Gymnastics for all: a challenging experience with high school students from the South-East Federal Institute of Minas Gerais/Brazil

Abstract

This article has been written in the interest in spreading the gymnastics in schooling spaces, since it is almost nonexistent due to the lack of infrastructure and poor professional training. Gymnastics is essential to formal education, since it enables general education and provides humans with valuable experiences with their bodies. At school, it is necessary to redefine senses and create new experiences, in order to widen the expression of such experiences. Therefore, it is believed that Gymnastics For All (GFA) may bring the opportunity to reconstruct gymnastics for Physical Education (PE) in the school environment through a perspective of confrontation and synthesis, which is also creative, playful, and participative. As a result, this study has the objective of reporting a GFA experience, developed with six groups of 40 students, belonging to different classrooms in the first year of high school, from the South-East Federal Institute of Minas Gerais in Brazil. The PE classes in this Institute follow the historical-critical perspective. Such approach recognizes the contribution of education in changing society, offering individuals great historical, cultural, scientific, and body knowledge. The challenge was to experience the same choreography of the global team, which was developed for the XVI World Gymnaestrada, which took place in Austria in July of 2019. With the awareness that it is essential to cooperate, participate, and build collectively, students left their fear behind and plunged into the new experience. Furthermore, the noncompetitive practice of gymnastics permitted knowledge, learning, practical experience, and the ability to present. During six weeks, 240 students broke paradigms and experienced playful, affective, cooperative, and physical movements, while participating in the GFA activities.