Building up transformations — workplace learning by teachers’ voices

Abstract

Abstract This text resulted from the narrative research, with life histories of experienced teachers, that we have developed in the doctoral thesis.The option by biographical narratives allowed us to make a meeting between theoretical frameworks about teacher training aligned with lifelong learning and the voices of teachers in their written storytelling. In the conceptualizing the common personal we had intending rebuild before its winding paths that crossed individual and collective perspectives, informal and non-formal memories of experiences and everyday life in their work contexts. Memories that hide, reveal, negotiate and rewrite the history of conflicts, tensions, relationships, external impositions and professional cultures in the school as living spaces that influence they learning of teaching and mark those teachers forever. The content analysis with Grounded Theory, were aids for the (re) signification of what were told in writing. As a result, we have identified certain patterns, of which we note three of them in this article. So, we understand that the training of a person throughout life was carried to the professional practice and thus it becomes a model for their teaching. This research gave us the possibility of knowing some contexts of the curricular change in each school, and how they contributed for foster or hinder, learning and professional development of those teachers. The stories of those teachers revealed to us that informal and non-formal learning contexts, daily life and experiences in workplace were invoked. So, analysis and interpretation of their voices us allowed to conclude that, in a way, learning it was promoted by workplace. We also conclude that workplace allowed those teachers do a lot of connections with other previous knowledge and their beliefs, crossing thus the ways of personal, academic and professional life. This indicates that training, learning and development blurred the boundaries when leadership, collaboration and work it was the positives resources and context for them as a person and professional and for school development.