Alice in the country of rocks and what she did not find there: adaptation of the communication title from Conrado Paschoale, in memoriam

Abstract

Introduction. This article proposes a reflection about Geology teaching in basic education, using a seminal contribution of the author Conrado Paschoale: “Alice in the Geology land and what she found there”. Objective. The objective is to center a reflection on the training of a teacher who never could learn Geology by “doing it” but is obliged to develop related contents in classrooms. Methodology Starting from the “Alice” proposal, we find a professor entering the world of Geology, but finds nothing, because he/she lacks geoscientific knowledge to understand and, therefore, to teach, too. Results. Poor teacher training generates cascading problems, especially at a time when new discoveries in Geosciences demand rapid teacher updating. Faced with simplistic representations and models, the teacher needs to develop a high level of conceptual abstraction – such as the conception of Geological Time, among many others – in order to understand how the planet Earth works. Conclusion. Aggregating new knowledge and relating it to previous knowledge seems to be a satisfactory way for interrupting a vicious circle in which the poor quality of teaching is due to poor teacher training.