. p. 4). In the challenges that arise, particularly in the horizon of the possibility of mediating action based on interactions and games established between children, including objects and adults, teachers are called upon to participate in these reflections, since

Teachers are responsible for selecting from the patrimony of systematized knowledge those that fit in the realities of the schools and the children and that are meaningful to children aged zero to five, taking into account their unique ways of developing knowledge. (Barbosa & Oliveira, ²⁰¹⁶, pp. 22-23)

In the social context of the struggle for the recognition of children, it is known that adults (including teachers), within the scope of their practices, even if committed to looking at the child as the center, crediting and validating in them their perceptions about the world and the things around them, they may not be able to get rid of the adult and naturalized way of listening to children. However, “listening is giving value to others; It doesn't matter if you agree with him or not. Learning to listen is a difficult task” (Rinaldi, 2017, p. 209). In the commitment to children and to teaching work, this issue is central to the research, since it is in social relations that voices and listening echo, negotiating hierarchical values – arising from tensions and power – leading children to give meaning and resignify their social and cultural spaces.

Interlocucion of sensitive listening: possibilities of on imaginary word

In the search to bring ‘things’ and ‘details’ closer, to paraphrase Manoel de Barros, it is necessary to discuss the importance of ‘listening’ to the child. Then, the perspective of the pedagogy of listening is recovered (Rinaldi, ²⁰¹⁷, p. 124, emphasis added).

Listening as sensitivity to the patterns that connect us, to what connects us to others; surrendering ourselves to the conviction that our understanding and our very being are just small parts of a broader, integrated knowledge that holds the universe together. Therefore, listening as a metaphor for openness and the sensitivity of hearing and being heard — listening not only with our ears, but with all our senses (sight, touch, smell, taste, hearing and also direction). Listen to the hundred, thousand languages, symbols and codes that we use to express and communicate, that are the ones which life expresses itself and communicates with those who know how to listen. Listening as time, time to listen, a time located outside chronological time — time full of silences, long pauses, an interior time. Inner listening, listening to ourselves, like a pause, a suspension, an element that engenders listening to others, but which is also generated by listening to what others have about us.

Defending the idea of listening means positioning yourself at a detailed dialogical point to interpret how children understand and construct senses and meanings. The discussions presented by Rinaldi (2017) contain essential points of view that are intertwined with the sensible aesthetics of connecting to others. It is in this sensorial movement, in social, cultural and aesthetic perception that the interpretation and production of meanings are perceived, beyond the ears, but with the entire being. So, based on the perception of languages, the codes and symbols that children use to reveal themselves, it is recognized above all that listening demands a time. A time that cannot be measured or timed. “This time combines aspects of the experiences lived by children and adults, enabling the child to develop, create and recreate situations of themselves and the world” (Nogueira & Ferreira, ²⁰¹⁸, p. 164).

The Other when listened to can be the axis of dialogue in the educational sphere, especially in early childhood education, in the probability of learning to broaden our consciousness so we can listen to children, who do not speak only with phrases and verbs, but also with looks, with touch, with the entirety of their being, especially when they are very small.

In official documents, the term ‘sensitivity’ is usually preceded by the expression ‘aesthetics’. Silva (²⁰²¹) highlights that in the field of education there is a lack of debates and reflections about the concept. In addition, the author draws attention to the extreme flexibility of the term, when it is used by anyone however they want, functioning as an empty operator (Silva, ²⁰²¹). In conceptual attention, to listen supported by the aesthetics of sensitivity is to realize that for young children some sounds that surround the environment, which for us adults are crystallized and do not attract our attention, can be new to their ears and begin to exercise a profusion of passports to imaginary worlds. In this case, the event above stands out:

We were in the room when suddenly they heard the sound of machines cutting grass outside the CEI. I realized that they couldn't contain themselves, they wanted to leave the room to see what was happening there. Looking at the machines that simply cut the grass was not that simple... But the movement of the workers and the “noise” of the machines was something that caught their attention. If they left the room to simply identify the sound, what are the meanings of these sounds? I think they went out to discover and access the sound world. (Field Journal, 06/22/2017)

The sound of the lawnmowers was the trigger for the children to move and leave the room independently and curiously. The noises contained in both internal and external environments range from the sound generated by objects and household things, to an object that falls, to the melody of the wind blowing and the singing of birds, among an infinity of timbres and sounds that are freely granted and which can be heard, identified and appreciated at any time by children, who are able to capture the sound nuances of their daily lives.

Imagination, perception, intuition, emotion and creation are part of research exercises, the invention of boys and girls, and are experiences that develop from the happenings which occur in daycare centers and preschools. At this age, most of the things that children do during this period are related to fantasies. In this context, the game and the imagination are closely associated (Pillotto, ²⁰⁰⁷).

In the world of early childhood children, listening, identifying and appreciating amplify the [aesthetics of] sensitivity of all perceptions (Rinaldi, ²⁰¹⁷). In the meantime, it is worth remembering that Freire (²⁰¹⁵) highlights how valuable and indispensable it is to listen to learn how to speak, when one wants to build theories, interpretations and understandings of the reality:

[...] it is not by speaking to others from top to bottom, from above all as if we were the bearers of the truth, that we learn to listen, but it is by listening that we learn to speak to them. Only those who listen patiently and critically to others can talk with them, even if, under certain conditions, they need to speak to them. (Freire, ²⁰¹⁵, p. 111)

As previously mentioned, knowing how to listen to be able to speak with children implies the idea of listening with entirety and attention, and when they are listened carefully the children will have the feeling that they have been taken seriously, as Rinaldi points out (2017). In this discussion, it is important to highlight the free movement of children coming and going, as they left the room to the outside space when something caught their attention. Understand that the events in the external space reflect what is important, both for children and teachers. Their movements in the external space, guided by the noise produced by the machines cutting the grass, leads to the unpredictable everyday life, the understandings and interpretations of a modus vivendi and operandi, a reality based on the aesthetics of sensitivity which re-signifies and stars the social space inhabited by the subjects, who are both children and teachers. When committed to children, it is important to observe:

[...] when there is a commitment not to leave children to their own devices and desires but to imagine ways of “learningments” in which the school does not fail to fulfill its primary role, that is to constitute itself as a space for weaving knowledge. But it is important that this fabric is permeated by the modus operandi of childhood, where the imagination becomes a film for encountering the world, times become more fluid and open to exercises of introspection and contemplation and that offal, remains and rags are treated with due respect. (Pelizzoni, ²⁰¹⁵, p. 17)

This can be in dialogue with the performance of 'learningments', of putting oneself in the same place, listening and focusing on the details, at things that make sense and are important to children, weaving knowledge. It is about learning to listen to children's interests and observing that their ears are “tuned” not only to the sounds produced by the elements of their own environment, but to all experiences in the places they inhabit; as pointed out by Freire, listening will permeate the interest of learning to speak with and for them.

This means that the modus operandi of childhood “is a way of inhabiting the world that is characteristic of children” (Pelizzoni, 2015, p. 6), a privileged form of perception, imagination, subversion, (from the perspective of the adult), faced with an atypical scenario, with adult people away of the daily life of the institution, appropriates a creative activity, a story from their repertoires, and “(re)signifies what is lived, what is heard, what is seen, what is felt, what is populated, smelled and transforms them in an individual and authorial way” (Leite, ²⁰⁰⁷, p. 50). The modus operandi of children and their childhoods follows a time/space specific to their configuration of existing and experiencing the world. For instance:

The children started changing clothes to go to Lucas's birthday party at his house. The room was full of parents who came to help the teachers and take the children. Suddenly, one of the parents' phone rang. Melissa, who was next to me, with a surprised expression, exclaimed: “Ah...! It's the wolf!... It's the noise of the wolf... He's going to blow the house...”. At that moment, among her parents, she was playing pretend with me. I joined in on her joke. (Field Journal, 6/21/2017)

Before we left CEI for the outdoor space, teacher Marli said that we were going for a walk [...] and was advising the children not to leave the sidewalk and to be careful with cars. Melissa tells her sister that they were going for a walk and added: “The wolf is going to come... [...]”. When we were walking on the sidewalk, Melissa, who was walking next to me, said, “Look at the mountain…” to an incline on the sidewalk. (Field Journal, 5/21/2017)

Melissa surprisingly transports the imagination to the real world with her inventiveness, idealizes an imaginary world when she hears a telephone ring and takes us inside the wolf's house, experiencing her creativity. This reinforces that children's “make-believe world” ignores the predefined rules and protocols, creating connection, starting from what is ephemeral, provisional and it is up to them whether or not they will allow adults in and include them. Therefore, (Sarmento, ²⁰⁰³, p. 12):

[...] in which what is true and what is imaginary are strategically confused so that the game is really worth it. In fact, “pretending” is an expression that does not fully capture the way that children introject reality in their games, through the transposition of characters or situations.

Coelho and Pedrosa (2000) also contribute to these reflections by confirming that being between what is real and imaginary gives children the opportunity to manifest roles, invent and reinvent meanings of situations experienced in their daily lives, which allows them to reveal their fears, desires and satisfactions. And, in these actions, which give meaning to their experience, they not only just reproduce the world of adults but also establish a new and incoherent relationship with what the world gives to them (Nascimento, ²⁰¹³, p. 37), stating their individuality.

It is clear that playing make-believe – symbolic play – is experienced daily by children and, since they are coexisting with them, the participation and presence of the teachers becomes essential as in the relationships built there may be “conditions for them to appropriate of certain learnings that promote the development of ways of acting, feeling and thinking that are remarkable in a historical moment” (Oliveira, ²⁰¹⁰, p. 5). Highlighting the teacher’s participation:

The children are playing in the park with a bucket and sand and they say that they are making cake together with teacher Lúcia. They are sitting on the sand. When I approach them, they offer chocolate cake... And also tea. I pick it up and pretend I'm eating and drinking. They make the cake several times. They put “pepper”, “spices”, [...] and hit the sand inside the bucket to form the cake. I observe that the teacher sometimes listens to the children and at other times she talks to them, asking about the next ingredients for the cake. She creates an expectation among the children to unmold the cake: “Slowly so it doesn’t break... Careful... Oh!...”. Vinicius starts to sing: “Olé... Olé...”. Like he was singing happy birthday. She listens, identifies his need and sings the song happy birthday to you. Mateus and the other children follow the teacher and sing too. (Field Journal, 5/6/2017)

It is extremely important to be present and participate with the children, because on some occasions the teacher can carefully observe how they structure and rearrange their playing experiences, how they interact, expanding the scenarios of experiences, learning and development.

The events presented, among many others captured in the research, convey the essence and legitimize children's right to powerful, meaningful experiences. However, it is essential that such experiences are intended, conditioned and carried out in the sphere of the investments linked to guaranteeing the right to teacher training. Thus, granting significance to “things”, especially to detailed things for children, within the scope of the right to education, implies listening to children and teachers, a listening that aims the affirmation and social recognition of early childhood education, conceiving them as competent and culture producers citizens.

The unpredictable as a space/place possibilities

Regarding the definition, unpredictability is something unexpected, which occurs without prior planning, a construction of spaces/places conceived in the dynamics of dialogue, as a transformation process, in the notes of Rinaldi, (2017). It involves experiences, relationships, participation and other movements that stand out in early childhood education, such as the interactive processes between children and between them and adults/teachers, in different spaces of institutions, including external spaces, a topic little studied in the area (Tiriba, 2010).

In the meantime, the debate about children being part of the educational process involves giving visibility to their capabilities and attribute relevance to their experiences, creating a scenario where they develop values and learn. Therefore, it is recognized the need to construct an educational experience where the teachers, as more experienced individuals, have the role of promoting and articulating a path that provides opportunities for different life experiences, if it is taken into account that each child maintains unique contact with the experiences carried out by them.

Childhood cultures are produced by children in the daily life of the institutions, in the experience of doing things and in social interactions with small groups or alone. However, it is only legitimized when it produces and reproduces another reinterpretation that explains their understanding of the world. This debate is present in Sarmento (²⁰⁰⁴), when considering childhood as a structure and an agency of children, as they

[...] have, first and foremost, relational dimensions, they are constituted in the interactions of peers and of children with adults, with distinct representational forms and contents being structured in these relationships. [...] at the same time that they convey specifically childish forms of intelligibility, representation and symbolization of the world. (Sarmento, ²⁰⁰⁴, p. 12)

Thus, it is possible that the proportion of relationships built between peers – children and children –, and from another angle between children and adults, can be considered an element that enhances and transforms the experiences, in education and in promoting learning that are particular to their lives. Therefore, children's cultures are linked to a broader scenario of cultural production and assume different configurations, as a result of the eventualities they are immersed in, since the meaning of things in the world is a construction produced and shared historically. In this case, the following situation is presented:

Some children were in the covered courtyard playing on the slide and others were eating apples and cookies, as they had just woken up. Melissa approached me and offered me an apple. I accepted and pretended to eat it, as if it were a “fake” one, playing with her. She looked at me and said: it's for real food and not fake food! I looked at her and ate the apple. (Field Journal, 6/15/2017)

In the interaction between Melissa and the researcher, there is an episode that reveals signs of a make-believe play, a house play, when the child offers the fruit, and in an attempt to get closer to the children's imagination, the researcher pretends she is eating the apple. When, unexpectedly, the child emphatically says: “Eat it for real!” Based on this scene, it is observed that the dialogues between children and teachers create conditions for the development of increasingly complex skills (Oliveira, ²⁰¹⁰).

The events allow us to consider that, during dialogues and moments of sharing, children give senses and meanings to experiences, opening themselves up to unpredictable elements. Through learning, they reveal knowledge based on principles and characteristics of a subjective and particular process with a focus on the cultural, social and educational dimension and, above all, a powerful and complex childhood. Accordingly, it is possible to question practices that aim at individualized results, often based on standardization and rankings, which can be easily visible in both early childhood and elementary education.

Finally, we aim that, through the events presented, the descriptions and the analysis of the teaching dynamics and the construction of knowledge by children are understood as a heuristic effort to value children as citizens in their noticeable relationships with adults/ teachers whom they interact with daily at the institution.

Final remarks

In this article, along with the development of research, it was addressed the importance of listening as a possibility to interpret how children construct senses and meanings in everyday episodes of educational work, in the context and experiences of a Municipal Early Childhood Education Center. It is understood that, when listening to children, one exercises listening to the other, in the expressions of the eyes, in the touch and with the entirety of the body, that is the guiding axis of dialogue in the educational sphere, in other words, in conducting educational work with small children. Thus, in the constitution of teaching, we advocate the importance of learning to expand our senses to be able to understand how children learn, construct and reconstruct senses and meanings, in the interface with experiences and mediations, as a process of transformation.

Listening stands out as an element of sensitivity, of pathing and construction to recognize children, paying attention to the details that permeate the environment and that make sense, composing experiences that trigger surprises, news, curiosities, investigations and knowledge, transporting them to real and imaginary worlds and calling for partnerships with teaching.

Thus, it is understood that life experiences, supported by sensitive listening, can contribute to understandings and interpretations of a modus vivendi and operandi that gives new meanings and takes center stage in the social space occupied by children and adults, especially in the institutional spaces of Early Childhood Education. This space is inhabited by both children and adults, teachers, which implies the defense of teaching practices based on children's languages, their expressive manifestations and curiosity in detail. Therefore, listening and interacting with children demands respect for their cognitive and existential processes and itineraries, qualifying, (re)signifying and interpreting the construction of senses and meanings in everyday episodes of educational work.