Teacher trajectories

multiple voices in a public history archive

Abstract

This paper aims to outline some paths in the construction of an archive of public narratives of teachers and its constitution in the Rede Trajetórias Docentes, reflecting on the potential uses of teachers' autobiographies, in different formats and languages, as a strategy for professional education and as a source for the history of education, open to historical research and debate about the profession and teaching work. The text also focuses on the production of narratives in the context of the Trajetórias Docentes course, offered by the Rede in the year 2023, aimed at teachers at different stages of life and career. Such discussions establish dialogues with authors and crucial conceptions for research in the frontier between History and Education, especially António Nóvoa and Ivor F. Goodson, thematizing approaches in life histories, curriculum theory and history, and narrative learning and curriculum. Also, the culture circles, present in the work of Paulo Freire, as well as their more recent resonances in the work of bell hooks, especially around the notion of learning communities, are part of the text's scope. Finally, drawing from the contributions of Ricardo Santhiago and Juniele Rabêlo de Almeida, it addresses some connections between public history, history teaching, and education. The synthesis of this journey brings to light the fecundity of the circular dialogue between the memories of teachers and their uses in initial and continuing teacher education, as a source for historical research, from the perspective of a narrative learning of the profession.