This article outlines and analyses the curricular trends in the schools providing professional technical education for the Brazilian Health System's workers (Sistema Único de Saúde - SUS). With the help of a close survey of the literature on curricula, it analyses the organization, selection and hierarchical gradation of knowledge, all of which are connected with the struggle between educational projects. For the study, the fact that professional education is called to respond to the issues originating in the labour world is highly significant. In this sense, we attempted to rescue the contradictions existing in the educational field, such as, for instance, the idea that, even if it is true that "experience is the best teacher" and an important stage in the learning process, it is also important to criticize an exaggerated faith on the everyday experience and the presumption that experience can, by itself, provide qualified learning.
professional education; health work; curricula