Sopram bons ventos na formação do educador: a análise de um programa deformação de educadores em ação no município de Aracati

Abstract

This dissertation records and analyses an investigation I undertook with teachers from the early grades of the public school system in the Municipality of Aracati, on the coast of Ceará. The study seeks to understand, through the nature of teaching activities performed in cIass and through the school culture itself, the interpretation given to a Program of Teacher Training "in action" which has been carried-out over the past three years as an initiative by the Municipal Education Departrnent (SEMEAR), boasting support from NGOs and Universities in Ceará. The first step of the study is performed between the period in which the Municipality's Strategic Education Plan was drawn-up and the first two years of its execution. This dissertation also offers an analysis of the collective administration of pedagogical issues by the Municipal Education Department, reflecting on management of schools and leading to the creation of an in-service Teacher Training Program in the three years between 1997 and 2000. The second step corresponds to implementation and the first year of operation of the Teacher Training Course for Basic Education in the Ist to s" grades, which is the result of a partnership between the Continued and Distance Learning Centre - NECAD, at Ceará State University - UECE and the Aracati Muncipal Education Department - SEMEAR, and forms the second phase of the Continuous Teacher Training Program of the municipal network of schools. The methodology used may be cIassified as ethnocentric, in which participant observation prevailed. However, I also made use of ethnographic tools such as document analysis, explanatory conversations and teachers' backgrounds. Upon temporarily concluding this study, it is possible to assert that we are already able to see, in the teaching practice of teachers from Aracati, elements of reflective and interactionist stances and that the reconciliation between teachers and their own backgrounds made them see that they are the result of multiple interactions and of the process of training to which they were submitted during their personal and professional development. I became so involved with these stories that, without noticing, I went back in time and rediscovered the story circles of my rural upbringing and for this reason I decided to break somewhat with the formality of academia and permeate my writing with real and mythological stories which enable the reader to exercise his or her imagination and navigate the enchanted worId of narratives.