This paper presents a way of organizing the narrative compatible with the discursive construction, since it consists in a fallback in time to evoke past events/facts on various stages and present them conjugated with updated information, in order to promote reflection. Highlighting crucial moments of that professional path is reason for a thorough and indispensable reflection. Within so many experiences, it is difficult to remember all the moments or situations which might be interesting to explain. Nor is it easy to isolate some of those experiences, point them out and attribute, at least apparently, greater importance. We tried to distance from emotions so that the selection could be more objective and could allow reflection and a more advantageous theoretical basis. As an organizational framework we decided to present the stages of our professional path in a chronological perspective, highlighting the performance of some positions, functions, achievements and/or difficulties. Nevertheless, from everything that we could address, we isolated the topics that, in our view, present correlations and are conspicuous because of their present day relevance, and placed them as the core of our discussion and reflection. Continuous training, teachers‟ evaluation, department coordination or supervision cannot be dealt with as sealed subjects, for they are interrelated concepts and even the choice of a chronological perspective would not reverse its interdependence. First we present a brief explanation of the concepts of school and of being a teacher, explaining some of the aspects that we consider as being relevant to us. As far as the concept of school as an institution, we focused on its evolution over the past decades, especially on what refers to the public whom it served and the dilemmas brought on by the undeniable changes which it went through. The reflection on what it is to be a teacher begins with the allusion to a subject much in vogue and which relates to the attempt to determine the professional identity of teachers. The answer to this question lies, at least partially, in an attempt to solve the problems which arose from the generalization of schooling. School, which was first directed towards the privileged, opened up to society in general before an effective preparation for this change had taken place. We also dared to attempt to understand what underlies the existence of such great disparity, either in the manner of conceiving education or in the delivery, availability, acceptance or rejection of evaluation models and other related details. We made a vague reference with a brief reference to the initial instruction to emphasize its importance. Since it is not the subject of this discussion we moved on to the description of teachers‟ training, which we believe to be one of the most determinant steps in the life of a teacher. We praised the professional attitude of the supervisor, referring to mutual empathy, the importance of the work done and its reflections on our practices. We then refered to the evaluation process that existed and our disagreement over it. When a model of teacher‟s evaluation finally appeared, many were the factors that emerged in order to hinder its implementation. Regardless of our position on matters of detail, we appreciate the principle behind it: a willingness to change. The topic of autonomy arises precisely because we engaged ourselves in the realization of determinations issued by the Decree-Law No. 115-A/98 of May 4th. There is a noticeable importance of the Gradual Improvement Plan in the involvement of all who intervene in the educational process in order to improve the results. An ever growing number of functions have been attributed to the intermediate management structures, namely the coordination of the curriculum department. This function is of great importance since the coordinator is the guide of the group and must have suitable characteristics for a diligent performance. The fulfillment of this position must be based on serious assumptions, such as to allow colleagues to find some comfort when becoming aware of their weaknesses and security in times of sharing. We defend the idea that the teacher should be in constant training to be able to meet the challenges of our present day school. We have explained the need for teachers to learn about the educative project so that, depending on its goals, they can determine the most appropriate and pressing training needs. In the ideal plan, the continuous training should be a shared project for teachers of a particular school but with the possibility of a subdivision by teaching areas. It is said that the formative activities involving and mobilizing all the concerned, lead to the promotion of a culture based on collaborative work, keeping in view the improvement of practices which will lead to the improvement of teaching and learning. We vaguely referred to the changes introduced by the new model of evaluation of teachers‟ performance, pointing out one of the key principles contained in this paradigm which is to improve the quality of educational services (both in terms of students‟ learning and in terms of professional development for teachers). Still regarding the evaluation, we found that one of the areas places emphasis on the development and training throughout life, giving it greater importance. Taking into account the formative character that underlies the whole process of evaluation of teachers‟ performance, we verified that the activation of each one of the concepts necessarily stimulates the other. Between training and assessment there seems to be a peculiar connection which confuses the perception regarding the precedence or primacy of concepts, that is, they are mixed up when we want to separate them to understand which of both is the cause and which is the result. For a long time supervision has been associated to the inspection act, in which each party had clear control and submission functions, respectively. This may have been the source of the negative connotations that the word took on, a significance that, in fact, still holds today. We present the concept and defend its effective appropriation and implementation in schools‟ everyday life.
| Date of Award | 2012 |
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| Original language | Portuguese |
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| Awarding Institution | - Universidade Católica Portuguesa
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| Supervisor | Célia Ribeiro (Supervisor) |
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