GEOTECHNOLOGIES AND PROACTIVE EDUCATION IN THE AMAZON REGION: AN EXAMPLE

Abstract

At a world level, the teaching method still prevalent in educational systems consists in the pouring of knowledge from the source, the teacher, to the student, the semi-inert receiver. The "Magister dixit", as it is known, literally means "as told by the master". Putting it in less emblematic terms, education consists in providing the learner with an autonomous development, based on a learning structure that promotes knowledge acquisition through the student's involvement with signifcant situations. It is paramount the understanding that education comprises two distinct stages: teaching, the professors' job, and learning, which is accomplished by the student whenever they are properly stimulated and supported. Such a goal can be achieved by a "Proactive Education" that prioritizes learning. Therefore, this work reports learning practices experiments by using geotechnologies for the promotion of Proactive Education conducted in the southeast region of the state of Pará. The environmental knowledge thus acquired and diffused by those young people in direct and organized contact with the risks, potentialities, opportunities and threats that exist in their environment promotes their inclusion in the physical, biotic and socioeconomic reality in which they live.