FORMAL AND NON-FORMAL EDUCATION: EDUCATIONAL POSSIBILITIES AND PRACTICES

Abstract

The aforementioned research explores formal and informal education and focuses on educational practices. It is intertwined with a study that aimed to analyze the development of educational practices at a public municipal school focusing on elementary education in the Cariri region, specifically in the city of Nova Olinda, Ceará, in 2024. The outcome of this investigation is based on an open and necessary dialogue, which is key to determining the advancement of education and the development of each student. Furthermore, the work reveals the reflective role of local knowledge, giving meaning and significance to students. The partnership between the school and the Casa Grande Foundation has had a multifaceted effect, resulting in a solid and effective education. The link between this partnership (school and foundation) has positively benefited the focus of this connection: building and developing citizenship. In whole or in part, this partnership restored a strong relational empowerment based on the territory for new knowledge, thus enabling the education offered to outline new plans and the plurality of knowledge to be argued with greater evidence. Furthermore, it transformed the reality of children and adolescents living in southern Ceará, in Northeastern Brazil. To qualify the methodological approach, we embarked on a path that combines a qualitative approach and field research, adopting an ethnomethodological approach. The analytical tool used was the use of an open-ended, semi-structured questionnaire with 10 questions directed at each specific group (school) and (foundation). In this context, we included a field diary focused on data collection with a population of 35 people. Above all, we highlight bibliographic research, understanding that formal and informal education have relevance because they are part of the list of authors who have appropriated formal and informal educational contexts. Certainly, research reveals that knowing how to do and build has become the "hot topic," where students are protagonists of their own stories, regardless of whether they are formally or informally engaged in education. Above all, the partnership between the school and Fundação Casa Grande has led to the understanding that students are capable of being competent and acting responsibly, ensuring a competitive edge wherever they are (formal or informal). However, research reveals that this field is fertile, as "being" makes all the difference. However, the formal educational field is undermined by inferences between those who teach and those being taught. Possibilities exist, but they depend on each plurality of knowledge. Nowadays, this formal field is no longer sufficient, as informal learning is breaking down the barriers of nonconformity, enabling students to compete beyond the confines of school and toward a job market that is unforgiving to those who deserve it. What matters in this duel between school and Foundation is knowing how to reap the rewards and make a difference in a world where scripted learning is no longer advantageous. However, what aligns with this duality is embracing the perspective of fertile dialogue: education and development of citizenship, pluralistic and respectful in its full sense of duty fulfilled. Formal education is limited, and non-formal education restores this empowerment of being, existing, and remaining, breaking down the barriers of scripted and agreed-upon learning, moving toward a pluralistic format that truly and legally promotes the construction of new educational practices: knowing how to do, knowing how to do, and knowing how to be. Non-formal education is relatively solid and effective; everything can be constructed. Everything is possible, and the possibilities of breaking from what is said to what is unsaid and vice versa. In the meantime, it is concluded that students learn to learn with their mental model of education, and to this end, they perceive in their intellectual power the softness of their personal territory as: the territory of those who teach and are taught, of those who educate and are educated, and, furthermore, of those who energize knowledge. Without utopia, the social function of education, whether formal or informal, is to make men and women free, capable of constructing and transforming knowledge throughout their history, and awakening this feeling is urgent. Finally, it is also concluded that the school and the Casa Grande Foundation walk different paths regarding knowledge production. In this regard, while the school has educational projects for the student and within the student (the school floor), the Casa Grande Foundation focuses on projects that go beyond the school floor and enter the territory and threshold of their daily lives (for the school floor and beyond). However, it became clear that the institutions walk and dialogue with different purposes. But the possibilities intertwine: the meaning of education is the same. It is understood that the possibilities of this path (being) assertively possible are the essence of the appropriation of the plurality of knowledge, as it is the only way to move forward together (school and foundation), thus transforming individuals into critical human beings, strongly aware of their rights, duties, and obligations. Otherwise, humankind will never be fully free. Finally, for formal and informal education to move forward together, they require educational possibilities and practices that focus on the individual, with the capacity for empowerment beyond the school walls.