Profissão professora : narrativas de vidas e de (trans)formação

Abstract

This Master's thesis originated from the researcher's interest in investigating, through life narratives, the teaching profession. In this way, she sought to deepen the theme through qualitative narrative research. Two early-year teachers who worked in the private school network in Porto Alegre and who had more than ten years of experience were surveyed. Thus, the research aimed to investigate the teachers' understanding of their profession, perceiving the relationships that are established with their training, practices, conditions, and workplace. Still, it related the teaching experiences with the researcher's narrative. The main authors that make up the theoretical framework of this dissertation and that dialogue with the research are Paulo Freire, Heleieth Saffioti, Edla Eggert, Marie-Christine Josso, Jean Clandinin, Michael Connely, António Nóvoa, Hermílio Santos, Francisco Imbernón, José Contreras Domingo and Carlos Marcelo Garcia. In short, in this research it was discovered that the teachers of the beginning years of the private school network entered teaching from a desire that emerged from childhood and despite not finding themselves traditional, throughout the profession it became evident that they were acquiring, each time more, an administrative, technical, and bureaucratic character. So bureaucratic that it made them follow the rules of a hidden and supervised curriculum. This made them lose their autonomy and professional identity, as well as being overworked, thus resulting in their psychic illness. As a form of liberation, the political act of the teachers was to leave the private school and find themselves in the profession in another environment. As possible ways to improve the lives of teachers in private schools, this research found investment and appreciation through continued education, a decent salary, autonomy of teachers to participate and decide on school actions and investment in an intellectual environment in which work collaboratively and horizontally.