To promote a teacher training for a humane society

Abstract

Reflecting on the training of teachers nowadays compels educators to think about the society in which they live, the vision of school, students/children and young people, teachers, and both the present and the future. To problematize the issue at hand, the following questions need to be reflective: What is the conception of education and training? Can it be associated with the Durkheimian view that education is a vertical action of one generation over another, aimed at transmitting a previously established heritage? Should educators understand education as the promotion of global development, as advocated in the concept of paideia? What meanings of education underlie teacher training? In what society do they live? Do educators see themselves before society as passive members or as active participants who assume the rights and duties of citizenship? What vision do teachers have of those with whom, or about whom, their professional identities are developed: students receiving knowledge transmitted by teachers or people with whom they collaborate to construct socio-historical knowledge? How do they understand themselves as teachers: as technicians or as professionals? What are their perspectives concerning training: a reproduction of institutions or a continuous process for professional emancipation? These questions served as the basis for the development of this article. Using a global approach to our present society and considering ideological-educational concepts and conditions for teaching, we aim to situate and problematize teacher training with the goal of promoting a more humanized society.