Study and living history: a complex look at the study of the past

Abstract

The study of complexity theories was of fundamental importance to trigger a research on the process of cognition and subjectivation of students and teachers participating in an experience called History Class - World Day of Rock (AH-DMR), a pedagogical environment organized in an elementary school in the state of Rio Grande do Sul since 2008. As a starting point for the intertwining of the complexity perspective (MORIN, 2013), the Biology of Cognition (MATURANA and VARELA, 2011), the narratives studies (GONÇALVES, 2002) and AH-DMR experience itself, conceived as a noisy learning environment, this reflection had the objective of problematizing to what extent studying History could mean living History. This research used a predominantly qualitative methodology and was based on the existence of a dynamical relationship between AH-DMR experience and the process of cognition and subjectivation of its participants. In a general way, this study allowed me to perceive History as an emotionalized and embodied action on what we know as the past, by re-signifying the historical becoming and thus expanding the study of History from the point of view of complexity. In addition, I operated in this research with the perception that each participant in the AH-DMR learning environment, studying the past and at the same time experiencing that past, not only elaborated a narrative about it but, above all, was him/herself in History and also assumed his/her authorship over History.