Reinvention pedagogy: bricolage as a teaching strategy in the face of scarcity in multidisciplinary public education

Abstract

This study investigates the Pedagogy of Reinvention as an innovative educational methodology grounded in pedagogical bricolage and developed within contexts of material scarcity in Brazilian public schools. The research analyzes how low-cost materials, recyclable resources, and territorial elements can function as mediating tools capable of transforming abstract learning into concrete, meaningful cognitive experiences. The investigation is based on a qualitative approach and action-research methodology, supported by the theoretical contributions of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Philippe Perrenoud, Maurice Tardif, Jean Piaget, Célestin Freinet, and contemporary neuroscience studies. Data were collected during an eighteen-month immersion in multi-grade classrooms from the 3rd to the 6th grade of elementary education. The results demonstrate that pedagogical bricolage strengthens logical reasoning, promotes scientific literacy, broadens student engagement, and favors the consolidation of long-term memory through multisensory learning experiences. Furthermore, the study validates the intellectual role of the teacher-bricoleur as a producer of resilient educational technologies capable of democratizing knowledge even in scenarios marked by infrastructural limitations. These findings reinforce that the greatest educational technology does not reside in digital equipment itself, but rather in pedagogical intentionality and the teaching capacity to transform simplicity into scientific and cognitive complexity.