PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN NORMAL SCHOOLS IN CAXIAS DO SUL/RS (1947-1961):

MEMORIES OF A FORMATIVE COURSE

Abstract

Physical Education taught in Normal Schools sought to bring the discipline closer to medical, military
and hygienist precepts, and with activities related to daily life in primary education. This study aims to understand how the training processes of Physical Education were developed at the Escola Normal Duque de Caxias and at Escola Normal São José de Caxias do Sul/RS between 1947 and 1961, using historical documents and memories of teachers and student. It is anchored in the theoretical assumptions of cultural history due to the possibilities of identifying how a historical narrative is constituted and represented in its different contexts, in
everyday experiences, in spaces and times. The methodology used was oral history, through semi-structured interviews compared with documentary analysis, considering: laws, decrees, institutional records, newspapers and photographs accessed in different collections in RS. The study was composed of six subjects, three Physical Education teachers and three normal students. Empirical evidence points to the existence/presence of training processes methodologically guided by the French Gymnastic Method, with calisthenic exercises and different
forms of gymnastics led by medical and military precepts present in the 1930s, which lasted in a more significant way until the 1950s. In the 1950s, such practices began to be used as a form of warm-up for other physical activities and were replaced by sports, mainly volleyball, newcomb and hunter in the local context and also by other practices, such as sports, games and games created and invented by teachers and/or normalists.