Knowledges and practices of successful literacy teachers (Brazil, 1950–1980)¹

¹ We would like to thank FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo/State of São Paulo Research Foundation) for financial support of this research.

Abstract

Significant changes have marked Brazilian education in the period focused on by this research. Aiming to understand the configurations of the teaching profession in that period, this work focuses on the issue of the school success in the area of literacy by means of an analysis of the practices of literacy teachers who were at work between the 1950s and 1980s. The research is based on life‐history accounts. The study aimed at describing the various experiences of these teachers identifying the knowledges and practices that sustained their successful literacy work as well as the various factors of a social, religious, political, familiar or other nature that, in the history of each of these teachers, favoured the development of a pedagogical style of literacy particular to each one of them. Despite the peculiarities and originality of each history, the success in the literacy process, as the defining feature of the profile of the four teachers, results from two main aspects: first, the autonomy that each one managed to keep in the development of his/her teaching work, particularly in the organisation of the teaching practices that indicated greater chances of a pupil’s learning to read and write; second, their trust in the capacity of every child for learning, independently of his/her social, economic and cultural conditions. Based on this evidence it is argued that the success of the pedagogical work, particularly during the early years of schooling, lies in an ethics of the teaching work with a double implication: first, it requires the teachers’ dedication to their pupils, and second, it requires respect for the work of the teacher, so that she/he can maintain her/his autonomy and inventiveness. These aspects indicate the need for reflection on teaching work and a review of current teacher education policies, particularly the policies targeted at teachers working with literacy practices.

¹ We would like to thank FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo/State of São Paulo Research Foundation) for financial support of this research.

Keywords:

• successful literacy teachers
• life history
• educational knowledges
• pedagogical autonomy
• teaching practices

Notes

¹ We would like to thank FAPESP (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo/State of São Paulo Research Foundation) for financial support of this research.

² Elza Pino Dos Santos, “Professoras em Tempos de Mudanças. Trabalho Docente na Rede Pública de Educação do Estado de São Paulo (1960–80)” (Teachers in Changing Times. Teaching Work in the Public System in the State of São Paulo (1960–80)) (MA thesis, University of São Paulo, 2003); E.P. Santos and B. Bueno, “Trabalho Docente e Tecnicismo: A Experiência de Professsoras Primárias no Estado de São Paulo (1960–1980)” [Teaching Work and Technicism: Primary Teachers’ Experience in the State of São Paulo (1960–1980)] (paper presented at the 27th Annual Meeting of ANPEd [National Association for Research and Education], Caxambu, Brazil, October 2004).

³ Maria Iolanda Monteiro, “Histórias de Vida: Saberes e Práticas de Alfabetizadoras Bem Sucedidas” [Life Histories: Knowledges and Practices of Successful Literacy Teachers] (PhD diss., University of São Paulo, 2006).

⁴ Daniel Bertaux, ed., Biography and Society: The Life History Approach in the Social Sciences (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1981); Franco Ferrarotti, “On the Autonomy of the Biographical Method,” in Biography and Society: The Life History Approach in the Social Sciences, ed. D. Bertaux (Beverly Hills: Sage Studies in International Sociology and the International Sociological Association, 1981), 19–27; Ivor Goodson, “Studying the teacher’s life and work,” Teaching and Teacher Education 10, no. 1, (1994): 29–37; António Nóvoa, Vidas de Professores [Teachers’ Lives] (Porto: Porto Editora, 1992).

⁵ Bertaux, Biography and Society, 7–9.

⁶ Jean‐Jacques Becker, “Le handicap de l’a posteriori,” Les cahiers de L’IHTP 4 (June 1987): 95–7.

⁷ Pierre Bourdieu, Ce Que Parler Veut Dire: L’Economie des Echanges Linguistiques (Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1982); Bourdieu, ed., La Misère du Monde (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1993); id., Raisons Pratiques: Sur la Théorie de l’Action (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1994); Bernard Lahire, Homem Plural: Os Determinantes da Ação [L’Homme Pluriel: Les ressorts de l’Action], trans. A. Clasen (Petrópolis: Vozes, 2002); Maurice Tardif, Saberes Docentes e Formação Profissional [Teaching Knowledges and Professional Formation] (Petrópolis: Vozes, 2003).

⁹ Lahire, Homem Plural, 173.

⁸ Bourdieu, Raisons pratiques, 131.

¹⁰ Bourdieu, La Misère du Monde.

¹¹ Magda Becker Soares, Letramento: Um Tema em Três Gêneros [Literacy: One Theme in Three Genres], 2nd ed. (Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2002).

¹² Cagliari, Luiz Carlos. Alfabetizando sem o Bá‐Bé‐Bi‐Bó‐Bu [Alphabetizing Without he Bá‐Bé‐Bi‐Bó‐Bu] (São Paulo: Scipione, 1999).

¹³ B.O. Bueno and T.B. Garcia, “School Success: The Rules of Interaction in the Classroom” (in Portuguese; English summary), Revista Brasileira de Estudos Pedagógicos 77, no. 186 (1996): 263–81.

¹⁴ Magda Becker Soares, “Literacy and Alphabetisation: The Many Faces” (in Portuguese; English summary), Revista Brasileira de Educação no. 25 (2004): 5–17.

¹⁵ George Noblit, “Power and caring,” American Educational Research Journal 30 (1993): 32–8.

¹⁶ Maria José Milharezi Abud, O Ensino da Leitura e da Escrita na Fase Inicial da Escolarização [The Teaching of Reading and Writing in the Beginning of Schooling] (São Paulo: Editora Pedagógica e Universitária, 1987).

¹⁷ Del Hymes, “Comunicative Competence,” in Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society, ed. U. Ammon, N. Dittmar, and K. J. Mattheir (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1987), 219–29.

¹⁸ Charles Hadji, A Avaliação, Regras do Jogo. Das Intenções aos Instrumentos [The Evaluation, the Rules of the Game. From the Intentions to the Instruments] (Porto: Porto Editora, 1994).

¹⁹ Soares, Letramento.

²⁰ Bourdieu, La Misère du Monde.