Experiencing otherness as ethnic-racial and environmental education: multiplying natures in school

Abstract

This article describes the potential of a school garden, in which students engaged with the indigenous concept of Tekoha. In an education for ethnic-racial and environmental relations, the objective was to analyze how experiences with alterity contribute to initiating "ecological paths", expanding realities with different natures from that incorporated via colonial thought. These paths were activated by the encounter with the Guarani-Kaiowa culture, developing a view of the students to coexistence, in the form of an understanding of the Earth as a participant and not just a scenario of human actions. The pedagogical practices sought a new attitude regarding the stereotypes formulated about the indigenous people, and the initiation to care and diversity as skills, based on the affirmation of one's own belonging to the school territory, as well as the recognition of multiple ways of belonging to it and to the planet.