“Time, as the world itself, has two hemispheres: an upper and visible, which is the past, and a lower and invisible that is the future. At the center of one and other hemisphere lie time horizons; these present moments that we live, where the past ends and the future begins.” Padre António Vieira, História do Futuro, (1718) This work resulted from my life and professional path, which was built on the whim of life happenings and culminated in the learning and reflections, triggered by attending a Master’s Degree in Science of Education, Specialization in School Administration and Organization. The title of the report, The teacher's path among challenges and paradoxes – a tale of unwisdom, conforms to the author’s experiences as a certified professional in education, in times of profound change, both in schools and teachers' skills. The work is divided into three chapters. The first chapter is concerned with the theoretical framework regarding the issues addressed, highlighting the importance of a reflexive teachers’ attitude in their professional exercise, facilitator of an individual training process that emerges from themselves, their experiences and reflections. In this context are to be noted, for their relevance, autobiographical and reflective narratives for a change in practice, acknowledging that it is through life stories that new training proposals for teachers and the teaching profession are identified. (Nóvoa, 2007). In the second chapter, I present a reflective analysis on my teaching practice through a thorough account on the many schools I have taught, trying to highlight the defining moments, both positive and negative, of my career and their relevance to my professional development. In the scope of the third chapter, I highlight the most landmark cases/dilemmas of my journey through teaching and the solutions approached to solve them. It is a narrative piece of writing that shows the experiences that I have lived and enjoyed and which have contributed in an indelible way to my professional development and (re) construction of my professional identity. The explanation and interpretation of my professional path are materialized on the basis of the theoretical frameworks of Educational Sciences. The intention is to present a grounded theoretical approach of my experience as a teacher in several Portuguese public schools of basic and secondary education. This experience began in 1988, when I first started teaching, and has continued up to the present and has been marked by many "stumbling blocks", defining moments of my teaching profession. Thus, this narrative emphasizes the description of dilemmas / cases that have arisen in my daily life, identifies the defining moments, both positive and negative, of my career and the way I felt at school, assuming that teachers’ stories / narratives are key to the understanding of the way they live, feel and manage their day-to-day at school. According to Hargreaves & Fullan (1992), a teacher´s career is the result of a process of ongoing development and training, to which the knowledge acquired throughout professional life, one’s character and the socio-economic context in which one works have also contributed. It is also acknowledged, in this work, that both personal and professional development and the identity formation of the individual as a person, different from the others’, result from the fact of one belonging to a certain social class, being educated according to the values inherent to it, with a distinguished academic record, achieved in certain schools and with different experiences that have shaped one’s character. Often do teachers compare their professional path to a journey, a metaphor that best illustrates the joys and pitfalls inherent to it, but which have made this journey most unforgettable and unrivaled. My professional path has been marked by many obstacles but, as in travel stories, being able to overcome them has given me great moments of joy. The sharing of dilemmas and teaching situations, frustrations, joys, strategies, teaching methodology, academic and pedagogical knowledge may not only contribute to further knowledge and professional development, but also to a more open-minded attitude towards the educational community, where teachers do their work, and greater personal involvement in the school educational project. If a favorable atmosphere and time exist or are created in schools, so as to facilitate the sharing of a common feeling, introducing and comparing it with the plural, everyone will profit: teachers, students and the education system in general. From the conducted analysis, two aspects are worth mentioning: on the one hand, the feeling of anxiety most teachers experience, caused by the loss of legitimacy in traditional teaching, the result of numerous and, often, contradictory changes; on the other hand, though one appreciates sharing and collaborative work, this is still a mirage in our schools. Pierre Furter states that "the horizon doesn’t exist to bring us back to our origin, but to allow us to measure all the distance we still have to go. The Homo Viator builds a house just for the necessary time, for it is walking that he finds himself and discovers the meaning of his action." (Furter, 1966: 26). It becomes necessary for a thought not to be limited by the boundaries of the immediate, or the illusion of a more than perfect future. In the light of what Reinhart Koselleck believes (1990), I am interested in understanding in what way the past is written in our current experience and how the future already insinuates itself into present history”. (Nóvoa, 2009: 1)
| Date of Award | 2014 |
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| Original language | Portuguese |
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| Awarding Institution | - Universidade Católica Portuguesa
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| Supervisor | José Matias Alves (Supervisor) |
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