1.11 Momentinho Cultural
It is known that human attention is limited. The attention span – the period of time that an individual can maintain an ideal state of attention – has a median of between 27 and 72 seconds to perform a visual task of continuous performance (Simon et al. 2023, 21). Therefore, in an effort to give classes greater dynamism, (Zabala and Müller 2015) and (Zabala and Müller 2016) propose Momentinho Cultural. It is a break with a time determined arbitrarily by the teacher, with the main function of relaxing the environment. Such arbitrariness provides the teacher with autonomy not to carry out the MC, if he deems it necessary.
‘Momentinho’ suggests a brief pause, while ‘Cultural’ aims to guide free discussion towards higher issues. The topics covered most frequently are Music, Theatre, Cinema and current affairs. Some benefits of applying the method can be listed:
- relax
- it’s fun
- encourages communication between students and teacher
- creates an environment for discussing fundamental issues that do not find space in the formal curriculum.
But justice be done to the masters who already used this technique, which was transmitted to the author by professor João Beal Vargas during his magnetic classes. The teacher, marathon runner, poet and accordionist Chico Silveira used to perform his MC, ‘Momento do Chico’. Interestingly, another wise teacher – the always cheerful José Baratojo – teaches us about this art, entitled ‘zunzun’ in his short story ‘Psychology of colors’ (Baratojo 2000, 56–57), transcribed below
Color psychology
A few years ago I received a group of students (47 students and 3 men) from the Psychology Course. As you can imagine, the most difficult part of the class was not related to the Mathematics subjects that I had to teach them, but rather, getting the students to stop talking. First of all, I reached an agreement with that friendly and polite group, which consisted of having from time to time, after explaining a subject, a moment that we called ``buzz’’. In this way, we remained well-acquainted until the end of the semester.
As the class was large, I decided, in the first task to check learning, to organize four different tests and, so that I could identify them from afar, I made them on paper in different colors: yellow, green, pink and white. The students immediately realized that there were four different tests and each one tried to solve their own, as it was not possible to check it with their neighbors’.
In the second work, I decided to do only two different tests, but I also distributed those tests on paper with four different colors. When they saw the colors, they lowered their heads and began to work, calmly. In the third and final job, I did a single test and continued using the four colors and the work was also carried out very calmly. At the end of the last work, they realized, comparing the questions they had solved, that everyone had the same test and, so, they came to ask me: “Professor! Was there only one test?” I answered them affirmatively.
“Then why did you use the four different colors?”
Then I told them: I used the four colors for three main reasons: 1st so you would think there were four different tests, which you really thought; 2nd so that you, thinking this way, could carry out the test calmly, without worrying about your neighbors, which also happened; 3rd so that psychology students could see the influence of colors on human behavior!