“Those who teach also learn” ¹: training primary school teachers through practice in the province of Paraná ²,³

Abstract

According to the historiography of Brazilian education, there were many actions related to the forms of training primary school teachers during the imperial period. The majority of these studies are centred on teacher training linked to the institution of the teacher training college ( escola normal ). However, a smaller number of studies discuss another aspect of teacher training throughout the 19th century, namely, the way in which subjects who did not attend that institutional space (the escola normal ) became primary school teachers. This article shares this perspective and looks into forms of training primary school teachers through practice in Paraná in the second half of the 19th century, based on the understanding that this type of training marked a period in which public education was becoming consolidated in the midst of actions, deliberations, difficulties and tensions in the attempt to improve public education conditions. This study made use of education legislation of the period as well as documents produced by subjects involved in public education at that time and available at the Paraná Public Archives. Through the collation and analysis of the sources, it can be stated that the training of primary school teachers through practice in the province of Paraná took place during the development of the process which lead to the constitution of formal primary teacher training.

Teacher training; Teaching profession; 19th Century; Province of Paraná

Resumo

Segundo a historiografia da educação brasileira, muitas foram as ações relacionadas aos modos de formar professores primários durante o período imperial. Desses estudos, a maioria se centra na formação de professores atrelada à instituição das escolas normais, entretanto, há uma parcela menor de trabalhos que se propõem a discutir outro aspecto da formação de professores ao longo do século XIX, mais especificamente, a forma como sujeitos que não frequentaram esse espaço institucional (a escola normal), constituíram-se docentes primários. O artigo que aqui se apresenta partilha dessa perspectiva, e volta o olhar para os modos de formação pela prática de professores primários no Paraná na segunda metade do século XIX, por compreender que esse tipo de formação marcou um período em que a instrução pública estava se consolidando em meio a ações, deliberações, dificuldades e tensões, na tentativa de melhorias de sua condição. A pesquisa valeu-se da consulta da legislação educacional do período e de documentos advindos dos sujeitos envolvidos com a instrução pública, naquele momento, disponíveis no acervo do Arquivo Público do Paraná. No cotejamento e análise das fontes, é possível afirmar, que a formação pela prática dos professores primários na província do Paraná se deu no decorrer do desenvolvimento do processo de constituição do magistério primário.

Formação docente; Profissão docente; Século XIX; Província do Paraná

“The master is everything in a school, he should be educated and practical”. ⁶

There is sizeable and growing production in Brazilian educational historiography ⁷ about the diverse actions relating to primary teacher training during the Brazilian imperial period. More specifically, some studies are centred on teacher training through teacher training colleges ( escola normal ) set up in Brazil with effect from 1835 (cf. Tanuri, 2000) ⁸ . On the other hand, another group of studies ⁹ seeks to enlighten another aspect of teacher training during the 19th century: namely how subjects who did not attend this institutional space became primary school teachers.

This article shares the approach of the latter group and its purpose is to demonstrate how some primary teachers learned their profession in the province of Paraná before specific spaces for primary teacher training were created, in an attempt to contribute to future discussions on the history of the constitution of the teaching profession. In particular, this article looks at what Brazilian educational historiography refers to as the training of primary school teachers through practice, within an educational scenario which unfolds in the province of Paraná following its political emancipation in 1853 ¹⁰ . It is important to emphasize that the objective of this study, more than showing that this type of training was precarious and insufficient or even emphasizing its quality in comparison with the specialized training provided at teacher training colleges (escola normal), is to bring to the forefront the other way of preparing future teachers without creating the escola normal, based on the understanding that training through practice marked a period in which public education was becoming consolidated in the midst of difficulties and tensions, actions and deliberations in favour of and resulting from its improvement.

By consulting documents produced by subjects involved in public education at that time (the second half of the 19th century) – reports made by presidents of the province, reports made by teaching inspectors (inspector-general and district inspectors), teachers’ reports, letters and correspondence of teachers and inspectors, available at the Paraná Public Archives ¹¹ , as well as education legislation of the period, evidence can be identified that helps us to envisage a type of training experienced by many Paraná teachers during the second half of the 19th century.

These are documents that offer many distinct research possibilities and assist in understanding the complex organization of teaching in the province of Paraná, as well as being relevant for getting closer to the universe of Paraná’s schools during the provincial period. As such, we can consider the documents used here as being involuntary testimonies (BLOCH, 2001), given that they were produced by their authors at a specific time and with a specific objective, without the intention of being left to posterity. Nevertheless, principally with regard to the reports, it should be taken into account that they were a legal requirement and that the items they deal with were targeted and aimed to inform their recipient about the status of education (being submitted by the teacher to the teaching inspector and by the teaching inspector to the president of the province), i.e. we need to be aware of the possibility of their being accounts subject to coercion owing to the nature of their production. We can complement the analysis of these documents by treating them as monuments (LE GOFF, 1984), since, albeit involuntarily, they are part of the efforts of a society to bequeath certain images of itself to following periods. In one of the aspects of their analysis, it is possible to consider education legislation prescribed during the second half of the eighteen hundreds as a discourse relating to a period in time which, apart from prescribing normatizations, offers us “information about the legal framework of the teaching process” (FARIA FILHO, 1998, p. 124).

By examining the sources it can also be indicated that, from the perspective of the presidents of the provinces, teaching inspectors and teachers, the basis for the training of Paraná’s primary school teachers through practice was both anchored in and also constituted and ratified teaching experience . This experience which, coupled to the representation (CHARTIER, 2002) that existed regarding the figure and role of teachers, ran through and entwined the requisites needed to provide primary school personnel, the government structuring of the teaching profession and, moreover, the ways in which these teachers taught.

“For public education, as for everything, experience is the surest guideline one should seek” ¹²

In 1857, the Inspector-General of Teaching, Joaquim Ignácio Silveira da Mota, wrote in his report ¹³ about the instructions consigned in regulations ¹⁴ published in the same year, regarding the means of preparing the future teachers of the province of Paraná. In his writings we encounter the training of boys and girls who had a vocation for teaching with the aim of qualifying them as primary school teachers, by means of the “system of normal classes”, or as the inspector described as “ the other way of training teachers ” (MOTA, 1857, p. 47, emphasis added).

Training teachers through the system of normal classes was characterized by forming classes of student teachers and/or assistant teachers. Those who proposed it called it the Dutch, Austrian-Dutch or French system, taking its adoption in those countries as a reference. Studies have shown that it was used during the Brazilian Empire in distinct manners and at different times (during the 19th century), in the provinces of Rio de Janeiro (VILLELA, 2011a; SCHUELER, 2005), Ceará (DINIZ, 2008), Goiás (PRUDENTE, 2009), Minas Gerais (ROSA, 2003), among others. The system consisted basically of leading students who showed themselves to be apt to teach – usually those who also served as monitors ¹⁵ – and who achieved good results in the final examinations, to the category of student teachers and/or assistant teachers. These students both assisted the regular teachers and also learned the profession of teaching. Once they were 18 years old, these students could take examinations to qualify as teachers and, if they were approved, they would be considered lifelong teachers

Dealt with in the specialized literature as artisanal teacher training, this type of training, according to Heloisa Villela (2011a), was used as a replacement mechanism when “public budgets tended towards other priorities” (VILLELA, 2011a, p. 113) to the detriment of investments in teacher training colleges ( escola normal ). Throughout the entire 19th century, in the provinces of the Brazilian Empire, the escola normal was seen and disseminated as the teacher training locus, despite the difficulties it faced in becoming consolidated. António Nóvoa (1992), in his studies of the teaching profession in Portugal, indicates that the escola normal represented the place where the knowledge needed by teachers was assured and systematized in an institutionalized manner with a curriculum and its own norms, where future teachers would have specialized and long training.

Based on the sources consulted, it can be indicated that the provincial authorities and teaching inspectors did not cease to ponder as to the advantages and disadvantages of creating a teacher training school ¹⁶ in the province of Paraná, whenever they debated about the organization of the body of primary school teachers. Notwithstanding, although all of them defended its establishment and discussed its importance, some argued against it and justified their contrary position based on the lack of interest of students in becoming teachers or the lack of resources for its creation. Although in provinces such as Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Bahia, among others, the escola normal had been created and launched between 1835 and 1850 (VILELLA, 2011a, 2011b; UEKANE, 2008; TANURI, 2000; ARAUJO; FREITAS; LOPES, 2008), nevertheless it was not effectively established. Over the second half of the 19th century, the escola normal in those provinces suffered from lack of resources, lack of attendees and were constantly closed and reopened according to the situation and interest of the government of the province in question. In view of this, it is possible to agree with Paula Vicentini and Rosario Lugli (2009) that with regard to the “meaning of the escola normal in the period (between 1867 and 1883): it was more of a movement on the level of ideas, a test exercise in the sense of broadening and delimiting educational knowledge, than a true state policy” (VICENTINI; LUGLI, 2009, p. 34). In other words, the assertion made by these authors that on this “level of ideas and test exercises” training provided by an escola normal was just another means of training teachers, an attempt that depended on financial resources, an interested audience, a specific space and qualified teachers.

In view of the presidents of the province considering it to be infeasible to create and maintain an escola normal in Paraná, other resolutions began to comprise the scenario of how primary school teaching would be structured. It is therefore possible to assert that the system of normal classes and other teacher training actions sought to provide a solution to an issue that was on the agenda at that moment, i.e. define the best way of training the province’s future teachers. As such, students who passed the final examinations and demonstrated ability to teach could be kept at school, by designation of the Inspector-General, as student teachers.

A student teacher’s task consisted of attending a first-order school once a day and repeating the lesson previously explained by the teacher. In return, he/she would receive a monthly gratuity payment stipulated in a contract signed by their legal guardian. For that part of the time when the student teacher was not exercising/learning their profession together with the teacher, he/she had to attend a second-order school with the aim of learning the subjects taught there, have logic lessons and acquire notions of the diverse teaching methods.

According to the 1857 Regulations, after one year’s practice, a student teacher showing proof of ability certified by their instructor could request a specific qualification examination in order to be appointed as an assistant teacher, provided they were at least 16 years old. However, with effect from 1871, with the publication of the May 13 Regulations, student teachers would remain as such for three years and at the end of each year they would undergo an examination of abilities before the Inspector-General. Once they obtained final approval, they could make a request to be appointed as an assistant teacher. As an assistant teacher they would assist with teaching at a school attended by more than fifty students and, when necessary, would replace the teacher in cases of absence or, if a qualified teacher was lacking, they would be employed for that vacancy. In this latter case, their salary would be the same as that of the teacher, in all other cases they would only receive a monthly gratuity payment. For the period in which they were assistant teachers (two years), they would be examined through practical tests in schools in the province’s capital before the Inspector-General. At the end of this period and once they had been approved, they would be given a lifelong appointment as a teacher.

When he obtained full approval in the final examinations, Joaquim Duarte de Camargo requested of the Inspector-General his appointment as a student teacher at the school he attended by means of an official letter sent by District Inspector Conrado de Faria Erichsen. In the letter the inspector states that he is in favour of the appointment, given that the school attended by the boy was “swelling with a large number of frequent pupils” (ERICHSEN, 1873, p. 87), i.e. teacher Gaudêncio Christovão Machado needed an auxiliary in his classroom in order to teach the boys of the town of Castro. Six years after this request to be appointed as a student teacher, Joaquim, by now possibly 18 years old, was appointed as a lifelong teacher, on March 22nd 1879, and from then on held the position of Castro’s second boys teacher. It was in the period between the two appointments that Joaquim qualified as a primary school teacher in provincial Paraná, learning his profession by seeing and hearing how another more experienced teacher taught.

According to Maurice Tardif (2012), up until the 19th century, the prevailing conception regarding education practice associated “the activity of the educator with an art, i.e. a techne, a Greek term which can be translated indistinctly by the words ‘technique’ or ‘art’” (TARDIF, 2012, p. 154, emphasis added). The education practice model was based on the idea that teachers were not scientists, given that their objective was not to understand the workings of the human being, but rather to “act and train, within the specific context of a contingent situation, concrete and individual human beings” (TARDIF, 2012, p. 159).

With regard to teaching conceptions present in Brazil at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Marta Carvalho (2006) states that such conceptions prescribed the “fine art of teaching as the fine copy of models” (CARVALHO, 2006, p. 02). In relation to copying models, Carvalho stresses that

[...] when we speak of copying here, it does not have the pejorative sense that would later be attributed by its critics, with the aim of giving rise to a new paradigm of pedagogical modernity. When we speak here of copying models we are speaking of a type of activity which, based on the observation of teaching practices, is capable of analytically extracting the principles that govern them and applying them inventively (CARVALHO, 2006, p. 02-03, author’s emphasis).

Taking the assertions of Tardif (2012) and Carvalho (2006), from a perspective whereby the educator’s action can be associated with the activity of an artisan, involving the observation of teaching practices, we have art as something that is learnt and taught – a profession that is learnt in the midst of the production of knowledge. As such, we can state that in the province of Paraná the constitution of normal classes occurred as artisanal training because of the specificities shown here.

When comparing the sources, it can be perceived that in the relationship between the number of teaching positions created, teachers needed and the number of student teachers and assistant teachers existing or even defined ¹⁷ , the class system did not intend to provide the entire province with teachers trained in this manner. Moreover, presidents and inspectors constantly evaluated whether this system was efficacious, not so much by the quantity of those who had been and were being trained by it, but rather by the relationship between training teachers and trainee students. Student teachers and assistant teachers were boys and girls interested in becoming primary school teachers and who, to this end, submitted themselves to guidance from other more experienced teachers as their pupils; correspondingly, there were teachers who, when they requested auxiliaries for their school, became instructors. Nevertheless, at times the reverse happened – teachers would request a helper because there was a large number of students at their school, and a student teacher or assistant teacher was indicated for the job. This solution did not guarantee the training of a future teacher, since their master/mistress might not take on the commitment to see them into the profession, but rather use them just for the work they had requested.

Within this context, the presidents of the province and teaching inspectors made use of other means in the attempt to obtain qualified teachers: they established guidelines for qualification examinations, they set up requirements regarding teaching practices and they delimited categorization through their employment relationship.

Public competitive selection processes and examinations for public primary school teacher candidates were yet another means of training teachers with regard to teaching practice, since guidelines were published for candidates taking examinations to qualify as teachers ¹⁸ . Having qualifications in the subjects taught was among the requirements for future teachers, knowing how to teach and what to teach provided candidates with minimum preparation for applying for competitive selection processes or requesting examinations. The deliberation of these instructions by the Inspector-General of Teaching allows us to indicate that it was believed that candidates prepared in order to take examinations, and that us such this was a kind of training; even teachers who were working as teachers needed to prove their knowledge about the subjects to be taught and how to teach them to their students in order to keep their position. As such, what counted was their teaching practice and the knowledge they demonstrated – their experience .

When examining teaching experience, we come closer to what Maurice Tardif (2012) discusses regarding teachers’ knowledge whereby experience is understood to be the knowledge produced and acquired in teachers’ everyday activities when practising their teaching art. In a broad sense, for this author “knowing” is that “which encompasses teachers’ knowledge, competencies, abilities (or skills) and attitudes, i.e. that which has often been called knowing, knowing how to do and knowing how to be” (TARDIF, 2012, p. 60). The author indicates that experience of working as a teacher is a space in which the “teacher applies knowledge, whereby experience itself is knowledge of work on knowledge, in short: reflexiveness, resumption, reproduction, reiteration of that which one knows into that which one knows how to do, in order to produce one’s own professional practice” (TARDIF, 2012, p. 2, author’s emphasis).

In order to become a primary school teacher in the province of Paraná four criteria had to be met: be aged 18 or over, have good moral character, be Brazilian or naturalized and demonstrate the skills needed in order to teach. In order to provide documentary proof of meeting these requirements, candidates had to present their baptism certificate, statements of good conduct from three places where they had lived and be approved in a practical and theoretical examination by a panel comprised of the Inspector-General and teachers designated by him. Although the criteria were set forth in law, when one looks closer and examines the peculiarities of each case, accompanying some of the teachers who passed the competitive selection processes or examinations, through the documents analysed, it can be perceived that teaching experience was a further requirement to be proven by the candidate and to be assessed, and that both teaching inspectors when appointing teachers and also teachers in order to gain titles, made use of this knowledge produced when practising their profession (TARDIF, 2012).

In 1867, teachers were called to the capital (Curitiba) to undergo examinations to prove their teaching qualifications (SANTOS, 1867, p. 138) ¹⁹ , including Joaquim Araujo, a teacher hired in the town of Tibagi.

I have received your official letter no. 44 dated March 14th which I shall now answer. My current circumstances are so critical that it will not be possible for me to be in the capital as you command, since I am not only lacking the pecuniary means but also an animal to mount, and for this reason I beg and implore you to spare me this journey. If you so wish, I can show here proof of my qualification to some gentlemen who are qualified here, such as Friar Gaudencio de Genova, Major Frederico Martins de Araujo and Fidencio Borges de Oliveira, whereby the latter was a hired teacher here for almost four years during the office of His Excellency President Cardoso, and it was here that he publicly showed the proof of my qualification. My pupils, should you wish to do me justice and send to see and know them, are well ahead, since I began giving lessons in July last year and some of them are already able to read well books on morality and letters written by any person, some Christian doctrine and the four arithmetical operations, even through when they started in my classes they did not know the alphabet and some did not even know ABC! I also remind you that as I have pupils ready in almost all subjects, I presume that it is not necessary for me to be subjected to an examination as I have plenty of energy and discernment to teach them and explain everything they should learn, to this end I have some of my own books, including the encyclopaedic manual dealing with how many subjects a boy should learn, Montpelier’s catechism, book of (...) which is also a highly moral book, and (...) and Ottoni’s grammar book and the Christian doctrine primer. In view of everything I have faithfully put forth here, I hope you will deem it possible to dispense me from having to go to the capital. Tibagi, April 2nd 1867. Professor Joaquim P. de S. Araujo. (ARAUJO, 1867, AP. 259, p. 72-75).

Teacher Joaquim not only informed that he was unable to go to the capital to take the examinations, but also proposed that his qualifications be examined by local authorities in his town. He made a direct request to be dispensed from being assessed by the panel, qualifying himself as being apt to exercise his teaching functions owing to his having sufficient energy and discernment to know how to teach everything that a boy should know. As a justification, the teacher asserts that there are pupils in his class that have learnt to read in the short space of time that the school has been open, in addition to being the owner of plentiful material with which to teach his pupils the basics.

We can take the case of this teacher as an example of how teaching practice at that time was taken to be the art of teaching (TARDIF, 2012). According to Tardif (2012), from this perspective teachers “act guiding themselves by certain goals, and their practice corresponds to a sort of mixture of personal talent, intuition, experience, habit, sound judgement and skills confirmed through their use ” (TARDIF, 2012, p. 161, our emphasis). It is worthwhile paying attention to the teacher’s justification for not needing to take the examinations: He considered himself to be apt to teach the subjects required because he was the owner of books that assisted him with this task, because he knew what to teach his pupils (intuition, experience, habit, sound judgement) and because he had taught them to read in such as short space of time (skills confirmed through use). Here the teacher used his experience based on his knowledge, on the use of his support material and on the results obtained to judge himself to be qualified. In other words, the teacher based himself on a representation that it was by teaching that one became a good teacher and that it was possible to learn to educate if the teacher had the qualities of the profession (TARDIF, 2012).

The competitive selection processes and other examinations were a means for the education authorities to evaluate and validate the candidate’s experience based on his/her performance before the examination panel, given that the candidate, apart from demonstrating knowledge about the subjects to be taught, also had to show himself/herself to be apt to teach in the practical lesson (one of the requirements of the competitive selection processes). Similarly, by taking part in these competitive processes, teachers had their experience legitimized by meeting all the requirements. It is possible to assume, when comparing the terms of the examinations and other sources consulted, that the candidate needed to have at least minimum knowledge of the subjects to be taught, otherwise he/she would not pass the examination, and also show the morality, capacity, intelligence and vocation that would qualify him/her for the position. Furthermore, it can be seen from the sources that the alterations proposed in all the regulations regarding the best way to select teachers were submitted to the uncertainties that hovered over the method for evaluating the teacher’s experience: if this should be before being admitted, or afterwards, during their work, or even if it should be by means of a process involving both before and afterwards.

In the same direction, the representation hovering over the figure of the teacher had direct influence on the determination of the criteria to be met by public teacher candidates. More specifically, based on traces found in the discourses given by provincial authorities, that teaching served to educate and civilize the population in the construction and development of a civilized and educated society, teachers would be agents articulating this cause and would therefore be representatives of the State and, as such, they had a posture to be taken on and to be followed. In view of this, teachers would be subjects who should serve as models for their pupils, in addition to having the mission of achieving the objectives stipulated by provincial authorities for public education.

According to Roger Chartier (2002), two meanings are given to the term representation: the first is defined by the relationship of an image that is present with that of an absent object, whereby the symbol is taken and meaning is given to it as a representation of that which is real; the second distinguishes itself by the action of representation as action of the imagination, whereby visible signs appear as proof of an invented reality, a reality that does not exist other than through the sign it exhibits. In the realm of the social world, this reality is contradictorily built by the different groups that comprise society, and it is through the appropriation of this reality that images are formed that give meaning to the present, to the other and to space. It is, therefore, from these appropriations that strategies and practices arise which, in a hierarchical relationship between the groups, pervaded by the imposition of an authority, tend “to legitimize a reformist project or to justify, for individuals themselves, their choices and conducts” (CHARTIER, 2002, p. 17). Notwithstanding, the author presents this as a field of competitions, in which representations struggle with each other, whereby the representation that one group has of itself enters in conflict with the representation that is attempted to be imposed on it (CHARTIER, 2002).

In the case of teachers, the representation that exists regarding them can be considered to be an action of the imagination, although it is not based on visible signs and arises from a reality built on discourses. In other words, becoming a teacher is an image built on discourse that has as its backdrop an idealized society, in which each group has a role to fulfil. Nevertheless, this representation can also be associated as the relationship of an image that is present with that of an absent object, namely when the teacher becomes an agent of the State in favour of education, i.e. becomes an arm of the State and therefore its representative for a given purpose.

In the face of this position, in each of the modifications made by the provincial presidents and teaching inspectors, teachers were being sought who could show themselves to be adequate for this objective, given that being appointed a public school teacher turned those wishing to follow the teaching profession into State employees. Moreover, according to António Nóvoa (1992), they were employees of a particular type, since the carrying out of their job was imbued with a profound “political intentionality, owing to social projects and aims they carry” (NÓVOA, 1992, p. 19).

Returning to the theme of valuing the experience-based knowledge (TARDIF, 2012) of Paraná’s primary school teachers and to the perspective of them becoming teachers both in and through practice, we now examine the structuring of the teaching profession by the government and its movements among the possible employment relationship categories with the province as a result of having taking examinations and/or taken part in competitive examination processes. Interspersed within this organization, there are lifelong teachers, regular teachers, hired teachers and temporary teachers²⁰ .

Between 1856 and 1865 all teachers who successfully passed the competitive selection processes and were able to prove their qualifications were appointed as lifelong public teachers. Obtaining a lifelong appointment meant that teachers were qualified to do the job and were entrusted to fulfil all the duties and objectives it required; they could only be dismissed at their own request or for serious misconduct.

For the education authorities, the dismissal conditions for lifelong teachers was an advantage of the position, as according to opinions found in their reports, many teachers ceased to dedicate themselves to effectively teaching their pupils after being appointed to this position. An example of this can be taken from the writings of President André Augusto de Pádua Fleury in an 1865 report,

Once appointed by presidential act (a decree, according to the regulations), a teacher can no longer be dismissed other than for causes clearly set forth in article 79 of the same regulations. It is a great evil avoided by all organizations of this service of which I have knowledge in other provinces; and, so as not to be repetitive, I cite the example of Rio de Janeiro, where teaching qualifications are far-removed from this. Temporary and regular teachers there are subject to dismissal at the mere discretion of the President’s Office; and they do not enjoy the guarantees of article 79 other than when, after five years of effectively teaching, they obtain lifelong office. This is in recognition of the assiduity, morality, impartiality and dedication to teaching of those, who, through long experience, show themselves to be really apt for the teaching profession. (...) It is with caution that it is granted to primary education masters, primary education being the basis of the reform of societies. (FLEURY, 1865, p. 15, our emphasis).

In the judgement of the president, teachers needed to prove over a given period of time that they were fit to receive the lifelong position and all the advantages thereof. In an attempt to regulate this condition for the public teaching profession, law n ^o 120 was enacted on June 6th 1865, article 2 of which determined that the lifelong position of teachers would only become effective after five years of good service. In view of this law and the words of President Pádua Fleury, it can be indicated that the knowledge acquired by teachers during that five year period was a kind of on-the-job qualification, which served as a basis for their teaching practice and proof of competency (TARDIF, 2012) to teach with the right to a lifelong position.

More specific determinations as to teachers’ positions came into force through Law n ^o 290, dated April 15 ^th 1871, and the Regulations of May 13 ^th 1871, resulting in teachers being divided into three classes, apart from creating another employment relationship – namely that of regular teachers. These would be appointed following the publication of the regulations, i.e. teachers who would undergo examinations and be approved for a primary school position. They would remain for five years in this condition of probation before gaining the right to a lifelong position, whilst also facing the possibility of being dismissed during this period if they showed themselves to be incapable of continuing to teach. Regular teachers would be the 1 ^st of the three classes. After five years they would go on to the 2 ^nd class and become lifelong teachers. After four years of proven good service they could request transferral to the 3 ^rd class. This type of classification and regulation of the teaching profession can also be considered to be a form of building the teaching career, based on an employment relationship with the State.

The determinations about the lifelong appointment of teachers were constantly pervaded by deliberations regarding temporary and hired teachers, since the teaching inspectors and presidents of the province considered teachers in these categories to be an alternative source of provision when qualified teachers were lacking. However, these categories also suffered criticism regarding teacher qualification and the methods used to select them. Being a hired teacher proved to be a practical way of exercising the teaching professional in order for some teachers in this category to continue their vocation to teach, whilst also achieving and ensuring a definitive employment relationship with the province as public teachers. Moreover, it can be perceived, although as yet in a concealed form, that by undergoing examinations/competitive selection processes, hired teachers had in their favour the period of time during which they taught in this condition. The same happened in the case of temporary teachers, who, even having undergone examinations/competitive selection processes when they were appointed, during a period ranging from six months to a year had to practice the profession in order to demonstrate that they had a vocation for teaching and to show that they were qualified.

Suggestions can be found in some presidents’ and inspectors’ reports that hired and/or temporary teachers were appointed to schools in locations with a small number of pupils, with the aim of their being able to practice their profession for a given period of time before being designated to schools with a larger number of pupils. This was based on the understanding that although they had been trained in the practice of teaching, this would be a way of preparing and qualifying them for their profession, as President Antonio Augusto da Fonseca defended in his 1869 report.

Final considerations

By comparing and analysing the sources, it can be stated that training primary school teachers through practice in the province of Paraná occurred during the development of the process which lead to the constitution of formal primary teacher training. Such training was characterized by artisanal training of classes of student teachers and assistant teachers, by preparation (training) of candidates to undergo competitive selection processes or examinations, by fulfilling and carrying out the requirements and guidelines for teaching, as well as by government actions to regulate the teaching profession. Moreover, training through practice, as distinguished here, was comprised of all these forms of training, at times together, at times separately, in addition to including many other modes of primary school teacher training in the 19 ^th century.

Intertwined in the perspective of knowing how to do and learning by doing, which is the basis of training in practice and through practice, is teaching experience which, along with the demonstration of exemplary conduct and the representation of exercising the teaching profession as being a vocational mission, comprised a period in which the teaching profession was constituted in provincial Paraná. Experience was understood to mean what Maurice Tardif (2012) defines as experience-based knowledge. On the Paraná scenario, teachers, provincial presidents and teaching inspectors made use of and based themselves on certifying this knowledge which in turn arises from the knowledge that integrates and constitutes teaching practice (TARDIF, 2012) in order to deliberate both on and also for the organization and regularization of primary school teachers.

The evidence found in the actions of the provincial administrators and teaching inspectors intended to regulate each of the categories that comprised the public teaching profession, as well as the evidence found among the teachers who submitted themselves, positioned themselves and adapted themselves, indicates that being in each of these conditions corresponded to periods of enhancement and/or legitimization of knowledge acquired whilst exercising the profession. Similarly, the competitive selection processes and examinations are also understood to have been forms of teacher training, to the extent that the participants therein were preparing themselves to meet the minimum requirements. Moreover, meeting the stipulated criteria, appears as validation and legitimization of the experience of the teachers who were being assessed, since it was through this qualification that they would receive or maintain their position as public teachers.

Finally, based on the documents analyzed here, it is plausible to ascertain that in the midst of the alterations, delimitations and attempts to regularize and organize the primary teaching profession in the province of Paraná, teachers, together with, stemming from and in line with the education authorities, produced and legitimized a repertoire of knowledge that constituted and certified their teaching practice.

Referências

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• 6
  - Report of the Inspector-General of Public Education, João Franco de Oliveira Souza, submitted on December 31st 1872 (p. 2).
• 7
  - Cf. Denice Catani, (2011), Shirley Guedes and Analete Schelbauer (2010), Leonor Tanuri (2000), Heloisa Villela (2001, 2005, 2008, 2011a, 2011b), Walquiria Miranda Rosa (2003), Alessandra Schueler (2005).
• 8
  - This set of studies includes the works of Heloisa Villela (2001, 2005, 2008, 2011a, 2011b), Walquiria Rosa (2003), Maria Isabel Nascimento (2004), Inará Pinto (2005), Dianaíde Diniz (2008), Shirley Guedes, (2009), Maria da Graça Prudente (2009), Eliane Oliveira (2011).
• 9
  - Among the studies that discuss teacher training outside of training institutions are the works of Marina Uekane (2008), Fabiana Garcia Munhoz (2012) and Cecilia Nascimento (2011).
• 10
  - On December 19th 1853 the Brazilian Empire approved the political emancipation of Paraná from the province of São Paulo. Until then Paraná had been the 5th District of São Paulo.
• 11
  - These documents are found in binders called AP books, which are numbered and organized by year, with the correspondence bound month by month; however, the correspondence is not ordered by subject or theme.
• 12
  - Report submitted by President João José Pedrosa, on February 16th 1881 (p. 103). The reports of the presidents of the province of Paraná are available via the Paraná Public Archives website – http://www.arquivopublico.pr.gov.br/modules/conteudo/conteudo.php?conteudo=44
• 13
  - Report published as an annex to the report of Vice-President Jose Vaz de Carvalhaes on November 7th 1857. The reports of the inspectors-general of teaching for the years 1856, 1857, 1858, 1861, 1869, 1870 and 1872 are attached to the reports of the presidents of the province, available at the Paraná Public Archives website.
• 14
  - Regulations published on April 8th 1857 and entitled General Order for the Schools of the Province.
• 15
  - As the method adopted in the provinces was the monitor/mutual or simultaneous class method, it was common for teachers to make use of monitors to assist them.
• 16
  - Standing out with regard to this subject is thew work of Maria Elisabeth Miguel (2008), A Escola Normal no Paraná: instituição formadora de professores e educadora do povo (The Escola Normal in Paraná: an institution for training teachers and educating the people), which makes an analysis of the constitution of the escola normal in Paraná through the discourses of teaching inspectors and presidents of the province.
• 17
  - According to the legislation, only schools primarily with twenty pupils and thereafter with more than fifty pupils could be aided by an assistant teacher. There could be no more than twenty assistant teachers and no more than twenty student teachers in the entire province.
• 18
  - Guidelines issued in the light of article 73 of the Regulations dated April 8th 1857.
• 19
  - Official letter issued by Inspector-General Ernesto Francisco Lima Santos dated March 14th 1867, available at AP.0256, p. 138 – Paraná Public Archives.
• 20
  - Lifelong teachers: public teachers appointed definitively following successful participation in competitive selection processes or examinations; regular teachers: public teachers appointed with effect from 1865 and who, after five years effectively exercising the profession, could request a lifelong position; hired teachers: private teachers hired in places where there was no qualified public teacher or an insufficient number of school-age children for a school to be set up; and temporary teachers: teachers who would remain temporary for six months to one year in order to prove their qualification as teachers, they were also appointed with the aim of substituting teachers on leave or when there were no teachers in the place in question.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  2018

History

• Received
  31 May 2016
• Accepted
  13 Oct 2016