Balance of a life dedicated to history and education: an interview with professor and researcher Justino Magalhães

About the interview

The interview took place on March 10, 2023, with Professor Justino Magalhães on a rainy afternoon at the end of winter, in his office at the Institute of Education of the University of Lisbon. It was a review and reflection on his professional life and the topics he has been engaged with. Fourteen days after the interview, on April 24, 2023, which also happened to be his 70th birthday, he concluded his activities as a full professor at the Institute of Education of the University of Lisbon, entering a new phase as a retired professor.

With a career spanning 52 years in primary school, high school, and university education, his professional journey is marked by competence, intellectual rigor, and generosity, making him an important reference for the Portuguese-Brazilian community of education historians.

With over half a century in the teaching profession, while retirement brings about contradictory feelings, on the other hand, it allows for enjoying and envisioning the future alongside family, books, and good friends, taking new horizons, as he himself says:

“[...] there is a sense of relief. The idea that something has come to an end becomes clear. [...] The best thing is to prepare ourselves and accept what is to come. If everything ends like this, it ends. The verses of the Portuguese poet Mário de Sá-Carneiro come to mind, 'A little more sun - I was ember. / A little more blue - I was beyond. / To reach, I lacked a wingbeat... / If only I remained on this side...’”

The interview was recorded in audio and video, and subsequently, the transcription was given to Professor Justino Magalhães for review. The writing remains, after the author's revision, with the specificities of the Portuguese language, in Portugal.

About the interviewee

Justino Pereira de Magalhães was born on April 24, 1953, in Barcelos, in the district of Braga, northern Portugal. Being the oldest of 11 siblings, he spent his childhood in a small village called São Julião dos Passos, where he attended primary school.

At the age of 11, he completed basic school and took the admission exams, being accepted in both the Lyceum and the Technical School. However, due to a family decision, he entered the Carmelite seminary.

Figure 1
Justino Magalhães in Braga, 1964.

The Professor earned a Bachelor's degree in History from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto (1978). He worked as a primary school teacher (1971-1976), as a high school teacher (1976-1986), and as a university professor (1986-2023)¹. Married to Violante, he has 2 children, 2 stepchildren, and 5 grandchildren.

On March 17, 2023, Justino Magalhães participated in one of the last activities before retirement, where he delivered the opening conference titled "School textbooks and educational memory" at the International Seminar "Representations of Nature and Society in Spanish and Portuguese School Textbooks (from the 1960s to the 1990s)”. Manes Project, held at the Institute of Education of the University of Lisbon.

Figure 2
Prof. Justino Magalhães in Manes Project activity, 2023.

Interview

S.S.S.Z. and V.P.SA. - Sandra Sylvia de Santana Ziegler e Virgínia Pereira da Silva de Ávila;

J.M. - Justino Magalhães.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. We greatly appreciate your availability to talk about your personal and professional journey on the occasion of the culmination of a cycle of activities with your retirement and to assess your 52 years of teaching experience up to the present day. We begin this interview by revisiting your personal memories: your date and place of birth, your educational process, including primary school (location, period, memories), high school (location, period, memories), and academic life.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. As we know, you started teaching at a very young age. When did the desire to become a teacher awaken in your childhood? How did your teaching career begin? Could you tell us a little about how it happened?

J.M. Since childhood, I had a passion for becoming a teacher. I even dreamt of becoming a missionary, but the seminary life turned out to be disappointing, it wasn't what I expected. However, during that time, I definitively developed the desire to become a teacher, both out of vocation and for practical reasons. Coming from a family of eleven siblings, where I was the oldest, my father, due to our economic condition, had established that he would only support our education until we completed the general course around the age of 15 or 16. After that, we were on our own.

After completing the high school, I had the option to attend Primary Teacher Training and start working in Primary Education. Being a teacher also granted me priority for positions in boys' schools. Therefore, at the age of 14 or 15, when I had to make a decision, I began envisioning my life plan: teaching during the day and preparing myself through evening classes for the complementary course to enter university. In 1971, I completed the Primary Teacher Training Course. In 1973, I enrolled at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon. However, in 1974, when I realized that Law wasn't the right fit for me, I transitioned to History at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto. The idea was to continue my path as a teacher while working and studying simultaneously. At that time, there was a generation fearing the specter of the colonial war, and since I was studying, I postponed my military conscription until the end of my university course.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. Professor Justino, during your teaching career, in which school did you teach?

J.M. Firstly, I taught for one year in Braga. Then, in 1973 and 1974, I taught in Odivelas, Loures. When I was attending the Faculty of History in Porto, I started teaching again in Braga. I had a total of five consecutive years of Primary Education. In 1976, I completed a bachelor's degree in History and transitioned to teaching at the Preparatory Education level, and later at the Secondary Education level (Technical and Academic). In 1978, I obtained a degree in History, and the following year, I completed the Internship for Academic Education². Until 1986, I taught in different years of the General Course and Complementary Course in high schools. I also took on the role of internship supervisor and co-authored History books for the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. In your last interview, you portrayed the memories of your childhood and adolescence. Can you tell us a bit about your university life?

J.M. In Lisbon, as a working student, I was accommodated at the Luísa de Gusmão University Residence in Lumiar. I taught in the mornings in Odivelas and would rush to catch the bus (there was no subway). I attended classes as a voluntary student, taking the subjects that I could. Later, at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto, I continued as a working student until I completed my undergraduate degree in History in 1978.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. When did the history of education start to interest you?

J.M. I taught History until 1986, as I mentioned. When I started mentoring a group of interns from the University of Minho, I delved into education and its issues, which sparked my desire to research in the History of Education field and commit myself to teaching. I worked as an internship mentor between 1982 and 1985, but it was only in 1986 that I joined a group as a collaborating professor at the University of Minho, as I was an internship mentor at D. Maria II School in Braga. In 1987 and 1988, I worked at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, teaching History of Education and participating in the organization of Pedagogical Practices. I remained there for two years until I entered the University of Minho.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. In this trajectory, when does your family life begin, I mean, with a wife and children?

J.M. I got married in 1975, and the following year my son, Nuno, was born; my daughter, Joana, was born in 1981. I got divorced. I have two stepchildren, João and Pedro, Violante's children, my wife. We have 5 grandchildren. The oldest, Francisco, is 14 years old; the youngest, Tomé, was born last January.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. When did you join the Institute of Education at the University of Lisbon?

J.M. In 2002, I won a competition for the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at the University of Lisbon. I must clarify that the Institute of Education was only created in 2010 as a result of structural changes in the University of Lisbon, with the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences becoming two autonomous units. I had completed the Pedagogical Aptitude and Scientific Capacity Examinations at the University of Minho in 1989, obtained my Ph.D. in 1994, and completed the Aggregation Examinations in 2000.

I owe Professor Ribeiro Dias for the trust he placed in me, as well as the guidance and institutional support throughout this journey. At the University of Minho, I coordinated the Master's program in History of Education and took on scientific and academic responsibilities.

I supervised forty Master's dissertations, most of which were in the field of History of Education.The first dissertation I supervised was "Seminário de Nossa Senhora da Conceição Braga, Aspetos Histórico-Pedagógicos"³, by Ernesto Português. When I joined the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, the History of Education Group, which included Professor António Nóvoa and Professor Rogério Fernandes, had an exceptional scientific dynamic. Professor António Nóvoa had coordinated the publication of three fundamental works: "The Press of Education and Teaching. Analytical Repertoire (19th-20th centuries)”⁴; "Dictionary of Portuguese Educators"⁵; and “Liceus of Portugal: Histories, Archives, Memories"⁶. I had participated in the working groups for the latter two works. At the University of Lisbon, I worked in the undergraduate, master's, and doctoral programs in History of Education. I taught History of Education and Educational Theory. But what truly marked these early years for me was the creation and coordination of the Master's program in Education and Reading. With the retirement of Professor Rogério Fernandes, I assumed the Chair and the courses he had taught.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. When did your intellectual relationships with Brazil begin?

J.M. In 1994, after completing my doctoral studies, I traveled to Brazil for the first time, participating in the first Ibero-American Congress on Education at UNICAMP, Campinas, SP. The Portuguese Researchers Group was organized by Professor Ribeiro Dias. Distinguished professors from UNICAMP were present at this congress, including notable figures such as Dermeval Saviani, Sílvio Gamboa, and Claudinei Lombardi. The highlight was the presence of Paulo Freire, to whom the attendees paid heartfelt tribute. During the trip, we also visited Rio de Janeiro. In 1995, I returned for a journey that included Natal, São Paulo, Campinas, Minas Gerais, and Caxambú, to participate in the ANPEd (National Association of Graduate Studies and Research). Years later, I went back to work with Professor Demerval Saviani for a month in Campinas, as well as in universities, including USP and Federal Universities, PUCs in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Florianópolis, Porto Alegre, S. Leopoldo, Belo Horizonte, Sergipe, Uberlândia, Curitiba, João Pessoa, S. Luís do Maranhão, and more recently, Pernambuco and the Sertão da Bahia. I have been returning to Brazil frequently. Perhaps I have made around a dozen trips on work assignments.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. The referred period is very dynamic regarding policies and funding for exchange and mobility between Brazilian and Portuguese universities, which contributed to the effervescence of the field of the history of education. How do you analyze the field of the history of education today? What has changed in terms of organization and exchanges?

J.M. There has been a decline. I participated in bilateral projects funded by Capes before there were restrictions on funding. In 2006/2007, when I took over as the coordinator of the doctoral program at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of Lisbon, following the retirement of Professor Rogério, the program was very dynamic and we had a lot of demand, including from Brazilian students, so we had a selection process. However, in recent years, there has been a decline. I can't explain what happened with the History of Education, perhaps there was an excess of confidence that it would not be necessary to fight a little harder for the cause and organize some more socially inclusive conferences, showing that the History of Education was not just a doctoral path to solve academic and professional issues. In the early stages, many active teachers, especially in high school education, wanted to pursue a doctorate, and the History of Education was an interesting field because it opened up to local sources. The theses brought some novelty, and the way of producing humanistic and narrative knowledge suited the experience and training of these teacher-doctoral students. However, both here and in Brazil, ministries started suspending PhD scholarships. And for those who cannot take a sabbatical, it is very difficult to pursue a doctorate in the History of Education because it requires total dedication.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. The community of historians of education in Brazil is one of the largest communities with a great production of knowledge, while this community in Portugal is smaller. How do you perceive the Portuguese history of education community in the future, its renewal, and the fact that this discipline does not exist in university courses, undergraduate programs, or polytechnics?

J.M. I remember reading in Antoine Leon, a classic in the History of Education who worked on the history of vocational education in France and who has works of methodological nature about the construction of educational facts, that it would be expected that the more dynamic and mutable societies are, the more they would need history as an observation of reality and accumulated knowledge. In fact, this does not always happen. Educational policies often become reinventive, ignoring or neglecting history. There is some erasure of memory that I cannot explain. I don’t see a great horizon for the history of education.

However, the historiography of education has been opening up and creating objects of interest to society, such as education and major ideological and sociocultural frameworks, education and innovation, educational institutions and modernization, written culture and school culture. It has also developed topics focused on educational institutions, municipalities, pedagogical movements, educational or cultural magazines, the constitution and evolution of the teaching profession, written acculturation and mass information, the formation of literate and professional profiles, the relationship between school curriculum and the constitution of the human and the social, in short, educational materiality, representation, and appropriation. These are themes that the history of education has not neglected, and their relevance is indisputable for the understanding of current societies. The history of education is an observatory, paradigm, accumulation of knowledge, but it is also a reference, heritage, memory, and a source of hope for the future. Despite some dynamics, recent assessments focused on history of education journals and the vitality of history of education societies note a loss of ground and relevance on different fronts. This is felt in Spain and Italy, in the nordic countries, and even in Anglo-American tradition countries, which have always privileged the areas of memory and the construction of historical knowledge. The history of education has lost ground as an observatory of education, as documentation and legacy of memory, but also as a paradigm/way of thinking about education itself. This last observation is particularly serious due to the implications it involves in terms of alternatives for the future.

Indeed, whether at the social level or the individual level, when we take education as an anthropological concern or as a techno-anthropological concern, or even as an ontological concern, we are always thinking about a dynamic time, a present time that refers us to our memories, to our past experiences that, reinterpreted in the face of present challenges, allow us to discern and glimpse the future. The historical operation deals with complexity, in time, space, and socio-cultural aspects. This reasoning is at the basis of history itself and the act of doing history, and consequently, at the basis of education. History provides a paradigm for understanding education at an individual and collective level, at an international level, and at a civilizational level, but it has lost relevance as documentation and information, either due to the indeterminacy of fundamental concepts or the rupture in the transversality of concepts that sustain the historicity of representing and thinking about reality. This decline in dynamism has been compromising the horizons of hope inherent in reformist frameworks, since the 1980s and 1990s. I believe and hope that this cycle will be overcome.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. Professor Justino, regarding this future vision for the history of education, in another dynamic that is ISCHE, with its various official languages and its 44th edition addressing the themes of education reforms in various contexts. What role would ISCHE have in this dynamic of the history of education for the future?

J.M. ISCHE (International Standing Conference for the History of Education), as a scientific community and aggregator, seems to me to be one of the major platforms that, through its work tools and means of communication accessible to the new generations, can build holistic and innovative knowledge. Platforms and networks of internationalization and transversality are crucial for sharing and building everything that constitutes common matter and cause. In them lies one of the lines of renewal. ISCHE might need a bit more verticalization of knowledge to avoid a quantification or massification that hinders progress. It is important not to lose the hierarchy in the construction and validation of historical knowledge. We do not spontaneously gain the level of knowledge of someone who is specialized, works in an institution, a laboratory, or a research center, where conceptualization and reinterpretation based on solid, representative, and significant databases are fundamental concerns. Respecting these knowledge centers is not necessarily an antidemocratic, exclusive, or sectoral attitude. Knowledge needs to be constructed, made known, and carefully understood. Knowledge is stratified because we do not have immediate access to the deeper and broader dimensions. Often, the underlying currents do not take care of this dimension, condemning us to quickly fall into banality. In the history of education, nothing would be lost by introducing and cultivating a perspective of High Studies, without immediate productive or financial concerns, but fostering a symbolic, cognitive, and scientific capital, without necessarily producing or publishing articles that do not represent an effective advancement of knowledge, ensured by complexity and the opening of new scientific perspectives. In this sense, we can recall the case of the College of France, which remained open even during the Jacobin terror at the time of the French Revolution that began in 1789, where intellectuals from different ideological and political backgrounds continued to gather. The intellectuals of that time needed this meeting place and debate to gather information and collectively understand reality and envision the new, even while maintaining their own points of view. Among other aspects, going back to the example of ISCHE, history needs to work in association with theory, interdisciplinarity, transversality, intergenerationality, taking advantage of epistemic and sociocultural dynamics, as well as networks of researchers and updated software.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. The hierarchization of knowledge refers to academic and school education in a society where younger generations read less and rely more on imagery. Intellectuals such as professors Pedro Angelo Pagni (from UNESP) and Carlos Educardo Vieira (from UFPR) investigate generational intellectuals, such as Fernando Azevedo, Buarque de Holanda, and Anísio Teixeira. Nowadays, we form researchers who specialize in specific themes and often fail to have a broader perspective of the whole. How can we anticipate the future without the dimension of reflection, analysis, and depth, even in undergraduate courses, despite generational differences?

J.M. Your question reminds me of the criticism faced by some intellectuals of the 1930s and 1940s, particularly South American intellectuals who, detached from reality and unaware of the anxiety caused by things happening at their own irreversible pace and dynamics, sought refuge in imitating the intellectuals of the nineteenth century. They had their material lives secured, living on the fringes of the uncertainties and injustices of everyday life. These "uncommitted" intellectuals were able to safeguard the pace of their lives, something that today's academics find very difficult. Suddenly, they face one committee after another, needing to present their output because if they don't, the research center questions them, and if scholarships are lost, research programs are lost as well. Therefore, this is a critical point that forces quick thinking. But there must still be both quick thinking and slow thinking, thoughtful thinking. Humanity needs to know how to think quickly and how to think slowly. The danger is that the ability to think slowly is being lost. This idea of being constantly occupied has also served as an alibi. Therefore, I believe it will be necessary to teach and help the new generations to think slowly, cultivating a political and social will that understands that humans are not machines. The more advantage we derive from machines, the more space and time we will have for the human element.

The book "Mega-Threats" by American economist Nouriel Roubini, recently published in Portugal, provides a rigorous and well-documented portrait of the current reality, as well as a demonstration of the advantages of conscious thinking and anticipating consequences, particularly in the face of threats such as debt, artificial intelligence, and totalitarian ideologies. Roubini argues by warning against irrationalities. He emphasizes the primacy of the human element. In current wars, cutting-edge military industry combines with technologies recovered from previous wars. However, there are different dynamics in history that are incompatible with a uniform way of thinking. Reality changes at a slower pace than our representation of it. The strength of leading young adolescents to discover what it means to think slowly promotes respect for their silences. Taking them away to some holiday camp, some internship, away from the hustle and bustle of daily life, allows humans to reconnect and understand that they establish value judgments, not the new technologies or artificial intelligence working alone through algorithms.

I believe it is worth having hope, but the school cannot remain the same or cease to be a school; it represents an alterity in relation to individuals. The school is something else, it (in)forms and gives encouragement in life. The school is what you are or what you invent. We need alterity in education. At an institutional and civilizational level, the school entails a right and a legacy that all humans must have access to.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. How do you apply the idea of thinking slowly in the transition between different realities, contexts, and speeds, such as from Barcelos to Lisbon, both in personal and professional dimensions?

J.M. I cannot use myself as an example because I continue to strive to live with a dialectic between detachment and commitment. I am a keen observer and regular reader of the periodic press; there are things that I glimpse at first glance and immediately disconnect from. I have been trying to be cautious and understand that it takes time to sleep, that writing a book takes months, and one falls asleep over it and wakes up to it again. I have had the privilege of Violante taking on the most difficult aspects of the tireless daily routine, and our children supporting that, sparing me continuous occupations and allowing me moments of concentration.

It is a benefit that I will never know how to thank or compensate for. I strive not to be carried away by everything. I have been fortunate to always have had a job and never pursued accumulations. I entered the first level of full professorship in 2005, and in 2023, I reach the end of my career at the same level, despite the total commitment I have dedicated to my career. I believe it is impossible to do things well and quickly, and there is a set of traditional and experiential knowledge that warns us about it. I never had time to read all the novels I desired, and I observe that young people seem to have much more time to do so, but they reach university without discovering the virtues of reading, that symbolic experience of being immersed for hours in letting oneself go through dreams. Many of them never get to have that experience.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. What would you have done during your professional career but didn't?

J.M. I did what I knew and could. I always acted, pushing my limits at every moment. Therefore, I lived and contributed with the best of my knowledge and abilities.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. How did you feel, Professor Justino, in the face of the idea of retirement?

J.M. It's contradictory. There is a sense of some uselessness, meaning, one is already disposable, no longer part of the new dynamics (and often wouldn't even know how to get involved in them), but there is also a feeling of relief. The idea that something has come to an end is becoming clear. I have some personal commitments and accumulated roles that I would still like to review, but I maintain a great uncertainty. Life has taught me that it is not worth planning too much. It is best to be open and accept what is to come. If everything ends like this, it's over. The verses of the Portuguese poet Mário de Sá-Carneiro come to mind: “A little more sun - I was ember. / A little more blue - I was beyond. / To reach, I lacked a wingbeat... / If only I remained on this side...”.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. Professor Justino, what is on your horizon and will you dedicate more of your free time, without commitments to the university?

J.M. Resuming the recent work revolving around the relationship between theory and the history of education, I would like to get to know the classics of literature a little better, from each historical moment, including Goethe and Tolstoy. How did they manage to incorporate and reveal what was at stake in humanity and in the individuals portrayed in their works? I want to read them or re-read them with respect for historical semantics. I am concerned about the purification that the classics are being subjected to, erasing their thoughts and phrases. It is anti-culture, anti-history. It’s up to the reader to recognize the integrity of each work and immerse themselves in its respective historical time, making an effort to understand the context in which the books were written. It is not the book that is mistaken in relation to 2023. It’s up to the reader to find an explanation and venture to recognize and judge the values embodied in the books in question and whether the author was condemning or protecting them. Purifying books is to deny them; it is to destroy history and remove the educational value of reading as a symbolic experience. As for me, I would like to be able to find a connection between education and literature, especially to analyze how literature represented the complexity of each historical period. However, I have not always had the time for that. We cannot take monumental works like War and Peace, or characters from Goethe and Shakespeare, or even Pascal's essays and condense them into a few educational sentences. This alignment, in line with the history and theory of education on how literature was able to represent, through testimonies and composite and performative characters, the complexity of an educated and cultured humanity, requires time and is not always compatible with the production pace demanded in an academic setting.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. What do you emphasize in your work?

J.M. I have primarily worked in three lines of research: 1) History of Education and Schooling, History of Educational Institutions, Epistemology, and Theory of Education - in fact, my book "On the Route of Education: Epistemology, Theory, History" has just been published by the EDUFU/UNICAMP consortium. 2) History of the Local and the Pedagogical Municipality. 3) History of Written Culture, Literacy, and School Books.

These are fields in which I continue to work. Specifically, I have documentation on hand regarding the Azorean municipalities and education. I have been following studies on municipalities and educational institutions in Brazil, as well as on intellectuals and the travel diaries and writings of missionaries in Brazil-Colony. I remain interested in school books and pedagogical journals.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. Professor Justino, what topics have not been sufficiently explored yet or could be further deepened and expanded?

J.M. There is a lack of syntheses on the history of the curriculum and how the history of education can contribute to a better understanding of its canon and development. There is also a need for studies on educational-school profiles. History can be less speculative and more scholarly without straying from the education-society dichotomy. History can contribute to the bringing together of generations, involving them in common causes. The latest UNESCO reports document and call for the bridging of generations and the convergence of global policies.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. What is the future of humanities today, with science being shaped by new technologies and artificial intelligence?

J.M. The humanities are fundamentally performative and cannot help but be incorporated into the individuals themselves. There are no experiences when adolescents do not go to other places or do not engage in symbolic experiences such as reading novels or cultivating silence. This humanities education, based on the mother tongue that should accompany the individual through university, enabling them to present a thesis and communicate a text to the community and their peers with emotion, rigor, argumentation, and authorship, is disappearing. New technologies tend to overshadow the specificity of the human - reflection, creative leisure, emotion. With robotics, there should be more free time, but it is the one thing that is lacking the most. What is at stake here? A significant part of thinking is the fear that humans may suddenly feel empty, unoccupied. Robots can limit what has made domestic work a sacrifice and continued torture for generations, creating more spare time. If a person has never discovered reading, painting, the emotional aspect, then the humanities must reinvent themselves in this incorporation into individuals, in their performative sense, accompanying and discussing the work of values progressively, until democracy is no longer daily threatened by the same terrors that have been around since the Middle Ages - invasion, hunger, torture, war.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. What would you like to say or wish to young professionals, researchers, and those at the beginning of their careers in the field of education and the history of education?

J.M. My advice may be considered old-fashioned, but I would say it's worth continuing to create/idealize your masters and work with them. Masters don’t make disciples. Disciples make the master. Therefore, it's worth continuing to recognize that there is alterity, hierarchy, and seeking someone who is available. I'm referring to masters through books, so don't stop reading the great classics. I'm referring to teacher-mentors, the companionship of colleagues on the other side. Read, study, and write theses without haste, and maintain a great sense of authenticity because you cannot write a thesis and live a life without being authentic to yourself. We can make sacrifices, live for a while against the current, but the authenticity of what allows us to dream, what lies beyond, is essential. Find topics that you enjoy, even if they are not marketable. Someone, someday, will understand that refusing well-crafted topics simply because they are not marketable is a betrayal and, perhaps, a loss. Accept the masters. Accept the books. Accept the classics. See what they made of themselves and try to understand them. I believe that is a path to follow.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. Professor Justino, what is Professor Ribeiro Dias' role in your life?

J.M. He is the one who inspired me to advance in my career. During one of the meetings as a collaborator at the University of Minho, I crossed paths with him and asked if he could supervise and support me in writing and publishing a paper. Professor Ribeiro Dias mentioned an open position at the University of Trás-os-Montes and encouraged me to apply. From that point on, he became my mentor.

Figure 3
“My master”. Justino Magalhães with professor Ribeiro Dias, Rio de Janeiro, 1994.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. Professor Justino, will you take all this material to your personal library?

J.M. Yes, that is my intention.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. Professor, is there anything else you would like to tell us about your career, your life, or any final message?

J.M. We should believe that everyone has their own destiny. It is not necessarily planned; it unfolds, often at the expense of one's own family. I ended up being the result of circumstances in a career that spanned all levels of education. I started working with children and, interestingly, in 2022, I taught a course titled "Mature Age and Education" at the University of Lisbon's Rectorate, targeting individuals over 55 years old. I created the Master's program in Education and Reading at the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences of the University of Lisbon. I worked on a Ph.D. in the History of Education, where I contributed with concepts such as pedagogical municipality, school institution, schoolbook, as well as the concept of education as ontology and techno-anthropology. It’s very difficult to reconcile teaching with research: they are profiles that are not always compatible.

The professor, by principle, should systematize and provide fundamental guidelines to the students. On the other hand, the researcher, also by principle, must deconstruct those fundamental guidelines in order to find novelty. They often work in divergence to reach meaningful paths. There is not a clear awareness of what it means to be a university professor, and there is also a major crisis in the hierarchy. In addition to the lack of a career path, there are delays in career progressions, which lead to the loss of a rightful position and a lack of respect for authority.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. Currently in Portugal, what are the circumstances of the lives of elementary school teachers? The issue of career progression, task accumulation, being task-oriented, dealing with spreadsheets, and having little time to think about their lessons. How can we envision the future of our profession and encourage young people to pursue a teaching career that has become increasingly unattractive?

J.M. It is lamentable, because teachers are truly the great mobilizers and builders of society. There should be a lot of respect for this work, which cannot be seen solely as a profession discussed in terms of salary or union matters. It is also not the hustle, the excess of activity or record-keeping that promotes education. Education is a balance between these tools and it happens as something indescribable, something that cannot be measured at every moment. Education is regressive, and its importance and meaning are sometimes discovered after the fact. Therefore, when evaluating the fact, I don't know if there is a guarantee that the effect of education has been assessed. This would lead to thinking about being a teacher in a different way. It requires dedication and vocation. It seems that professions are often thought of in a very realistic and pragmatic way, yet there are people who are disappointed in their chosen professions. All professions should include respect for human well-being - and this is even more crucial in professions with greater responsibility. I believe that the way teachers are talked about greatly disappoints young people. Education faculties should be different places, with a different charisma. Unfortunately, when you enter an Education Faculty, it seems that you don't come out changed. But if you enter a Fine Arts or Film School, you will see that there is a certain atmosphere, a specific way of being, whereas education faculties seem to lack that ethos. And that will have to change, because being a teacher is a total profession (vocation and competence). Teaching is one of humanity's great needs because it is about adversity, alterity, and hope. Humanity has not come this far without education, without schools. Someone has to be on the other side of the table, willing to dialogue with a resistant teenager. Someone will have to continue doing it.

V.P.S.A. and S.S.S.Z. Professor Justino, we are very grateful for this conversation. Thank you.

J.M. I am the one who thanks you.

Referências

• Belusso, G., & Luchese, T. A. (2020). Entrevista com catedrático Justino Magalhães: os municípios na educação em pauta. Revista História Da Educação, 24, e96723. https://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/asphe/article/view/96723.
• Magalhães, J. (1964). Justino Magalhães em Braga, 1964. Fotografia. Acervo pessoal do autor.
• Magalhães, J. (1994). “Meu mestre”. Justino Magalhães com o professor Ribeiro Dias, Rio de Janeiro, 1994. Fotografia. Acervo pessoal do autor.
• Magalhães, J. (2022). Na rota da educação: epistemologia, teoria, história. Editora Unicamp, EDUFU.
• Nóvoa, A. (1993). A Imprensa de Educação e Ensino. Repertório Analítico (séculos XIX-XX). Instituto de Inovação Educacional.
• Nóvoa, A. (2003). Dicionário de Educadores Portugueses. Edições Asa.
• Nóvoa, A. (2003b). Liceus de Portugal. Histórias, Arquivos, Memórias. Edições Asa.
• Português, E. (1998). Seminário de Nossa Senhora da Conceição Braga. Aspectos histórico-pedagógicos. Oficina de S. José.
• Roubini, N. (2023). Mega-Ameaças. PlanetPT.

• Licensing:

  This interview is published in Open Access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC-BY 4).

• 1
  On the professional career of Prof. Justino Magalhães, we recommend reading his full CV and the interview by Belusso and Luchese (2020).
• 2
  The teacher keeps all these diplomas with him, including the one from the high school internship.
• 3
  Português (1998).
• 4
  Nóvoa, A. (1993).
• 5
  Nóvoa, A. (2003a).
• 6
  Nóvoa, A. (2003b).

Edited by

Responsible associate editor:

Olívia Medeiros Neta (UFRN) E-mail: [e-mail] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4217-2914

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  23 Oct 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  16 June 2023
• Accepted
  16 Aug 2023
• Published
  19 Aug 2023