Teacher trainers and their conceptions on the teacher role: an analysis based on Giroux, Freire and Gur-Ze’ev

Abstract

This article discusses the role of the teacher in Education based on Henry A. Giroux, Paulo Freire and Ilan Gur-Ze’ev’s theoretical work and scientific data obtained from a field research applied to teacher trainers in Brazil. For this purpose, it approaches some theoretical concepts proposed by each of the aforementioned authors, such as the concept of transformative intellectual proposed by Giroux, a perspective of the teacher as a political liberator developed by Freire, and the concept of improviser-teacher described by Gur-Ze’ev in his theory on countereducation. In the second part, the theoretical contributions of these authors serve as a reference to interpret the data obtained in a qualitative research applied to teachers of pedagogical disciplines of undergraduate courses at a federal public university in the State of Rio Grande do Sul on the role of the teacher in contemporary Education. In the data analysis, the issue of applying the term “role” presented in the introduction was revisited, as well as the use of the expression “role of the teacher” as a category of research analysis, to what the majority of the respondents showed a conceptual identity. Some of the core topics identified from the respondents answers referred to the intentionality of teaching, the neutrality and the politicity of teaching, which are relevant topics in the theoretichal work of the authors and reverberate in the Brazilian social debate, as seen through varied bills distributed in the Brazilian legislative houses intending to depoliticize education in the country.

Keywords: Role of the teacher. Freire. Giroux. Gur-Ze’ev.