Autoconhecimento, identidade e realização pessoal: histórias de vidas de educadores de Uberaba/MG

Abstract

The research objective was to find out more about the quality of self-esteem, self-concept, as well as personal realization on Intermediary and Fundamental II Schools’ Basic Education’s teachers that profess in different realities (private schools, state, municipal, and federal schools) in the city of Uberaba MG, and notice if the different realities they face due to their work environment interfere in their own subjectiveness. Justified by the need to promote a space in which the teachers could reflect upon, and express their own subjectiveness and, from there, be able to analyze the concept a teacher has of self as the professional, taking the points discovered to society, with the intention of subsequently calling the attention back to the teacher as the subject, and bringing awareness to how urgently a change is needed. This research was done using the Epistemologia da Pratica research analysis style due to the focus on the teacher’s work recognition and analysis, as well as the involvement of the teacher in the assessment about the practice. Data in the research was obtained via interviews involving 4 teachers, being everyone a representative of the different realities in the profession (municipal, state, private and federal), utilizing the technique life story theme, and analyzed by the Content Analysis proposed by Bardin. Posterior to the data analysis, a collective case study was established, which allowed the elaboration of comparisons between the subjectiveness of the individuals in relation to the professional realities in which these teachers have been inserted in, as a form of reflective and developmental intervention of the teacher’s self-awareness. In response to the research objectives, it is possible to affirm that the work reality of a teacher does interfere with their identity, thoughts, feelings, and awareness as both a person and an educator. However, each of the subjects brought elements of a variety of realities and experiences as a teacher, not only the ones expressed in the research. It is fair to say that educators are a category that has always been looked at indifferently by society, having difficulties realizing its professional and human dimension and its own subjectiveness. In general, teachers have a feeling of non-established personal and professional realization.