Education in reverse: Problematizing inverted symmetry in continuing education for teachers

Abstract

This paper seeks to problematize the implementation of the model of teacher education prescribed by the Brazilian educational legislation, through the analysis of a Continuing Education Program, PEC Formação Universitária Municípios (PEC Higher Education Municipalities), held in São Paulo, from 2003 to 2004. The research is qualitative in nature. It included observations within online and offline teaching contexts over 18 months, and the collection of materials of different natures: official documents, field notes, interviews, and work produced by the student teachers, especially the written memories. The theoretical framework is based on Bourdieu's theory of the habitus and the contributions of his contemporary critics. By investigating the educational processes inherent to the student teachers, we intend to analyze the relations between the learning situations observed throughout the development of the program and how they were appropriated by teachers. The analyzes developed let us state that many of the reflections made by the teachers, in the position of students, originated from a learning process that was unexpected and even ignored by the program. In this work, this process was called educational work in reverse, and put into question the principle of inverted symmetry, which guided PEC, and therefore some of the educational fundamentals of the model under consideration.