O processo de produção da profissão docente: profissionalização, prática pedagógica e associativismo dos professores púbicos primários em Minas Gerais (1871 - 1911)

Abstract

The objective of the present study is to investigate the process of professionalization of teaching in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, in the period from 1871 to 1911. We have sought to articulate the production of teacher profession with the governmental policies reorganized of the primary schools created at that time; the conflicts lived in the daily work and the associationism movement of the public primary teachers, instituted in Minas Gerais, in the early years of the Republican period. In order to analyze States participation in process of teaching professionalization, we have studied the main teaching legislation created between 1871 and 1911 and the impact of the reforms at the reorganization of teaching work and at the normalization and functioning of the primary schools of Minas Gerais. Beyond the governmental policies, we aimed at analyzing the conflicts at the relationships between teacher, rulers, politics, and local community. We must underline at this period, the school tensions, mainly due to the work conditions, culminated in several problems for teachers and school managers, as abandonment of work, closure of schools, opening of disciplinary processes, firing, among others. In some situations, the school conflicts have led to the set up or aggravation of some diseases manifested by teachers at the time, presenting also the diagnosis of some illness related to the nervous. On the other hand, in face of the changes that took place in the organization of primary schools and of the challenges found on the school daily life for exercise of the profession, teachers have sought ways to participate together with the rulers at the normalization process of the primary school and teacher work. Therefore, at the initial years of the Republican period, teacher begun to organize themselves in professional associations as the União do Magistério Mineiro [Union of the Teachers of Minas Gerais] in 1906 and the organization of the Congresso dos Professores Públicos Primários [Congress of the Public Primary Teachers] in 1909, 1910, and 191. Different documental sources were consulted for the present research: legislation, reports from the province and State presidents, newspapers, dictionaries, besides the documentation available at the Arquivo Público Mineiro [Public Archive of Minas Gerais] (APM), related the public instruction such as inspector's reports, teachers' letters, license requests and acts of presidents and interior secretaries on the public instruction. We have concluded that the professionalization process of the public primary teachers in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, was constituted in the relational dynamics, being that the teachers were subjects of their own actions