Habitando a Escola com I.A (Inteligência Artística)

Abstract

The teaching proposal Inhabiting the School with A.I., developed within the scope of the supervised practicum in Visual Arts at Escola Secundária Dr. Joaquim Gomes Ferreira Alves, constituted a critical and interdisciplinary pedagogical experience, bridging the 8th grade cycle (Visual Education) and the 10th grade cycle (Drawing). It sought to function as an exercise in an integrative curriculum by proposing the symbolic and aesthetic reconfiguration of school spaces and by fostering processes of dialogue, co-authorship, and experimentation. Drawing inspiration from authors such as Spinoza, Freire, hooks, Clark, and Dewey, the proposal emphasized the affective, aesthetic, and collective dimensions of learning, promoting autonomy, communication, and shared responsibility in alignment with the principles of the Perfil dos Alunos à Saída da Escolaridade Obrigatória [Student Profile by the End of Compulsory Schooling] and the School's Cultural Project. The experience highlighted the importance of art as a practice of questioning, empowerment, and emancipation, refusing its reduction to decorative or instrumental purposes and affirming it instead as a means of critical transformation of school spaces. Interdisciplinarity, articulated across different disciplinary domains, revealed the potential of integrating knowledge, while also exposing limits related to curricular fragmentation, bureaucratization, and the challenge of engaging families and communities. Despite these constraints, the projects developed-such as collective murals, reading environments, and sensory installations-confirmed students' capacity to inhabit the school creatively, critically, and collaboratively. As a future educator, I recognize in this experience the possibility of conceiving the school as an aesthetic, social, and political territory, in which students are invited to act as creative subjects and active participants. I therefore advocate for the valorization of interdisciplinary artistic practices that foster co-responsibility and holistic formation, understanding education as a practice of realistic hope (hooks, 2017). Inhabiting the School with A.I., demonstrated that the teaching of Visual Arts can make a significant contribution to critically consolidating essential learning, strengthening peer relationships, and promoting a democratic, inclusive school open to collective reinvention.