Experiências do tornar-se professora

Abstract

This study focuses on the teacher training process of teachers from the initial years of elementary school. It aims, more specifically, to examine experiences that have contributed to the construction of their teaching knowledge and their professionalities, lived in contexts of pedagogical practice. It has sought to collect experiences with significance, that is, experiences that have influenced the work of these teachers, occurred in the initial training and throughout the teaching career. It has also scrutinized for objective and subjective conditions involved in the process of learning about teaching, so as to interpret possibilities and impossibilities related to experience. Comprehensive interview principles subsidized procedures of data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Thirteen teachers take part in the research. They were intentionally chosen with pre-defined criteria and profiles, in order to ensure the composition of a representative group of professionals, recognized by their commitment to student learning and successful in their teaching practices. From the analysis of the data emerged aspects related to the singularities with which the teachers become teachers of the initial years, among which stand out: (a) the teachers' knowledge that help them to “deliver the goods” of working with children were not built with primacy neither in the context of initial training, represented by the teaching and pedagogical courses, nor in the continuing education courses, but in the practice within the school; (b) the school and the basic education classroom are recognized as privileged spaces for teaching learning, mainly because they provide meaningful experiences, although they lack mechanisms to share these with professional peers, through mediation and reflections processes; (c) the educational system, through the policies that have exerted control over the schools, represents a strong obstacle to the work and the formation of these teachers, since their competence and autonomy are put in a hard spot; (d) the conflicting situations of everyday school work for teachers, especially for those who have more teaching time, as a "niche" for the production of experiences capable of making sense of their actions, although such situations do not fail to indicate the constant presence of a scenario marked by the survival of teaching work; (e) through reflective deliberation and courage to act, the teachers elaborate their experiences seeking internal coherence among their pedagogical convictions and what the environment offers them, confirming that the experience does not depend only on external and objective conditions, but is also determined by the desire, attitude and purpose of each one.