Barefoot and flip-flop in their hands: school experiences of women farmers

Abstract

This paper reviews the school memories of women farmers participants of youth and adult education in Espigão Grande, in the city of Maracajá, SC, held in the years between 2002 and 2004, with emphasis on participation in multigrade/isolated school, school dropout and agricultural child labor. Based on the narratives of women farmers, an attempt was made to describe the memories of enrolling/not enrolling in school during childhood, their school trajectories and the reasons for dropping out of school due to work in agriculture. Oral history and memory were used to review the narratives of these women, who highlighted the experiences of the school period in childhood, child labor and the feeling of sadness when they stopped attending school. In this analysis, it was possible to identify that attending school only represented a phase of childhood in which it was not necessary to work in the fields. This period was recalled with memories of the games, memories of the difficulties – such as walking from the home to school –, learning at school – how to learn to read and to write – and the opportunity to be close to other children and have the experiences of another environment. And for one of these women, who did not attend school as a child, the memories of working in agriculture to help with family subsistence and the lack of a teacher in the isolated/multi-grade school when she enrolled in the school in childhood, at the age of seven, stood out as the most significant.