Narrativas e imaginários de professoras readaptadas : rumo a uma pedagogia da observância

Abstract

This study, which belongs to the research line Written Culture, Languages and Learning, aimed at understanding how the narratives of three readapted women teachers (who do not teach anymore) could trigger the creation of symbolic images or even images that would lead to a new way to become a teacher and, mainly, make the imaginary and senses of readaptation arise. The thesis was that readaptation could mean either a moment of their own reinvention or a possibility to develop their souls so that they could look at their lives in a new way and get interested in the implicit symbolism they would find. It was also expected that readaptation would enable them to look at their school reality in a different way, mainly, in a broader way regarding their school and their classes. To show whether this presupposition would be totally or partially confirmed, this study applied the theoretical field based on Gilbert Duran's Studies of the Imaginary and Symbolic Imagination, Gaston Bachelard's Material Imagination, Carl G. Jung's Depth Psychology and James Hillman's Archetypal Psychology. The empirical material consisted of four types of narratives (oral, written, pictorial and fictional ones) based on the question: "how do you feel in the readaptation process?". Oral, written and pictorial narratives were produced; fictional writing was based on the following question: "what kind of teacher would you be if you could go back in time?". Besides these narratives, celestial narratives based on the study of Astrology as a archetypal phenomenon were carried out. All were included in the analysis. The celestial narratives confirmed what the teachers had expressed about themselves. In order to show the symbolic images, a theoretical-methodological resource called Biotale was developed: the readapted teachers' narratives were re-imagined by the researcher, so that the biographical aspect would not lose its symbolic representation. Three symbolic images arose, and, hence, three pedagogies or ways to be a teacher: Pedagogy of the Slits, Pedagogy of the Valley and Pedagogy of the Stones. These images and these pedagogies helped to construct the final thesis about readaptation. Based on the three teachers, it was concluded that readaptation presupposes the Pedagogy of Observance, whose practice enables people to recover lost values. It sees a teacher's career as the foundation of knowledge construction with students, as well as the rebirth of everyone's being. It is in observance, when solitude makes us free from others' obligations, when we understand our human condition in presence or absence, that the development of our souls is completed.