Profession Teacher Is Related to Lifelong (Re)Learning

Abstract

Increasingly, the teaching profession is relevant to all areas, as the growing social and economic devaluation that it has suffered. The aim here is to aggrandize the first part, reinforcing the importance of the profession and attenuating the feelings sprouted those who operate in this professional field. Therefore, the objective is to analyze qualitatively the speech of a teacher interviewed, after being for years in this profession, comparing quantitatively with spontaneous responses from people interested in doing the course of Pedagogy and join in education. This confrontation will occur, in order to verify the meaning and significance of the teaching work in their lives. The data analysis was carried out in accordance with Discursive Textual Analysis. It is worth noting that all the text moves through the bias of Health Psychology and Positive Psychology. It was concluded that people interested in joining, currently in the Faculty of Education, according to the respondents here, was afraid as the choice of profession because of mishaps found in it and we were constantly reported by the press as a whole. Apart from that, most of these people think the option of joining the area through a family member (teaching or have taught) or to recognize the importance of it. The interviewed more career time, recognizes the difficulties, however, the positives reported it to prevail, giving the immensity of this work means and gives meaning in your life, just as it does in the lives of other teaching professionals.

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Timm, J. , Mouriño Mosquera, J. and Stobäus, C. (2016) Profession Teacher Is Related to Lifelong (Re)Learning. Creative Education, 7, 1765-1772. doi: 10.4236/ce.2016.712180.

Received 30 June 2016; accepted 9 August 2016; published 12 August 2016

1. Introduction

For the realization of the doctoral thesis of Timm, oriented by Stobäus and Mosquera, we proposed to interview teachers who teach in the Graduate Stricto Sensu, in different stages of occupational life cycle, as said Huberman (2013) . This cycle, for these authors, is divided into five stages: entry in career; stabilization phase; phase of diversification, put in question; phase of serenity, emotional detachment and conservatism; and phase of divestiture. Prior to the official interviews, we proposed to conduct two pilots’ interviews, to check the conduction and analysis thereof. These pilots are generating articles and consequently, the possibility of choosing the methodological procedure and analysis to be adopted for the final thesis. Here we rely on one of these pilots. In the interviews about occupational life, at the end of the interview we made the following question: “What is the meaning and significance of the teaching work in your life?” It is from this question that the discussion developed for the writing of this text.

Moreover, at the end of 2015, it was held the Open Campus, an internal event of our institution to welcome and explanations for those interested in entrance exams at the institution. We gave three workshops (in partnership) for those interested in the Faculty of Education of PUCRS; one of them entitled “Why the teacher makes a difference in Education?” In this workshop, we started questioning participants about the significance and meaning of teaching for them.

The pilot study has the qualitative edge for this text, based on the speech of a professional who has worked for long in the area. Already the result obtained in the given workshop, while the quantitative nature, and seek to verify what their interest on educational area.

2. Literature Review

The teaching profession, as Guarany (2012) , was not seen as a work activity, but associated with the calling. For a long time the school has been recognized as well as vocation, ministry, lay priesthood, and its exercise based primarily on moral qualities, because this that good teachers had to own and display (Lessard & Tardif, 2008) . With the university reform, in Brazil in 1968, the theme was “abolished” and the figure of the professor as a final career position was established. Teachers, in Higher Education, instead of being allocated courses, have been redirected by departments. In public institutions, teachers now have a career that is based on degrees and academic titles; the exclusive dedication of working arrangements is set; and teachers begin to be accepted by the employment contract, entering into force by the regency labor regime (Morosini, 2009) .

Mosquera (1987) says that Adult Life, or Adulthood, as a constant personality development, involves many aspects of the personality construction, as identity, self-image, self-esteem, self-actualization, ever related to the context in who the person grows and develops and acts.

In this sense, during the last decades (marked by the context of generalization and massification of Education and bureaucratization of Education Systems), the teacher unions and professional associations insisted that Education was recognized as a profession and consequently teachers/professors as skilled workers should They are treated by the employer respecting the materials plans, social and symbolic (Lessard & Tardif, 2008) .

The historical process of teachers professionalization and at that time, says that the key period in the history of Education and the teaching profession is in the second half of the eighteenth century, when it outlines the ideal teacher profile (Nóvoa, 1999) . It is important for the teachers/professors to consider issues related to the identity of this professional.

For Pimenta & Anastasiou (2014) in relation to the profession, they say it is by nature constitute a mediating process between teacher and students (essentially different subjects), in confrontation and acquirement of knowledge.

Morosini & Comaru (2009) , specifically on the teacher figure, say their identity and vocational training are influenced by government and institutional policies.

In addition, the teacher is never alone, it is the encounter with the subjectivity of each student, building the heterogeneity of a group (Grillo, 2008) . As for Morosini & Comaru (2009) , this identity constitutes a building process, reconstruction and transformation of reference responsible for boosting the teaching profession, from the social meanings and reaffirmation of culturally consecrated practices, significant and resistant to innovation because they contain valid knowledge needs is current in the confrontation between theory and practice.

We can add that the construction of the identity process and used concepts of a teacher, according Rodrigues, Stobäus, & Mosquera (2016: p. 1119) , are “not static and are due to the subject’s interactions with the environment in which it develops leads us to consider that this is a plausible way to add healthy identity of the Positive Psychology study objects”.

This process, considered training is of a social nature as teachers are constituted as such in interpersonal activities (both in preparation period, as throughout his career) (Morosini & Comaru, 2009) . Therefore, as stated Melo, Nunes, Nascimento, & Santos (2013) , identity has both an individual dimension and another collective. The first grounded in the ideas, concepts and representations that build upon ourselves; the second, based on social roles played in the groups to which we belong―such as family, professional, among others.

According to the authors, this construction of the professional identity of teachers is related to the objective and subjective conditions that involve their work and the way they perceive it in constant motion. In the meantime, Fernandéz Cruz (2014) states that the professional identity is a construct of himself and relations with others.

Several factors may contribute to the professional identity development process, among them the experiences and personal and/or professional experience, taking into account the history of life is a major factor that identity Melo, Nunes, Nascimento, & Santos (2013) .

In this sense, Grillo (2008) also states that the teaching identity is defined from the personal and professional characteristics, balanced, concluding that the actions of these teachers translate the fullness of the person, in the same way that understanding of teaching humanity helps in understanding the professional practice.

The development of professional identity is linked to the professional socialization process. As well as issues related to the history of life intersect and are permeated by the construction of senses/meanings that they (crosses) can allow, among them the authors cite the professional development of desires and social recognition. In this context, the University is seen as a place of teaching, the singularities noted in teachers speeches reflect expectations and aspirations of the same with respect to the inclusion in the working environment in which they live Melo, Nunes, Nascimento, & Santos (2013) .

Unlike this vision of teaching as identity, Pereira (2013) states that being a teacher is a product itself, which is as a brand that is produced in the subject and not calling, identity or destination. Considers that the pursuit of academic training covers the intention of ownership and enable this brand, in line with the singularities that constitute the individual “existential field”. He adds:

[...]. I understand that it is not an teachers identity a subject constructs or take or incorporates, but otherwise is a difference that produces the subject itself. Becoming a teacher is to become something that not had been, it differs is yourself. And, in case of a difference, there is the recurrence of the same, a model or pattern. Therefore, teachers work is not, in my view, an identity: it is a difference produced in the subject. And as difference, can not be a stable state that reach the subject. The teachers work is a state at risk of permanent imbalance. If a steady state, stagnant, would result in identity and the flow would be harmed (Pereira, 2013: p. 35) .

Morosini and Comaru (2009) also defend the inseparability of personal development and life history teacher, considering that from the continuous training process, collective and participatory dimensions of work are taken as reference, in order that by this process arise awareness, consolidation and teaching autonomy. According to the authors, the work with teaching is characterized by an investment, for which the teacher needs to invest in yourself as a person. Investment in career depends on motivational aspects, that is, must be given social and personal requirements. Through the work, there is a process that changes the nature and the “self transformation” be working (Antunes, 2003) .

When the question of teaching enters into discussion with the current context it is impossible not to refer the multiplicity of roles and responsibilities that teachers are affected, many of them extrapolating the educational character, in addition to numerous laws and charges made for these professionals. Morosini (2008) states that there is an image created that teachers are incompetent, sending it to the teaching function, which now has a complexity that creates the feeling of disability in teachers to exercise it.

This is because there is a diversity of actions undertaken by teachers beyond the classroom space that are encompassed in teaching (Morosini & Comaru, 2009) . Pimenta and Anastasiou (2014) also argue that teaching goes beyond the classroom processes in Higher Education, discussing the purposes of teaching at this level. Morosini (2009) states that are in the discussion teaching duties. No longer can see a teacher as a model, as an ideal type, as once you saw/idealized. In addition, it is found multiple teachers are dependent on their work arrangements, qualification and the institution where he teaches.

Morosini and Comaru (2009) report on the formality and recognition by numerous laws in the Brazilian higher education system. Charges teachers differ according to the level of education and the institution where they work. If the teacher teaches at a university, for example, in addition to teaching activities, should make research; if a university center and/or isolated schools is not charged the compliance in research activities; if in Stricto Sensu Graduate level you will be charged necessarily the Master’s degree and/or Doctor Degree.

It has been believed that he could teach know that it was a good professional (Masetto, 2003) . Pimenta & Anastasiou (2014) point to some of the ills of education, the fact of placing professionals/researchers of a particular area to act as a teacher. As the specific knowledge for their area were sufficient. For them, no one is born professional/researcher and teacher agrees. In this sense,

Being a teacher is like a brand that is produced in the subject. There is a vocation, not identity is not destiny. It is the product itself. The search for training goes in order to seek ways of using and enabling this brand in line with the singularities of the subject. If constituted me trainer, I need me open to forms of constitution of myself and propose experiences of situations that give support to students also experience themselves as teachers in training ( Pereira, 2013 , cover).

This whole discussion is seen necessary because later, when we conducted the discussion of the interviews, we realized the issue of very marked vocation in the speech of those who want to join the profession; however, it falls to the ground, to analyze speech who teaches in the area for longer.

3. Methodology

Data collection consists of a cutout of a pilot interview, focusing on the history of occupational life, performed for the future doctoral thesis. Concomitant to this, interested students lines were used in entrance exams for the Faculty of Education. Both cuts were focused on the meaning and significance of teaching.

As it is a pilot, we only used the speech of one female teacher, interviewed because has large experience, after being 24 years on teaching, the last and 10 and a half years in Higher Education (this performance was calculated at the moment of the interview, held in 2015), all these time in the area of Physical Education. The interview, in a preview scheduled time and place, lasted 46 minutes, with the primary goal one the life focused on personal and professional moments. Was tape recorded and later transcribed, before the analysis thereof.

Yet, the methodology used to analyze the data, as mentioned earlier, respects the principles of Discursive Textual Analysis (Moraes, & Galiazzi, 2011). The way this method is used to perform the analysis can be better understood from the Figure 1.

4. Results and Discussion

In the workshop given at the Open Campus, when asked about the meaning and significance of teaching, the responses of possible future teachers, emerged the following categories:

Ÿ Taste/passion for teaching;

Ÿ Vocation;

Ÿ Affection for working with children;

Ÿ Follow the career of the mother and/or other family member.

Already, in carrying out the pilot interview, on the said question and according to Discursive Textual Analysis (Moraes & Galiazzi, 2013) , there were twenty-nine subcategories and from these emerged six categories, arranged as in Table 1.

On the six categories that emerged from the analysis of the responses on the pilot interview, it is pertinent to point out that were made from the open question “What is the meaning and significance of the teaching work in your life?”

In the first emerging category entitled particular acting area, we realized that the interviewee brings this very

Figure 1. Scheme on the steps of Discursive Textual Analysis. Source: prepared by the authors, based on Moraes; & Galiazzi (2011).

strong in his report, due to be teaching in the area of Physical Education, which can differs from how to teach, learn, live and relate to, compared to other areas of expertise.

We believe that this category is quite linked the two following, since the issue of (self) expression and know the other and the other’s body. It is also something more visible and recurring in professionals who teach in that area. In the following section, you can see the interviewee putting about it, interpreting the meaning and significance of teaching, especially in the area in which it operates, it gives opportunity:

[...] know more people. And my course, my area is an area that favors lot. It is different from other areas, is a very peculiar course, [...]. And there we see a little more of the students, we know a little more students, and this is a very interesting thing. It has a great interaction, because we deal a lot with body issues. (Interview Pilot 1).

Coupled to this, the taste for teaching is another emerging category of this research, and that also emerged during the course of the workshop, as we wrote earlier in this subtitle. In the meantime, the interviewee explains the experience had with a student who had always been quiet in their classes until the day it was given as an activity to create a choreography for a particular song. Through which students could express themselves, this student featured very well with the interpretation.

That scene created awakened a new sense and meaning in teacher interviewed, making her realize the taste that has the activity it performs. Even at that time of the interview, she commented: “[...] I love to teach because in fact that’s the great thing [...]” (Interview Pilot 1), noting that as a constant renewal and how unpredictability that for her is one of the major directions of their profession.

In the fifth category, called constant renewal, is noticed that renew daily the encounter with the unexpected, the unpredictable and the (re)learn, as profession performance, are constant speech in the interview, as the following excerpt:

Table 1. Subcategories and emerging categories of meaning and significance of teaching, according to the interviewed teacher.

It is we get and not knowing what to expect of students. That is something, you renew yourself every day. [...]. And that renews you there in a way, and that there renews you every semester or every class that you of. For thou known not what is going to happen, is not a predictable class. So the idea of the meaning and significance of teaching is not it? It is this thing of renewal, then you also learn from you learn a little every day. (Pilot Interview 1).

In fact, teaching brings very strongly this question: the new, the unexpected. Classes at Undergraduate and Graduate in our university have their characters changed every six months, so the beginning of each semester is a “new story to write and live”. Moreover, the intention of teaching is for all learn from each other. There is a mutual exchange in the processes of teaching and learning. When the interviewed people speak about this issue of renewal and learn constantly, refer us to what Pimenta & Anastasiou (2014) argue for teaching and learning, while the unfinished being constantly (re)learn, learn while teaching.

Freire (2000) has also advocated the idea of being unfinished beings and those we come from a state of conditioned, not determined.

Finally, the last emerging category called multiplicity of meanings that vary according to the perception of each, in held interview appears quite marked that the meaning and significance of this profession varies according to the perception of each, therefore, characterized by distinct perceptions individually obtained and what characterizes the multiplicity of meanings, the main characteristic of this category. For the interviewed also and above all, what is your sense of importance for his activity performed is that people can know, but believes that could change as each individual and according to the area of operation.

Therefore, in confronting the emerging categories, both given workshop, and in the interview, it is clear that in both phases, the taste for teaching appears as one of the meanings of the profession. The affectivity with and in the work field also feature present in both, however, one geared more to the issue of the whole child and the other the question of the body, which is understood if we take into account the specific area of expertise.

About these aspects of affectivity, Mosquera & Stobäus (2006b) say that are related:

[…] to the Personal Aspects […], also to Social Aspects […], and to Institutional Aspects […], which in general leads to the understanding that, for the teachers interviewed, affect is very important in the educational context and depends on individual training (self) so can be used positively in this environment as a tool for learning, and for healthy interpersonal relationships (contextualization).

The other categories, both in the workshop when the interview, are differing, and we believe that this, precisely, is because the time as teacher in field.

5. Conclusion

Given the above and analyzed lines, you can see some similarities between those looking for teaching and who exercises; however, others are modified along the professional path. The question of meaning and feeling in this profession is very strong and appears marked in both situations. Another strong factor is the issue of continuous learning, since those who choose this line of work, need to be constantly (re)learn, aiming to establish the needs of emerging and constantly changing in this segment.

The exposed here already reveals much about learning throughout life and feelings arising from this profession, however, as future work, we suggest conducting more interviews, so we can better analyze them throughout their discourses.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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