Critical theory and teacher training: critique of barbarism

• Published in: Cadernos CIMEAC Vol. 12; no. 3; pp. 78 - 95
• Main Author: Simões, Maria Cristina Dancham
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Portuguese
• Published: Universidade Federal do Triângulo Mineiro 26.12.2022
• Subjects: bildung; critical theory; culture; popular education; society
• ISSN: 2178-9770; 2178-9770
• DOI: 10.18554/cimeac.v12i3.6631

This article aims to discuss teacher training from the perspective of the Critical Theory of Society, specifically in its concept of formation (Bildung). It articulates two different planes involved in the analysis, the formation of the individual, as a theoretical concept, and professional training, as a practice, understanding that both are directly related and express the society in which they are part. It seeks to answer the question: How to think about teacher training so that the conditions that reproduce barbarism would not be maintained? To account for this purpose, an analysis of some concepts of the Critical Theory of Society were made such as formation, culture, the administered world and others. The idea of individual formation is the basis that sustained the discursive path, in which it is understood that the subjective appropriation of culture implies adaptation and resistance, occurring as an expression of the division itself between individual and society. Moreover, the administered character of culture also composes the understanding that is intended to be presented, from which the administration dominates all the areas of the life of human beings inserted in late capitalism, subduing them to commensurable rationality, prejudicial to the possibilities of resistance. Some comments will be made about the Brazilian curriculum reform, in addition to the situation of a recent pandemic, contributing to the understanding of the teaching. It is considered that the conditions increased the control and bureaucratization of activities, removing from teachers the possibility of spontaneity and autonomy. However, a discussion is made that points out that such issues have been instilled since the initial training of teachers.