Abstract
The main purpose of this article is to analyze the competitive examinations (concursos) developed for the hiring of public school teachers in Brazil in the XIX century. An analysis of these competitive examinations explaining the characteristics that the government required of people whom it wished to hire as teachers represents an important approach to recovering the history of teachers, which the history of teacher training programs and Didactics itself seems to hide. The research on which this article is based has the goal of discussing the history of the subject from the standpoint of analyzing the exams for teacher selection, namely the content, skills, and characteristics required of an individual to be hired as a teacher in a public school. Considering that Didactics is the subject from which future professionals acquire everything that they must know and the skills necessary to be a professional, we dig into the history of this school subject related to the history of Normal Schools (teacher training schools) in Brazil. We also present the analysis of the competitive examinations for teacher selection, considering the content, skills, and characteristics required for an individual to be hired as a teacher in a public school. In our attempt to analyze this process, we highlight legislative acts from 1809 to 1880 related to the hiring of teachers in the Primitivo Moacyr collection. These sources contain the respective exams and procedural documents for the following years: 1876, 1878, 1881, 1883, 1884, 1885, and 1886. All evidence appears to indicate that although the competitive examinations, including all official apparatus, were conducted as a matter of appearances only, their legitimacy was still provisional, as suggested by both the procedural documents and some legal documents. We conclude that the knowledge required to hire teachers was not Didactics but behavior because, in countries such as Brazil where the “welfare state” was never completely constructed, the school served as the first “reception room” of the state, and the elementary school teacher, always a woman, was the “receptionist”.
Highlights
Of all sectoral policies, education policy is perhaps the clearest example of how the State seeks to produce an appearance of equal opportunities and, with it, neutrality with respect to classes (Offe, 1990: p. 42).The main purpose of this article is to analyze the competitive examinations developed for the hiring of public school teachers in Brazil in the XIX century
An analysis of these competitive examinations that explains the characteristics that the government required of people whom it wished to hire as teachers represents an important approach to recovering the history of teachers that the history of Didactics itself and of teacher training programs seems to hide
The goal of the research1 on which this article is based is to discuss the history of the subject based on an analysis of the exams for teacher selection, namely the content, skills, and characteristics required for someone to be hired as a teacher in a public school
Summary
Education policy is perhaps the clearest example of how the State seeks to produce an appearance of equal opportunities and, with it, neutrality with respect to classes (Offe, 1990: p. 42). The main purpose of this article is to analyze the competitive examinations (concursos1) developed for the hiring of public school teachers in Brazil in the XIX century. An analysis of these competitive examinations that explains the characteristics that the government required of people whom it wished to hire as teachers represents an important approach to recovering the history of teachers that the history of Didactics itself and of teacher training programs seems to hide. We present our analysis of the competitive examinations for teacher selection with respect to the content, skills, and characteristics required for someone to be hired as a teacher in public schools
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