Formação docente em Minas Gerais: Escola Normal Oficial de Uberaba, 1948 a 1959

Abstract

The present study is inserted in the fields of History and Historiography Education and has as objective to understand the formation of teachers at Official Normal School of Uberaba in between the years of 1948 to 1959. The delimited period of this research covers the institution's trajectory, demarcated by its reopening through Law N°. 284 of November 23th, 1948, up until the change of denomination of the school by means of the Law n° 5.586 of may 23th, 1959. From the methodology of micro-history and Oral History, we were able to understand the political, social and economic scenario of the State of Minas Gerais and the city of Uberaba, as well as the life trajectory of the teachers who graduated at the city’s Official Normal School, its representation in the practices and in their ways of life. Through an overlapping of scales, we verified that the period of the 1940s and 1950s were times of conjunctural transformations regarding the organization and systematization of Brazilian education, and although previous decades had designed a unique system of national education, the years that followed, after the departure of Getúlio Vargas from the presidency of the Republic, created the necessary climate for the discussions about the directions of Brazilian education. In this way, the changes introduced after the political redemocratization process begun in mid-1946, in addition to transforming education in general, specifically modified primary, secondary and normal education, which meant a new moment for teacher’s formation and to the “Normal Schools of Brazil”, consolidating these institutions as a privileged space for teacher training and the feminization of teaching. We verified that for Uberaba, considered one of the main regions that influenced the development of the “Triângulo Mineiro”, the transformations in the political- economic scenario of the Brazilian and Minas Gerais State reverberated significantly the uberabense teaching with the opening of several primary schools and with the reopening of the Normal School of the city, inaugurating a new moment for the uberabense education. Therefore, the objectives of this research were to analyze the Brazilian, Minas Gerais and Uberaba educational scenario; to identify and analyze the “Official Normal School of Uberaba” trajectory as well as the normal class from the reestablishment in 1948 until the name change in 1959 and, at last, to analyze the teaching offered by the school and the teacher’s formation. Believing in the potential of the use of Oral History for the reconstruction of the past, from the narratives of six teachers who graduated from the Official Normal School of Uberaba, we were able to understand the representation of these institutions in the personal and professional life of the teachers, considering these educational establishments of teaching as fundamentals for the Minas Gerais teacher’s formation. Likewise, through the search and cataloging of the sources located in the Superintendence of Public Archive of Uberaba and the Official Normal School of Uberaba, as well as the official documents of Minas Gerais, it made possible the understanding of the social and cultural dimension of Minas Gerais teaching and the repercussion of the legislations and laws which regulated the formation and teacher’s training. Thereby, the results obtained through this research are in the understanding that teacher formation were linked to the development of the primary education, being understood by the State as the fundamental tool for man’s formation and of the society while considering the teacher as a key factor for the failure and/or success of Brazilian education. Likewise, we verified that teacher training was inserted in the larger national education movement, being its trajectory associated to the existence of Normal Schools and the need of teachers in the decades of 1940 to 1950.