Entre diálogos e silenciamentos: o processo de formação contínua de indígenas professores (as) da Secretaria Municipal de Educação de Manaus-AM

Abstract

This research addresses the process of continuous training of indigenous teachers within the scope of the Municipal Department of Education of Manaus. Its central objective is to understand the process of continuous training of indigenous teachers in the relationship between the training needs of their praxis, the institutional training actions of Semed Manaus and the elaboration of their teaching identity. The specific objectives include: Describing the foundations of the indigenous teacher's ongoing training process and its impact on their educational practices; Identify the training needs of indigenous teachers and how they participate in the ongoing training offered by Semed Manaus; Analyze how indigenous teachers develop their teaching identity in the interaction between their educational practices and the continuous training offered by Semed Manaus. This is a qualitative investigation – bibliographic and field – using ethnography as a technical procedure using participant observation and semi-structured interviews, which were constituted in a hybrid way. Considering that it is a field of study surrounded by epistemological, existential, political and, above all, educational meanings anchored in the ancestries of different Amazonian indigenous peoples, we opted for the epistemological support of decolonial thinking – along the path of critical interculturality, seeking to build ways to think about the production of knowledge in the context of Amazonian indigenous peoples, detaching ourselves from the legacy of colonialities (power/knowledge/being) operated by Euro-USA-centric modernity. The field of empirical research was the institutional training meetings of the Municipal Department of Education of Manaus, aimed at indigenous teachers of the Spaces for the Study of Mother Language and Indigenous Traditional Knowledge - EELMCTI. Virtual and in-person training actions, offered by the Professional Development Division for Teaching - DDPM and the Indigenous School Education Management - GEEI. The research collaborators are ten indigenous teachers; two pedagogical advisors from GEEI and two trainers from DDPM. The results indicate that the process of continuous training of the indigenous teacher moves between relationships established with the institution, the daily life of Indigenous Spaces and the constitution of their decolonial teaching identity, extrapolating issues of schooling and the institutional training actions themselves, since which transcends schooled knowledge based on the modern/colonial and Cartesian Western perspective. Their continuous training is based on four training pillars that support, in some way, the construction of praxis and differentiated knowledge, and contribute to the constitution of being an indigenous educator: self-training, ancestral knowledge, GEEI, and DDPM. In the constitution of the educational practices of indigenous teachers, it is possible to see the construction of processes of decoloniality blossoming: expressed in planning, in the development of curriculum practices, in the production of materials, as well as in the emergence of critical interculturality. However, teaching indigenous languages constitutes one of the biggest challenges. The training needs that emerge from the differentiated school are listed as training paths: ancestral, political, differentiated teaching, linguistic and technological, identified as paths for the decolonization of training actions aimed at indigenous teachers. The training actions developed by the institution, based on GEEI and DDPM, are already encouraging the construction of training practices closer to indigenous cultural experiences. However, they still reproduce coloniality by manifesting it through balkanization processes; reproduction of schooling practices, in the “adaptation” of training actions of other teachers in the network, in discontinuous training actions; silencing; lack of active participation of indigenous teachers in the planning of training actions, in the development and evaluation of instruments to monitor the process carried out by them. Their participation still takes place predominantly indirectly. It is therefore urgent that their voices be heard and enhanced by the institution in the construction of more democratic, participatory and socially fair training processes, as well as continuous training specific to their sociocultural realities in a city context.