Continued formation in school-level Physical Education: from established initiatives to in-between formative spaces

Abstract

This study aims to analyze and give visibility to the places/spaces identified by the physical education teachers of the Superintendence of Carapina, in the state education network of Espirito Santo, as being significant to their formation process. It uses the narrative research as the theoretical and methodological framework, using the autobiographical narratives of six teachers as the source, in a shared practice of research and dialogue with these teachers. The study analysis indicates diverse movements - sometimes single, sometimes collectives - of practiced formative spaces. This analysis expands the understanding of continuing training to beyond of the established moments, comprising the other places of training as much as the self-formative fields identified by the teachers as significant to their formation. It points out the need to think about changes in the education policies focused the valorization of investigative and training activities that have the pedagogical practices as the beginning and end.

Key Words:
Continued training; Formative boundaries in-between; Physical Education; Primary education

Resumo

Este estudo objetiva analisar e dar visibilidade aos lugares/espaços identificados pelos professores de Educação Física da Superintendência de Carapina, na Rede Estadual de Ensino do Espírito Santo, como significativos para sua formação. Usa como referencial teórico-metodológico a pesquisa narrativa, utilizando como fontes as narrativas (auto)biográficas de seis professores, em uma prática compartilhada de pesquisa no diálogo com docentes. A análise do estudo sinaliza movimentos diversificados, ora singulares, ora coletivos, de espaços formativos praticados. Esta análise amplia o entendimento de formação continuada para além de momentos instituídos, compreendendo tanto os entrelugares de formação, como os espaços autoformativos indicados pelos professores como significativos à sua formação. Aponta a necessidade de pensar mudanças em políticas de formação focada na valorização de ações investigativo-formativas que tenham como ponto de partida e chegada as práticas pedagógicas.

Palavras-chave:
Formação continuada; Entrelugares formativos; Educação Física

Introduction

The interest in giving visibility to the ways with which basic education Physical Education teachers in the State schools of Espirito Santo place meaning on their continuing education arose from dialogues established in the formative moments offered by the State Department of Education and in the exchange of experiences that transpired in school spaces/places. We understand, as Gatti and Barreto¹, continuing education as activities that encompass the more institutionalized forms, which grant certificates and have a clear timeframe and are formally organized and the less formal initiatives aimed at contributing to the professional development of the teacher.

In 2009, the State Department of Education organized a continuing education activity for Physical Education which was linked to the Esporte na Escola (Sports in the School) project, which was planned to include, in its implementation, events for the training and updating of teachers, especially regarding sports. However, in some meetings of the Superintendence of Carapina, the teachers felt the need to enhance those moments of collective reflection and take them beyond the perspective of creating “networkwide games”, bringing in accounts about different levels of education. It is important to clarify that the State Department of Education of Espírito Santo is divided into 11 regional offices, whose function is to manage and supervise school management. It encompasses some schools from neighbouring towns. The Superintendence of Carapina accounts for the municipal schools in Vitória, Serra, Fundão and Santa Teresa

In 2010, the sole meeting of this Superintendence began with discussions about the Common Basic Curriculum (CBC) in Physical Education. At that moment, the accounts/statements of teachers point to² a possible discomfort with the prescribed curriculum regarding what is practiced in the schools. Alongside these sporadic meetings of the Superintendence, in 2009–2010 we saw the beginning of a Program for Continuing Education in School-Level Physical Education, which intended to discuss the hardships of the teaching practice in this field.

Within the boundaries of this article, we intend to give visibility to the places/spaces deemed as relevant formative environments by teachers of high-school-level Physical Education teachers of the State of Espírito Santo, based on their (auto)biographic accounts. In order to do so, we present, at first, the theoretical and methodological statements of this study; subsequently, the analysis of the accounts; and finally, we return to the core issues of research, proposing further potential studies of teacher training in Physical Education.

Method

The theoretical challenge of this article is building a conceptual dialogue that allows us to give visibility to the meanings bestowed by Physical Education teachers upon formative places and spaces and highlighting the complexity of the issue, without reducing the concept of continued training to courses, lectures and/or meetings in previously established locations. We must then consider places in accordance with Certeau³, as follows:

[…] (whatever) order according to which elements are distributed in coexistence relationships […] the law of the “proper” rules it: elements taken into consideration are beside one another, each situated in its own proper location are found next to each other, each one in a place of their own. A place is thus an instantaneous configuration of positions. It implies an indication of stability.

We also analyze the uses made by teachers of what was offered/discussed in established places. In this case, the meetings and courses promoted by the State Department of Education, which made the places into practiced spaces³, a process understood as “[…] the effect produced by the operations that orient it, situate it, temporalize it, and make it function in a polyvalent unity of conflictive programs or contractual proximities”³ (p.201). In this movement we can find the production of other meanings, different from those deriving from the conception of continuing education restricted to institutional formative moments.

The actions of the teacher create spaces, circumstantial contexts of a particular course of action, understood as in-between training spaces. Ferraço⁴ stresses the need to devote our attention to the actions of teachers who

[…] pursue curricula and continued formation opportunities that cannot be suffocated by preexisting o fixed cultural or political views, that at times threaten the oficial position of one only approach for the whole system, thus finding weaknesses that challenge what has been established as norm (p.37).

The interpretation of in-between training spaces allowed us to visualize the uses³ that teachers made of what was offered to them to subvert the strategies of institutions, transforming, through their courses of action, places into practiced spaces. To Certeau³, strategies are “[…] strategies are actions which, thanks to the establishment of a place of power (the property of a proper), elaborate theoretical places (systems and totalizing discourses) capable of articulating an ensemble of physical places in which forces are distributed (p.102).

When studying the daily practices of subaltern social groups, the same author indicated that there were actions aimed at to circumventing rules and socially imposed by the powers, thus creating courses of action that involve:

Another type of production, called “consumption.” It is devious, dispersed, but it insinuates itself everywhere, silently and almost invisibly, because it does not manifest itself through its own products, but rather through its ways of using the products imposed by a dominant economic order³ (p.39).

In this sense, the research analyzed the teacher training practices in different formative spaces/times regarding Physical Education in of the State High Schools where courses of action could be observed. So not only do we delve into the institutional training moments labeled as “continued formation” and offered by the Department of Education, but also in formative spaces identified by teachers as self-regulated. Our conception of self-formation follows that of Oliveira⁵, who defines it as:

A process of reflection about daily practices, therefore privileged spaces of curricular production and, above all, formation. Creative and individual ways with which teachers seeking to educate their students and go far beyond what can be grasped from curriculum texts. […] daily processes of interaction with other colleagues and dialogues established with them. Somewhat non-formal learning when in contact with the academic production and the search for courses (p.46).

We understand that the process of continued formation is not restricted to institutionalized moments offered by the Departments of Education, which prompts us to search for the various formative spaces practiced by teachers of Physical Education in State Schools, in potential self-forming processes.

In this case, considering our sources, we may define self-forming spaces as those created from the own initiatives of teachers, such as group projects or study groups which are not determined by the institution, in this case, the State Department of Education. The use of this concept allows us to observe the meanings produced in continued formation in three types of initiatives: a) those offered by the Sedu (Dept. of Education); b) the appropriation by teachers of what was offered by the Dept. of Education, in and outside the schools, which were called in-between spaces; and, finally, c) the initiatives undertaken by teachers which are understood as self-forming, for example, as study meetings with peers in and out of the school, conversations and planning in times like recess, at the beginning and change of shifts, etc.

The teachers assumed the role of narrators of their own practices, as Benjamin⁶ warns us, something that the hegemonic history insists on stifling: storytelling in daily life. Thus, the art of narration was understood as:

[…] An artisanal way of communication. It is not interested in conveying ‘purity’ the thing narrated, such as an information or a report. It plunges into life of the narrator to extract it from him. Thus, the mark the of narrator is imprinted, such as the hand of the potter in the clay of a vase (p.205).

In this context, the narrative was seen as the experiences conveyed from one person to another, in a process of exchanging experiences, emotions and sensations. When examining the narratives of teachers in their formative paths, we rescue individual and collective experiences, recollected and shared by teachers who collaborated with this research.

Thus, the story that this research purported to shed light on was made up by the memories of the teachers, understood as ruins⁶ that should be revisited in the present, in order to organize the narrative in a movement of reminiscence, understood as “ […] a chain of events embodied by the narrator; it weaves a net of common stories among themselves. In each of them lives a Scheherazade, who creates a new story, the one being told”⁶ (p.205). In the present, the narrator, parting from a mimetic action⁶, chooses what to remember, outlining the production of an image of what happened. In this sense, the teaching narrative brings out the intention of the narrator when producing an interpretation of the current practices of what he chooses to recall.

The (auto) biographical narratives were woven over the meetings with six tenured teachers who are presently acting inside the classroom and have attended a few training events offered by the Department of Education in the years 2001–2011. The Superintendence of Carapina was chosen for its ease of access and of monitoring of places/formative spaces, since the researcher is a public school teacher in this region, and even the interest of teachers in this study.

We invited the teachers who participated in those continued formation events by e-mail, explaining the purpose of the research and asking for them to accept or deny the invitation. Out of ten emails sent out, we received feedback from six teachers. The meetings took place in different areas, according to the availability of the narrators. Most were in the planning time slots at the school, some were in the Superintendency during continued formation events at the teacher's home.

In the first meeting, the teachers were asked to who produced their narrative prompted by the following theme: teacher training moments throughout the career. Starting from what each teacher narrated that time, we created narrative windows that give us evidence² of how self- and in-between formative spaces were experienced⁴–⁵. These excerpts were taken up at the next meeting, in order to bring the teachers to explored deeper layers² of the reminiscence of the moments they narrated. The meetings lasted an average of one hour, depending on the narrator. With teachers A, E, F and I we had a total of four meetings. And with teachers T and L, we had six moments of narrative production, as they remained attending Superintendence meetings. Therefore, we followed narrators both in individual moments as within the environment of continued formation meetings.

This formation event was arranged by the State Department of Education and held in 2010, once a month, on Saturdays, with the purpose of examining potential pedagogical endeavors for the implementation of the Common Basic Curriculum in Physical Education.

The number of encounters we held with teachers varied given the fact that we considered the process of reminscing is not linear and progressive, but variable in depth and in the meanings given by the narrator to their experiences when speaking about them to the interviewer.

With that, this research's pool of narrators was the following: teachers under the same Superintendence, but with different professional paths and practiced spaces. Each had taught in various schools of the same network, as it was the case with teacher A, who had 30 years of experience in teaching, teacher E, who accumulated 25 years of service; narrator T who had 21 years of experience in teaching in the Public Education System and teacher I who had 18 years of experience in teaching. Other teachers had long years of experience at the same school in the Public Education System, as it is the case of teacher M, who had 23 years of experience in teaching. Besides the aforementioned subjects, teacher L, who has just begun their career, with 3 years of experience in teaching, was also a part of the group of narrators. The teachers granted us the use of the recording and dissemination of their narrations, signing the Voluntary Release Form provided by the Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Espirito Santo. This study's protocol was approved by the committee, under the n. 118/11. We chose to use capital letters to identify teachers in order to protect the privacy of the subjects.

We have assembled a transcribed record of approximately 72 pages. The organization of (auto) biographical accounts and its and analysis were operated using the three fundamental aspects defined by Certeau⁷ as guiding principles, as follows: a) recognizing the work in deviations, not as a whole; b) working with private history and its boundaries; c) analyzing the proper place of the source and its intentions.

We inquired the sources in an attempt to understand the process of construction of the work, which allowed us, based on the narratives, to build the following areas of analysis: a) the production of self-formative spaces beyond the moments offered by the school and by the Dept. of Education and the proper place built by the teacher in this process; b) the conflicts, appropriations and challenges encountered while practicing the moments of institutional continued formation education. We understand the concept of properc place in dialogue with the theoretical precepts of Certeau⁷ in his propositions about the writing of history. Thus, the author, upon identifying history as a practice of subjects disposed according to space and time, signals that writing puts into play a myriad of characters and mentalities under different forms and contents.

Results and discussion

When conversing with the autobiographical narratives of state schools Physical Education teachers, we particularly analyze the teacher training concepts developed by the teachers.

In his formation process, teacher A remembered the spaces practiced in the school along with the pedagogical institution as valuable moments, as he understood the established initiative as necessary and qualitative for socializing, exchanging experiences and for the discussion with curricular components who dealt with the same teaching classes:

I understand continued formation in the school as a space that has to exist in accordance with teachers. When I need to, I sit down with the pedagogue, and we exchange ideas. I have nothing to complain about, because this school - State School - has always provided a space for discussion. I consider this space very important for the other teachers of other subjects to know us better. One of them, for example, told me: ‘Damn, it was good to know you better, because I thought you were one of those teachers who throws the ball to the students and are done with it”. So in that moment, I can show them my merits, but I think continued formation, the way it is being currently done, does not work because you cannot take the workload from the student away. The Department of Education does not understand that with a class you take from the student, the teacher is learning a lot in discussions with colleagues. There was very good time in Hildebrando Lucas, when the teaching team met once a month and worked like this: one day I attended the class from the other teacher and then he came to watch mine. The theme of the lesson was the same across disciplines (Teacher A, Nov 2010).

This narrative emphasizes the need for training initiatives within the school-contained collective in a dialogic relation to the day to day in the classroom and the importance of the teachers knowing who are his colleagues, their teaching history and projects with students. The teacher's speech indicates that, despite the hardships imposed, schools where the teacher taught produced collective moments where pedagogical practice was discussed. These collective spaces were built as seen in the passage about the Hildebrando Lucas school. Thus, we see the proper place³ that the teaching body constitutes, regardless of the initiative established by the Department of Education and thus self-formative spaces that are not officially considered education places are created.

Conversations in the halls between classes, at the time of entry and in the staff room during recess and at the change of shifts are products - threads of formative spaces and moments in which the teacher shows his tactical gestures³ in handling the needs of pedagogical practice, indicating the absence of passivity and conformism to what's institutionally established that, in a way, does not provide for or recognize these initiatives as continued formation. These are spaces that constitute under the power relations, cunningly used by the teachers as a way to give visibility to their work in Physical Education. In this case, the spaces required

[…] Exchanges, sharing, and not only the determination of the ‘law of a proper place’ […]. Teachers express the need for a collective with exchanges, sharing, partnerships, as well as establishment of local communities and shared translocal⁸ (p.28).

In this instance, Teacher A's narrative also shows his displeasure with a weekly work schedule that allows little moments of in-service training. The struggle for recognition and institutionalization of in-service training is an ongoing issue in the narratives of teachers, as well as within the academic production, because, as stresses Nóvoa⁹, it is the concrete space of each school, around real pedagogical and educational problems, where true teacher training develops.

The key issue is not setting a time for in-service training, but to take the teaching profession as the object of training rooted in “[…] reflection about the practice and within the practice through dynamic research- action and research-training, valuing the knowledge which teachers carry”¹⁰ (p.30). In this sense, both the academic production as the narrators of this research gives us evidence of the need for training initiatives within schools, with the school community in collective moments and also outside of school, in meetings with the Department of Education and Universities with the purpose of producing knowledge in dialogue with the role of pedagogical practices. We understand the potential of training-research perspective¹⁰ as a guide in the process of (re) signification and production of meaning to their teaching experiences and, thereby, the qualitative possibilities for improving teaching and school learning.

The narrative excerpts of teachers I and M focus in the continuing education debate as a public policy that should be guaranteed to teachers in institutionalized moments, within and beyond the school time and place, with meetings, seminars and conferences in the area, as follows

I understand continued formation is a place where we seek to acquire new knowledge and exchange experiences. A while ago here in the school, we had meetings on Saturdays. But nowadays, we cannot do that, because when we will be able to get together? Planning times are arranged according to each field of knowledge, but, in realty, there's barely enough time to ensure the planning schedule of all teachers. This is because currently the high school has a curriculum with many courses that it did not use to, like Spanish and Sociology. So, I think we could do the same as Serra City Hall. We should have monthly continued formation moments, in and out of school. The truth is that I bring a lot from City Hall meetings, as I learn more thereby (Teacher I, Nov 2010).

I do not remember training initiatives offered b the Dept. of Education inn the history of the State Schools Network. There were courses, whenever there games, which stemmed from political interest. I think this has not changed. We expect them to take people to help us solve our problems in practice for us to discuss, but that's not what happens. Currently, there have been meetings with the Superintendence, but, to me, they have barely contributed with anything, because only talk about games. I think that state formation has been a waste of time, it could be better used. I do not know if I got used to the training done by Serra and am asking for the same quality (Teacger M, Sept 2010).

The narrative excerpts indicate two points of analysis in the context of training in the State Schools of Espírito Santo: one is the discontent with the continued formation policies that provide sporadic encounters whose discussions are distanced from what is experienced/played out in Physical Education classes, leading them to be compared with the training offered by the Serra City Hall; and the other is that there is very little time in school hours for formative spaces created by the educational community from their daily needs.

The continued formation provided by the Serra City Hall is identified and highlighted due to formation dynamics of this place. By providing a collective space for discussion of Physical Education in monthly meetings, in which the authors and actors of the discussions are the school teachers, teachers learn from the discussion about their experiences with the school, in the exchange with peers. This action meets the concept of training that takes school spaces and times as both its start and finish, as opposed to the logic of collective meetings along the lines of lectures, implementation of courses and teaching instrumentalization¹¹. Therefore, the Physical Education teachers of the Serra municipal network, when reviewing their practices based on the exchange of experiences, create spaces that are identified by claiming the authorship of the training process in the institutional initiative.

We understand this movement as the transformation of in-between formative spaces in instituted places where the focus is on the pedagogical practice and its recognition as the protagonist, author and collaborator of the training offered by the Dept. of Education. The transformation of these places mediated by teachers' practices indicates the possibility of tactics becoming new strategies. It was in the tactical operations conducted within the strategies that teachers have created other proper places for continued formation recognized by institutionalized power.

The tactics were configured as “[…] fields of potential for teachers[…] to transcend their path, transcend the proper place of individual authorship towards a contextualized and problematized collective strategic project/tactic […]”¹² (p. 164). Furthermore, there is, in this case, the recognition of the work done by peers as those that can provide inspiration for teachers to reinvent other educational opportunities, assuming the construction of the empirical knowledge also involves research processes and that the shared study practice enhances the training of teachers, especially with continued formation.

This movement produces other ways of experiencing this place, where solidarity ties are established, based on the exchange and production of knowledge. It builds an affinity between the knowledge produced by the teacher and what is offered in continued formation, establishing a relationship of belonging.

In this movement, we understand that

[…] Experiences are unique products that spring from the collective craft, created and reinterpreted by the teacher, that is, it is essential to experience a form of validation of the knowledge produced along the teacher's path, share this knowledge with colleagues and communicate the experience ¹³ (p.74).

The act of valuing and sharing pedagogical experiences as a training perspective has offered educational opportunities in which the teacher has the ability to produce new knowledge to the school context. For Benjamin⁶, the narrative in the exchange of experience is the knowledge of practice that links advice and wisdom. In this relationship, the tradition is built, that is, a chest of stories and practices settled in memory that, in the present, are triggered by reminiscences, and are significant to the narrator, likely to be recounted again.

The narratives of teachers M and I point to the search for formative spaces within the school, where the various teacher/teacher, teacher/student relationships form sources of knowledge in dialogical action, which produce mutual training for the subjects involved¹⁴. However, this continued formation is sometimes hindered by the difficulties imposed by the establishment. In this sense, the Department of Education of the Public Education System, from 2010, started an in-service educational initiative, called planning by fields of knowledge, in which Physical Education corresponds to the field of language, which also contains Portuguese, Foreign Languages and Arts. These curriculum components, once a week, make their plans at the same time and, therefore, this would allow exchanges and planning in the same thematic area for interdisciplinary projects¹⁵.

This initiative comes in line with the implementation of the Common Basic Curriculum (CBC), created by the state of Espirito Santo, and is much more aimed at making sure the educational practices are being guided by the prescribed curriculum than providing an educational space authored by the school community, given the absence of a time when all disciplines can meet at the same time. Despite this organization by field, teachers highlight the difficulty of building training places to meet the school collective during school hours.

The inbetween formative spaces were part of the teaching trajectories of narrators, not only those stemming from initiatives by the State Department of Education, but also in the rapport with the academy, through conferences, courses and seminars. Teacher T's narrative indicates the value of training moments in institutionally established places:

When I was approved to teach in Vitória, in 2006, my goal, of which now I do not think much, was to be on the school network that people talked about like: ‘Oh, there they have study groups in the schools, in the Department (of Education), training for the teachers’. So I found the idea interesting, because before teaching in the Municipal school, I was always studying, planning by my own initiative. However, when I started attending City Hall meetings, I saw that people talked about simple activities as if they were the best, but I did not. […] It's always the same story: legitimizing Physical Education. I think this is too much, it's harping on the same string. I see this situation as a product of both sides: on the one hand, the teacher, who must be professional in their class, and on the other, public policies that invest in this professional. I do not agree with this thinking and speaking evil of others within our class of teachers. Today I was reading Mauro Betti's text, where he says what we have to do with 1st to 4th grades and 5th to 8th grades. So I turned to another physical education teacher and said, ‘But isn't that not what we already do?’ He said, ‘Yes’. We concluded that if we put all our practices, our experiences in a book, we would have a best seller. If the goal is to write about it, even we, the public school teachers, can do it (Nov 2010).

Teacher T's narrative brings up the legitimacy of Physical Education in two contexts: on the one hand, there is the discussion about the conflicts, opportunities and daily school life that the teacher experienced along the teaching path; on the other, the academic discussion that caused formative moments to merge with institutional places, especially the university in the graduation, conferences and lectures that deal with this subject.

When analyzing the production of university knowledge regarding Physical Education, Santos et al.¹⁶ point out that the understanding of some researchers about what is or should be the pedagogical practices in this subject seems to disregard the school place as a space for the production of knowledge. About this academic outlook, the authors state the following:

[…] In order to control the scientific field, we have found in theoretical productions by the legitimized voices that make up physical education, the construction of speeches aimed at creating a permanent state of crisis. The lack of knowledge about what had been done in the area or the voluntary neglect and silencing of this production, it has compromised the understanding of the diversity and multiple references of physical education (p.181–2).

In this sense, teacher T's account indicates their understanding of the discussion about the legitimacy of Physical Education as a curricular component. Given the resistance to academic discussion on the subject, the teacher, when questioning Mauro Betti's text which was read during the continued formation activity, indicates the production of knowledge about school should leave the authorship to those who practice it daily. When participating in the discussions in institutionalized training places, teacher T refuses to support the discourse of constant crisis in physical education, indicating the teacher commitment to their teaching as a guiding principle for the curricular component of legitimacy in school.

We note, in this case, the need to transform the school from a space were theories are repeated for a place for the production of knowledge nourished by the experiences of pedagogical practices. The acknowledgment of the teacher's teaching experience as a bearer of knowledge offers possibilities of producing analyses that go beyond a critical diagnosis and seek to understand what is being done, why, for what and how it presents possibilities to legitimize Physical Education in a school context supported by practice.

It is interesting to note how this movement is read positively by teachers, who pinpoint spaces where they can exchange experiences with peers as the most significant for their formation. However, one must consider that taking the school practice as a producer of knowledge does not excuse them from establishing new analyses based on academic knowledge, which, in turn, will enable the production of new interpretation and practices. Thus, we understand the training is not constituted “[…] by accumulation (courses, knowledge or techniques), but through a work of critical reflection about the practices and a permanent (re) construction of the personal identity. This is why it is so important to invest in people and give status to learning from experience¹⁷ (p.25).

Another discussion matter T's and M's narratives point to is the need for innovation in the discussions in institutional meetings of continued formation. This pursuit of something “different” announces the need for studies to walk in line with the diversity of themes that emerge from daily classes, questionings that arise from students and what motivates them.

Academic production itself, from the 1990s to today, signals the need for training policies which dialogue with what is experienced/practiced in schools, as observed in the studies that analyze production in teacher training by Bueno et al.¹⁸ and Vieira¹⁹. From this perspective, what should be asked is: do public policies for teacher training have no understanding of the needs of the school, or is there a covert reason behind the political-institutional project that proposes an educational model that is supposed to be run by teachers? Is there a lack of funding for continued formation programs?

In Brazil, from 2007, in Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's mandate (2003–2010), the fundamental document for the framework of institutional education was the Education Development Plan (PDE)²⁰, which postulates initiatives in the establishment of the purpose of this national education policy as such:

[…] To build a free, just and altruistic society; to ensure national development; to eradicate poverty, marginalization, to reduce social and regional inequalities, to promote general well-being, without any prejudice as to origin, race, sex, color, age and any other form of discrimination (p.5–6).

The political project of this plan that was to be broadcast in schools, presupposed the training of teachers, for which the government organized 11 specific formation programs, five for the organization of study materials, one program to encourage initiation in superior-level, three networks, one distance learning program, a training policy articulated with Capes; an award for teachers, a fund (Fundeb), an international database, three programs for training school professionals - including the teacher - the School Learning Management program (Gestar) and Program of Support to Municipal Education Officers (Pradime). In addition to that, it created the open competition policy with funding for training and turned the Federal Institutes of Technology Education (Ifests) in teacher training agencies²¹.

Evangelista and Triches²¹ finds the number of teacher training programs and its political direction as a State matter impacting. However, the authors points out that, on the one hand, this suggests a better professional training to teachers by means of training initiatives, but on the other, it only sheds light on an increase in what is required of teachers, such as the intensification of work, keeping up with what is already being done, such as teaching, planning, but with higher requirements, such as participation in training and courses in the departments of education, distance training programs coordinated by the MEC, in developing interdisciplinary projects, among others.

This was signaled in teachers' accounts of the Public Education System of Espirito Santo, when reflecting about the increase in what was demanded from after the implementation of the Common Basic Curriculum. They indicate that when the plan was put into action, the structure of educational work was changed in such a way that time for planning was organized by likeness of fields to ensure the possibility of interdisciplinary work. In the case of Physical Education, a curricular component of the Language field, the idea was to, once a week, plan activities along with Portuguese, Arts and English teachers. However, in schools, some mishaps stymied the collective moments, as shown in Teacher Is narrative below:

[…] The class has one hour and, depending on the number of classes a teacher gives, sometimes only one shift is not to cover their workload, so they ask not to give the last class, in order to go to another school (Teacher I, Nov 2010).

On the other hand, the narratives reveal that, in 2010 and 2011, there were some spaces built for continued formation in Physical Education by the initiative of the State Department of Education of Espirito Santo. Although they were done as extracurricular, unpaid activities on Saturdays, teachers who participated in them saw in this initiative a way to better understand how to appropriate the CBC requirements in their classes. This search is evidenced in Teacher T's will to continue participating in the established training places and in Teacher L's teacher narrative, although they are in different moments in their careers as teachers, the former with 21 years in the system, and the latter with three years in the system, as shown below:

When they began, two years ago, the Public Education System courses, I made a point to participate, because I had never had this experience. I wanted to allow myself to do it, because what if retire and do not experience it? So last year I went to the Forum, the games and the continued formation. Regarding high school, I miss the workshops and the exchange of experiences, as with this Curriculum Common Basic thing, I get kind of insecure (Teacher T, Nov 2010).

I feel and recognize that I cannot work the way I'd like to and that I think is ideal. So I try to enhance my knowledge to improve my performance in the Public Education System. The meetings arranged by the Dept. of Education helped us to renew ourselves, because the discussions open our minds'. Thus, at every opportunity, we have to examine our practice through the exchange of experiences with other teachers. I think this is valid (Teacher L, Sept 2010).

The accounts show the intersections where career time mixes with the objectives that lead teachers to seek formative moments. Teacher T, with 22 years of experience, demonstrates, despite all the experience with the pedagogical practice of Physical Education, two feelings in this excerpt: that of belonging, of occupying a space granted to her as a right, that is, taking every training opportunity offered by the Department of Education, understanding that as an opportunity she did not have before throughout her experience in the Public Education System and, therefore, in the present, participate in these events; and the feeling of methodical curiosity²² that led to these institutionally established formative places, and at the same time, the humility of acknowledging that, given the new requirements for teaching, there is the constant need for research and the practical experience that lead her to not accept everything that is offered. This gets evident at the moment T talks about the difficulty in dealing with the CBC and its similarities and differences to what's actually done in high schools.

The Common Basic Curriculum document was developed under the state office in place between 2004 and 2010 in Espirito Santo, as part of a public policy project aimed at creating different devices that, according to the Department of Education, were provided by the so-called Strategic Plan for a New School, a better education context for all State Schools. The document purported to be

[…] An instrument geared towards better unifying educational services, strengthening the identity of the public education system, which is implemented through teaching practice in line with the principles of affirming and valuing LIFE in all its dimensions; rescuing the historical principles of education, such as the relationship between work, science and culture, placing students on the center of educational processes¹⁵ (p.12).

The theoretical basis of the document that sets out a pedagogical practice supported by the precepts of skills and abilities is, therefore, guided,

[…] the main reference documents of the Ministry of Education (MEC), as is the case of the National Curriculum Standards and the National Secondary Education Exam (Enem). The competencies are understood as the “ability to act in foreseen and unforeseen situations, quickly and efficiently, articulating tacit and scientific knowledge with life and labor experiences. And the skills are understood as developments and constitutive elements of competencies. Generally those reflect the student's way of knowing, learning and expressing what was learned¹⁵ (p.28).

In the context of Physical Education, the Department of Education, aiming to equip teachers to work in public schools, produced a Continue Formation Program initially based on the study of academic texts that give visibility to the theoretical and methodological proposals of Physical Education, in particular those that supported what was establishment in the document²³.

The CBC questions the role of the subject in the school context and its contributions to society, triggering the production of critical pedagogical theories that seek to contribute to the changes in the understanding of what will be the teaching curriculum for this component. In this direction, it announces:

It was based on these critical theories that we developed the curriculum for Physical Education in this document. We appropriate the understanding of the Coletivo de Autores, that the human body culture is a socio-historical knowledge produced and accumulated by mankind, at the same time in which man builds his corporeality, he also produces and reproduces a culture. In addition to this, we rely on the concept of curricular component, which is composed of systematized knowledge, which should promote a reflection on a dimension of culture in order to contribute to the cultural education of the student¹⁵ (p.99).

In dialogue with Nunes and Ferreira Neto²³, we noticed, in teacher T's narrative and in the requirements of the CBC document the high school curriculum is full of content and skills to compete with demands external to school and their subjects. The prescribed themes and actions appear to be distant from the experiences practiced by teachers throughout curriculum practices in high school in the history of this school system. That's why teachers like T see the CBC with suspicion, doubt, strangeness and disquiet.

This scenario demonstrates what Santos et al.¹⁶ had already pointed out: that throughout the 1980s and 1990s, much research and theoretical discussions were produced in order to highlight weaknesses of the practices of Physical Education in Basic Education without, however, seeking proximity to the teachers in order to allow them to narrate their activities and knowledge produced in school.

We advocate the need for public policies for continued formation and collaborative practice between basic education and University based on the recognition of the authorship of teaching practices, understanding the school as a producer of multiple knowledge a place/space for the circulation of knowledge in which diversity and the complexity called school routine are the greatest reference points. The challenge is providing a training space, and at the same time making it a place that takes research as the axis of teacher formation, emphasizing the need to break the secular dichotomy between doing and thinking, almost eternalized in the quite academic paradox of theory/practice. By revisiting and giving new meaning to these dichotomies, we highlight the research as a very real possibility of teacher training, assuming there is a continuous theoretical deepening allied to daily teaching practices. Thus, we indicate the need for public policies that guarantee and provide financial support and teaching and human resources so that these continued formation initiatives for teachers take place preferably during the teacher's work hours and within the workplace. We understand that this is a way for us to trace other possibilities for the quick treatment that teacher training in government policies generally receive, which explains, in large part, the constant failures of attempts which are thus regarded by teachers.

The practice of the educator, in its self-formative context, for example, demonstrates the ability to see it in an unfinished process, diminishing the certainty of what is taught, by seeking, questioning and self-criticizing throughout their educational experience. We must then transform this movement in institutionalized formation initiatives, in order to investigate the uniqueness of the proper place that the teacher produces in the practiced spaces in everyday school life, in dialogue with politics, with the curriculum, etc. Freire²² understands that, by daily discovering themselves as unfinished beings, teachers develop in themselves the curious researcher-subject who seeks knowledge and assimilates it in a critical, not naive, way, with questioning, and guides his students to also follow this methodological approach to studying and to understanding the world, relating the acquired knowledge with the reality of their lives. Thus […] there is no teaching without research or research without teaching. […] Teaching, learning and researching involve two moments: the one where you learn the existing knowledge and the one where you work in the production of knowledge that does not yet exist²² (p.31–2).

In dialogue with studies of Tardiff and Levasseur¹¹ and Alves²⁴, we found that, even today, we often see the idea that the educational work is only the teachers task, not taking into account the collective organization to which they belong and which is defined from multiple trading networks and other iterations. In summary, it must be considered that the formation takes place in multiple contexts, in the joint dialogue between school actors - teachers and school community - and Departments of Education and the Ministry itself.

It is appropriate to state that educational policies aimed at the continued formation of Basic Education teachers are fundamental and have a significant potential to promote the improvement of student learning quality with a significant impact on social practice, to the extent that it provides moments of questioning and new inventions to the school routine. However, continued formation policies need to be coordinated with other policies, as the problem of learning and quality construction in public education requires a variety of actions and interventions beyond the continued formation of teachers. In this case, we emphasize the Law n. 11,738/2008, better known as the Floor Act, which established a national minimum value for the wages of Public Basic Education teachers and set a limit (two-thirds of the working hours) for classroom activities. That is, the other third of the time is set to ensure the educator their training time for improvement. We must understand that the law is an achievement for public service teachers and by ensuring service training times on the day of school, the teaching profession is qualified through the discussion of successes and obstacles of the teaching practice within the school community, the exchange of experiences inside the school. It is necessary to understand that continued formation is not limited to self-formation, because then we would be confirming the idea that educational work is only the responsibility of the teacher, but it is not limited to governmental continued formation initiatives which don't relate to the school practice either.

Training is an action, in which the teacher (trans) forms knowledge and produces new knowledge, (re) shapes the thinking and reframes their views, subjectively, increasing the construction of their own knowledge and changing their understanding beyond what is explored in training. But training and professional work practices are not individualized; they are collective, as they express the wishes of a social identity (teachers) and their belonging to a network. Ultimately, teachers' practices can be understood as the singular condensation of the networks to which they relate.

Thus, we need to understand training as a network of authors shared dialogues, being in this, teachers of Basic Education, the University and the government. This movement seems to be fundamental for us to join forces and initiatives that give visibility to the need to expand the in - service training and thus contribute to the improvement of teaching conditions in the country At this point it is necessary to strengthen the collective formation spaces, such as work and sharing networks because, as emphasized Nóvoa²⁵

One of the most important strategic priorities is to support training practices that encourage ownership by teachers, individually and collectively, their own training processes. The exchange of experiences and the sharing of knowledge consolidate mutual training networks, in which each teacher is required to play both the role of trainer and trainee […]. Dialogue among teachers is essential to consolidate the emerging knowledge of professional practice. But the creation of collective work networks is also a decisive factor in professional socialization and in the affirmation of values of teaching (p.63–4, emphasis added).

Overall, the Continued Formation Course of the Dept. of Education signaled the diversity of representation of teachers, according to the uses³ made with what was offered to them. This was visible in the two narratives of teachers L and T that, in a unique way, built their formative inbetween spaces on the continued formation activities offered. Especially in relation to the institutionally established, they point to one of the great challenges of career teachers in public schools, the curriculum of physical education in high school.

In summary, we see that the understanding of continued formation in the (auto) biographical narratives of teachers in this research showed that the narrators identify the times established in the school with the teaching staff and the Department of Education, in meetings with Physical Education teachers, as training spaces. However, individual self-formative actions in the everyday research of their practice are not identified by the teacher as instances of continued formation. This can be seen in the narrative excerpts revisited ahead, as when a teacher says “[…] I understand that continued formation is a place where we seek to acquire new knowledge and exchange experiences” (Teacher I). In addition to it, teacher M points out that training “[…] is to get people who can help us solve problems we encounter in our practice, but that's not what happens.”

This context may be caused by scientific discourse and government agencies that spread the reductionist idea that continued formation would be the only appropriate place for studying, whether in partnership with universities or not, for the reflection of teaching practices in school. Thus, we emphasize the need to devise further training initiatives centered in the practice of educators, that is, encourage teachers to (re) read their practiced spaces, leading them to narrate their curricular practices and thus recognize the authorship of training processes and academic productions that give visibility to these continued formation initiatives.

The research aimed to identify and give visibility to formative places/spaces as identified by Physical Education teachers of the Superintendence of Carapina, from Espirito Santo's Public Education System. In this regard, we note that the autobiographical teachers narratives present two points for analysis: the diversity of educational processes from in-between training spaces to self-formative ones that constitute the notion of continued formation as a broader concept, i.e., in addition to institutional initiatives; and also the truncated dialogical relationship between academic research and the teacher practice in Basic Education.

Regarding the constitution of in-between training spaces in the relationship the teachers established with institutional places, we found that it was generated in the participation of the teacher in different institutional moments of training, both those offered by the Department of Education and those that arose from the initiative of the educator in and out of school. The (auto)biographic narratives show that the teachers, when practicing continued formation places, took on a role of consumers3 of what was offered when making use of what they deemed worthy discussions and experiences, especially the themes that linked ideas with their daily school practices. On the other hand, teachers have shown a refusal to accept inappropriate discussions which they considered distant from school reality. The moments of tension not only occurred with the Department of Education, but also in conferences, forums and seminars and also in discussions with teachers and university researchers.

From the dialogue with the narratives by teachers, we understand that the relationship between academic production and Basic Education teachers is still the same as Tardiff²⁶, Carvalho⁸ and Santos²⁷ had already identified: research initiatives, aimed at criticizing pedagogical practices in Basic Education which remain focused on critical thinking, are considered irrelevant to the practicing educators, as they do not offer valuable contributions to the progress of discussions about actual advancement in their professional practice. Thus, it is necessary to rethink the role of educational institutions and the way they carry their relationship with the school. If the working sphere involves the projection of future and constant action with the daily school practice, a culture of joint action between school teachers and university professors, which is a major challenge, may be developed. In this case, trust bonds, partnership and dialogue are required for an approach that utilizes the knowledge from education theory and empirical knowledge of teachers, which are important for the teachers to build their own identities.

In this direction, we signaled the need for further studies on collaborative practices between University and School to discuss and give visibility to training initiatives taking the practices of teachers' records of their practices as a starting and finishing point for discussions on school-level Physical Education and continued formation.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Jul-Sep 2016

History

• Received
  30 Dec 2013
• Reviewed
  27 Aug 2015
• Reviewed
  01 Oct 2015
• Accepted
  05 Oct 2015