Pró-docente rural: uma extensão do saber no fazer

Abstract

This study consists of assessment report on the Programme for first leveI rural teaching competency - FOR RURAL TEACHERS. It is the result of a combined effort on the part of the Federal University of Ceará's Pro-Rectory for Extension Courses and the Prefecture of the Municipality of Aquiraz-Ceará. The programme began in the second half of 1979 and was completed in the second half of 1986. The programme concerns the preparing of untrained teachers for their teaching profession. Two proposals for competency had been made: the first giving priority to content domination over methodblogical proceedures, and the other emphasizing domination of work techniques, the results being, in practical education terms artificial and divorced from the dominant learning pattern. The "For Rural Teachers" programme concerns a way for making teachers competent in their profession, and opts for the first proposal as it considers a teacher well instructed from the point of view of learning, capable of organizing alternative forms of teaching. The study hopes to identify the type of school knowledge found among those being trained, and to explain their performance from the formation they have received and the power structure present in the educational system, especially in the classroom situation. The theory for the interpretation of the results is based on a socio-critical pedagogy of teaching contents, as expressed by such authors as José Carlos Libâneo, Neidson Rodrigues, Guiomar Namo de Mello e Dermeval Saviani. This work is a descriptive assessment af a case study characterized by an analysis carried out in two stages: 1. The current configuration of teachers in the Municipality of Aquiraz-Ceará, where the following factores were presented and discussed: living and working conditions; teaching formation and practice, as well as opinions given on these matters; motivation and teacher expectations regarding their profession. 2. The affects of formation in pedagogical capability, taking into consideration the formal schooling of the teacher in a rural school and the "FOR RURAL TEACHERS" program, in the capability process and the resulting practical educational dimension observed in school cases. The results indicated competency shown by the Teacher Training Project, and manifested in this study by the aquisition of knowledge concerning WHAT and HOW to teach, and the spreading of this KNOWING/DOING among the non-trained teachers in the school cases. It was furthermore observed that the manifestation of knowing/doing depended on the relationship of power present in the internal structure of the schools, and represented in the person of the School Director, who can facilitate dependent or autonomous action, involving the interests of his or her social class. In the cases that were studied, the schools reproduced the power structure represented by the political connections and unions - the majority being clientele.