Histórias de vida de professores formadores de professores de ciências em Angola

Abstract

In this thesis, I approach questions related to the teaching of Science and the qualification of teachers who educate Science teachers in Angola, using as a main research strategy the personal and professional life stories of the researched subjects, all of whom are educators of teachers. My general objective is to research the stories of teacher education in Angola, searching for accounts that express the way these teachers were formed and how these stories contribute towards the qualification of Science teachers in the country. For specific objectives, I investigate the relation between the history of the country and the constitution of education in Angola; I characterize the challenges, the adventures, the misfortunes and the personal and professional overcoming that contributed to its formation, reverberating in the practice inside the classrooms; I investigate the ambitions/utopias of the qualifying teachers, in pursuit of solutions to perfect the qualification of Science teachers in Angola. This search for information was carried out in two steps: the first moment was the application of questionnaires, to the teachers who were distributed in different provinces, totaling 58 questionnaires. From this group, I received back 21 questionnaires, of which 6 were used in the research. In a second moment, I added 3 teachers who had not filled in the questionnaire, but who were willing to collaborate, and so were interviewed. I assume the qualitative research in the narrative approach, where the reports by the subjects are the central empirical material. However, I also made use of historical information about the country and its education, as well as official documentation. This research possesses 3 sections of analysis, denominated: “Nothing but the ABCs,” which presents the history of education for teachers in the colonial period; “Teaching and learning to teach,” section constituted by the memories of formation in the transition period (end of colonization and beginning of independence); and “From chaos to peace,” a section constituted by the memories of formation from the period of civil war till the present days. As a conclusion, I consider that the speech of the teachers who form teachers bring non-official information that may become of use for organizational purposes in preparing Science teachers in the country, providing an essential framework for building new paths in educational organization in Angola.