Professional development of beginner teachers: tensions experienced in the context of the public school

Abstract

This text reflects on an investigation about the central question of how beginner teachers develop their professionalism in the face of tensions experienced in the context of the public school. The main objective is to comprehend, through narratives, how beginner teachers construct meaning related to teaching experiences. This investigation is based on Clandinin and Connelly’s methodology of narrative research and involved four participants from three public schools. An interview, memorial, conversations, blog posts, and the researcher’s record notebook and field notes were used to compose the field texts. The meanings constructed were systematized with basis on reflections about: physical space, loneliness and other feelings,
hostile environment, indiscipline, lack of support and follow-up. The analysis highlights the complex process of becoming a teacher in the context of the public school, dialoguing with formative issues, that one lives through in the transition between no longer being a student and becoming a teacher. It is in the face of the tensions of this period that learning enables the construction of new knowledge.