Otília Forster: a teacher and the discontinuities of a hygienist physical education in Campinas (1937-1945)

Abstract

The study aimed to understand how sports and gymnastics, present in schools in Physical Education classes, were organized around a pedagogical project of education and health compared to the “physical education practices” that occurred in public schools in Campinas. By analyzing the work developed by teacher Otília Forster between 1937 and 1945, the research seeks to highlight the discontinuities between the hygienist purposes professed in pedagogical discourses and the difficulties faced by teachers in their work in schools. For this, we conducted a historical research that had as its main sources documents that make up the collection of said teacher at the Unicamp Memory Center (CMU), which is formed by personal documents, activity reports, and photographs about the works and events organized by her between 1937 and 1945. Through these sources, it was possible to identify that sports and gymnastics developed in the school groups of the Regional Education Delegation of Campinas, shaping a physical education of young people with hygienist assumptions through discontinuities between the educational project and the “physical education practices”. In this context, Physical Education was highlighted by educators in the discursive field for the assimilation of values, behaviors, and attitudes. However, this hygienist representation of Physical Education collided with inadequate material conditions in schools in the interior of São Paulo. We observed, therefore, that physical education practices did not occur homogeneously, as they gained their own dynamics due to economic and social inequalities that exposed the social differences among children.

Keywords:
History of education; Physical Education; Hygienism