Teaching art in youth and adult education: an analysis based on the experience in Cuiabá city, Brazil

This article presents the results of a Master´s study conducted at the Graduate Program in Education of Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso, which sought to understand how educational practices occur in the teaching of art in Youth and Adult Education in Cuiabá city, Mato Grosso state, Brazil, using qualitative, descriptive and interpretative methodology. Conceiving teaching in a constructivist perspective, based on the triangular proposal for the teaching of art, which emphasizes actual doing, reading and contextualization during the classes, we observed how the teacher acted as a mediator in the construction of the knowledge of Art. Such knowledge is important as education is grounded on the construction of knowledge, which is actually achieved by human activity and, in this case, art. Although some young and adult students had concepts of art that needed to be expanded, the teacher sought, through the contact with the different artistic expressions, to lead students to develop the concept that art is a human production, that is, an object of knowledge which has been an integral part of life since the dawn of mankind. She also sought to teach that learning how to read, how to understand a work of art, makes the students become competent readers who can produce meaningful interpretations of the world around them. Therefore, the concepts and practices of art produced by the students are important, as they are constructions of knowledge based on their life experiences