Percursos autoformativos: conversas sobre um devir docente com Henri Bergson

Abstract

In this thesis, I narrate some of the key moments in my teaching journey, reflecting on certain places where I have lived, schools where I have worked, and the stories of two children who left a lasting impression on me. My objectives in this study are as follows: to make the writing of this text a continuous attempt to intuit my teaching memories, to refind the vital impulse that inhabits me, and thus to restore my becoming as a researcher. Based on these objectives, my research question is: what miles have I navigated in shaping my becoming a teacher, and how does Henri Bergson’s philosophy help me make sense of them? To address this, I employ the methodology of conversation, as proposed by Ribeiro, Souza, and Sampaio (2018), who advocate for the life-knowledge amalgam, as well as for drifts as ways to enhance thought. I also draw on the intuitive method developed by Bergson (2005, 2006b), for whom immediate contact with subjective temporality is the source of philosophical knowledge. Moreover, I seek to engage in conversations with other concepts from Bergsonian theory that help me reframe the experiences I have undergone, namely those of hope, laughter, nature, experience, attention, sympathy, friendship, continuity and transformation, good sense, education, intelligence, and movement. I conclude that the experiences related to my becoming a teacher were marked by hopes and disappointments, sympathies and antipathies, changes and continuities, quests and discoveries.