A docência como experiência: os desafios de docências de professoras de química em início de carreira

Abstract

The thesis is situated in the field of teacher education and focuses on teaching as an experience for early-career Chemistry teachers. The objective is to understand which teaching practices are being constituted based on experiences that challenge beginning teachers during initial training and in the context of their work. The research problematizes this theme from a post-structuralist approach, considering the concept of experience in Michel Foucault and Jorge Larrosa. It also uses the concept of teaching from studies in the educational field that deal with teaching work and teaching. Seven Chemistry teachers at the beginning of their careers participated in the research and data production took place through narrative interviews and meetings held with these teachers. The Thesis argues that it is in the exercise of teaching experienced as an experience, in the contingency and unpredictability of teaching practice, combined with the autonomy and initiative of Chemistry teachers at the beginning of their careers, that Chemistry teachers are challenged, amid contradictions, to the knowledge produced in its formative trajectory, the organization of the school space and the curriculum and the relationship with students to develop a singular way of being a teacher. The thesis discusses three sets of experiences that in the analysis emerged as the most challenging in the construction of these teachers' teaching: 1) the experiences lived during initial training, especially those directly related to teaching and the classroom, produced important knowledge so that the teachers, upon entering the school, were able to think and rethink their teaching practices; 2) the experiences that challenged the teachers to find ways to articulate the curricular contents and the objectives of the class with the ways of organization and the infrastructure conditions of the school, demanding initiatives that extrapolated, reorganized or reinforced and updated knowledge and techniques learned in the initial teacher training; 3) the challenges arising from the unpredictability and contingency of teaching, such as the novelty and surprise inherent in the classroom and the relationship with students. These situations enhance inventive teaching, which is marked by complex and often contradictory conditions.