Formação continuada de professores da educação infantil do município de Santa Maria/RS: conquistas e impasses na implementação das políticas públicas

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate how the municipality of Santa Maria/RS has been articulating public policies for the continuing education of Early Childhood Education teachers in the last three years (2019-2021). Thus, the achievements and impasses in the implementation of the municipal public policy Conexões de Saberes (2019) that emerged from the high rates of age-year distortion and school dropout in the municipality were identified. Within this larger policy, other projects were organized for the different segments of education, being the Municipal Literacy and Literacy Project (PROMLA, 2019) for preschool and early years teachers, with the purpose of training teachers in their literacy practices, something that aroused our interest in the insertion of Early Childhood Education, taking into account that this stage is not intended to teach literacy, much less prepare for Elementary School. This formative path (PROMLA, 2019), generated discontent and discomfort on the part of Early Childhood teachers, due to the fact of separating the training offered to day care and preschool. During the course of the research, several problematizing questions emerged, making it necessary to carry out a study on the historical process of the consolidation of Early Childhood Education in Brazil as a space of struggles and rights, of public policies for continuing education at the National Level, as well as an overview of Legislation, regulations and official documents that regulate, standardize and guide the work at this stage. As a theoretical contribution to the research, we anchored in Kulhmann (2003), Rosemberg (2002), Oliveira-formosinho (2016), Faria (1999), Oliveira (2010), Baptista (2010), as well as other works and documents relevant to the topics addressed. In this sense, the research approach is qualitative, of the Case Study type. As instruments for the construction of data, we used the semi-structured interview with the SMED/SM team and the online questionnaire with the teachers of the network. To analyze the constructed data, we used Bardin (1997) Content Analysis approach. However, the research pointed out the tensions of PROMLA (2019) training for not contemplating specific aspects of the field of childhood and for reinforcing pre-literacy discourses and practices in preschool. At the same time, the research identified changes in the training of the following years (2020 and 2021), in order to promote teacher development, reflections on practices with children, recognizing the specifics of early childhood education. As a final product, we contextualized the research in a document based on the indicators and criteria to be considered in the formulation of specific continuing education projects for early childhood education teachers, in order to become a tool and contribute to the municipal education network. from Santa Maria/RS.