Abstract
The article includes theoretical and epistemological reflections on the relationship between theory and practice in professional training in health based on the mentoring experience in the technical training of community health workers. Several curricular arrangements have placed the difficulties of the association between the theory/practice and school/work world dichotomies on their agendas. A few of these arrangements proposed for training the community health agent, such as the way the concentration/dispersion mode has been configuring itself, have preserved or even strengthened the logic of training for the mere mechanical reproduction of the procedures learned over experience at work. Other arrangements, among which mentoring and professional practices, suggest it is possible to build a more organic relationship between the classroom and the labor universe. Thus, the relationship between polytechnic skills, mentoring, and professional practices is presented as a proposition to face the challenges of building the historical praxis of these workers.
Keywords
education; primary health care; mentoring; community health workers