Yesterday and today: (extra)ordinary records in an area of agrarian reform in Brazil

This paper aims to present two potential instruments that will address the lack of knowledge in regard to the context of students’ reality from teaching professionals in a specific school, these being: a local historiography (record of yesterday), based on oral history; and a reality inventory (record of today), elaborated from the assumptions of action research. Moreover, the objective is to argue the potential they have so as to avoid, on the part of school professionals, the mistake of not knowing the reality of the context of students. To achieve this, we present a brief description of the experiences we have had with these instruments in an area of agrarian reform with the Landless Workers Movement (MST), in southern Brazil. The study concludes with certain characteristics that are involved in the process of creating these instruments in order to achieve their potential, that is the support of local leaders, collaboration with the community, and the connection with the research.