YORUBA NARRATIVES IN SCHOOL

PROBLEMATIZING THE NOTION OF PROGRESS IN AN ACTIVITY ON THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Abstract

In this article, we present an excerpt from a larger research project aimed at integrating Yoruba narratives into the curriculum across various school subjects at a municipal school in Rio de Janeiro. By establishing a dialogue between teaching practices and the concepts of decoloniality as articulated by Catherine Walsh, and the Pedagogy of Crossroads by Luiz Rufino, we seek to foster intersections between school traditions and the appreciation of cultural diversity, particularly attentive to what Azoilda Trindade has presented as Afro-Brazilian civilizational values. Specifically in this article, we describe one of the proposed teaching practices, which involves a dialogical approach between the Itã narrative recounting the origins of the rivers of Obá and Oxum, female Orishas associated with waters, and the curricular content on the Industrial Revolution, suggesting a historical analysis of its consequences and issues related to Natural Sciences. We aim to strengthen the hypothesis that Yoruba cultural narratives support a decolonial pedagogy and an education committed to ethnic-racial relations, advocating for the inclusion of ancestral knowledge as a counterpoint to the Eurocentric view of progress. This emphasizes the existence of alternative perspectives on understanding the world beyond coloniality.