The school as a place of teacher professional development: from the challenges to the possibilities.

This research is based on the professionalization of teaching, a movement that contributed to the school being conceived as a place for training and production of teaching knowledge. The studies have pointed to this for about four decades, but, in practice, there are still many obstacles for the school to perform this function, such as: legislation that does not guarantee this place, excessive bureaucratic activities, lack of understanding of managers in relation to this function, etc. Thus, the question is: How to enable the construction of the school as a place of professional teacher development (PTD)? Therefore, we aim to investigate the processes of construction of the school as a place of PTD, based on the principles of professionalization of teaching. Specifically, we seek to: (a) document and analyze processes and tools that can collaborate with such construction; (b) point out the challenges found in the construction of the school as a place of PTD; (c) present the changes introduced in the new training processes in relation to teaching practices and the school; (d) identify devices, dynamics and other aspects that favor the strengthening of collective work and professional autonomy; (e) analyze the contributions of PTD processes to teachers, students and the school. A qualitative, constructive-collaborative research was carried out, using the following data collection techniques: questionnaire; observation; participant observation; focus group and document analysis. The data underwent content analysis. For the analysis of observation records, the ethnographic interaction microanalysis was also considered. The study involved three schools, four principals, seven vice principals, five coordinating teachers, one agricultural technician, 45 teachers in active participation and 47 teachers in peripheral or outside participation. The results highlight the importance of school management being seen as education professionals, not administration, as they need to be aware of their role and organize intentional practices towards a socio-professional monitoring of teachers, articulating the school project to the training project, with the aim of contemplating organizational, personal and professional development. In schools that managed to articulate these three dimensions, we identified the emergence of new dispositions, we verified the culture of the school in motion. This process is enhanced when the group is constituted as a professional community, which corroborates the feeling of belonging to the context and more horizontal training relationships. In the training sequences, we highlight those capable of providing training paths, that is, which reserved time and planned actions for teachers to establish links between different elements: local knowledge and practices; life trajectory and professional performance etc. These articulations took place from reflections, favored by devices of socio-professional monitoring of students and practices; by studies about the teaching; by different ways of accessing local practices; by the differentiation between local practices and practices; between the socialization of activities and reflection on them, etc. Formative logics based on the classroom and on the applicationism were identified, indicating the need to overcome them. Thus, the research highlighted spaces that favored DPD within the school, but found that it still does not occupy this place from a political point of view, as knowledge and practices produced in it tend to be silenced, on the margins of administrative-legal logic. In conclusion, this work invites us to think about new routes for the professionalization process, which we call here educational professionalization, which must be anchored in professional culture, in the commitment to education, in autonomy as a political and social achievement and in multidisciplinary responses to the challenges that emerge at school. The concepts of socio-professional monitoring, training route and professional communities emerged as preponderant for the school to organize DPD spaces. (AU)