O início da docência de professoras e professores de Educação Física na escola: desafios e descobertas do primeiro ano de inserção profissional

Abstract

This study had the objective to understand the building processes of the beginning Physical Education teachers´ practice, in their first year as a professional in school. It also meant to identify the professional learning content absorbed by Physical Education teachers; analyze how this professional learning are incorporated by the teachers; and identify which aspects were harder to deal with it in the first year of contact as a professional in school. We performed a research with three Physical Education teachers licensed by the Federal University of Minas Gerais that were in the first year as a professional in teaching at private or public schools in the city of Belo Horizonte. Through a field search, six interviews were made: two half-structured interviews with each participating teacher. The first interview was organized in three axes of analysis, being: the learning in the first year of teaching, the career choice, and the initial and continued teachers’ qualification. The second interview referred to four teaching episodes that the teachers had to write about, containing meaningful teaching experiences. The analysis methodology was based in the “content analysis”, allowing the construction of themed categories. In this way, the data produced with the teachers were uncovered in two big axes, being they: “The challenges of beginning teaching for Physical Education teachers” and “Teacher learning, discoveries and coping strategies for the first year in teaching challenges. In the first axis it was possible to identify the following challenges in the professional insertion: transition between the initial formation and the entrance in the job market; the school culture (specific disciplinary field, reality crash, difficulties with the collective work, school’s social context, different conceptions of education between educators); and teacher-student relationship (teaching-learning situations, lesson planning, and difficulties dealing with specific issues of childhood and youth from the students). In the second axis, it is evident how teachers realize that they learn to be teachers (exchanges with students and teachers; recognition of the school community; pedagogical meetings; also planning and executing lessons). Lastly, it was possible to identify that even if they are far from the professional insertion challenges, the teachers recognize discoveries of the profession and develop coping strategies for these dilemmas alongside students and fellow teachers.