Docentes universitários em construção: narrativas de professores iniciantes de uma universidade pública no contexto de sua interiorização no sul do Amazonas

Abstract

This research has the main objective of understanding the development process of teachers beginning in the job of teaching in the university, in times of expansion and growing of the public universities in the countryside, that happened in the first decade of the 21st century. It took place in the Federal University of Amazon, most specifically, for empirical data, the Campus in the city of Humaitá. In the perspective for this comprehension it was developed a qualitative investigation, listening, through narratives, four professors in different fields, that fit the criteria defined by the study, in the condition of initiating the career in teaching at the university, with no more than five years of experience in this level of teaching. This choice allowed to characterize better the coverage of the object of study. For the data interpretation it was used the principles of content analysis. The main theoretical base came from the studies from Cunha; Pimenta e Anastasiou; Veiga; Nóvoa; Marcelo Garcia; Vaillant; Mayor Ruiz; Larrosa e Lucarelli, among other contributions that fundament the central themes. In the perspective of fulfilling the proposed objective, some questions were very important, especially the ones related to the path crossed by the teachers in their study period becoming a professor; stimuli they had for chosing their professional career and influences of their student condition, from what they learned with their own ex-teachers and also understand the impact of the academic learnings in their professionality. We also tried to find out if they received any institutional support to this induction time and what is the importance they attribute to possible movement in this direction. Amplifying even more the studies, we provoked the narratives about the main experiences that marked the initial trajectory of teaching and what these experiences meant to their daily practice. It, too, interested the study to comprehend the value that these teachers attribute to the university didactics and how the career and professional development strategies could be mobilized to strengthen their teaching. The results showed that expressions as ―reality chock‖, ―pedagogic loneliness‖; ―land as you can‖, ―swim or sink‖ are capable to characterize what the teachers lived in their first years of teaching in the university, because they systematized welcoming. Informally, they got help from their colleagues and learned in the practice, with their student through trial and error. But still, the beginner condition didn´t prevent them to take responsibility for bureaucratic-administrative roles, understood by them by promoting the professional maturation. The dynamism, the reflection about the practice and the commitment with the students development were present in the narratives of the professors, showing that their process of building the bases, mainly in the models and contramodels brought in their academicals trajectory. It is about a cultural knowledge that seems to respond to the challenges that they face, but without a theoretical base which strengthens the necessary professionality. In the teaching practice dynamics, the teachers are building in a unique way, redoing themselves and creating their own identities of being a teacher. The fragility, though, of their preparation for teaching and lack of institutional support in the academic environment postpones and affects the professionality, that takes place more in an individual responsibility than as part of public policies that support the expansion of superior education in Brazil.