Teacher education in Paraná to qualify elementary school teaching in the first half of the 20th Century

Abstract

The issue of training teachers to work in primary education in the Province of Parana has been a topic of concern since the 1860s. However, the Normal School, created in 1876, functioned precariously until the end of the Empire and in the initial decades of the Republic. The 1920s represented a milestone in teacher education policy in Paraná. The reforms carried out from 1920 to 1923 in what was then called Escola Normal Secundária de Curitiba established a study plan that included a three-year General Course, which aimed to offer "general culture" to the future teacher, and a one-and-a-half-year Special Course with a professional purpose. These reforms laid the foundation for reforms made in the following decades. During the Vargas period (1930-1945) the Escola Normal Secundária de Curitiba went through several changes, the main one being the in 1938, when it was renamed Escola de Formação de Professores de Curitiba. This institution, following principles and practices that were rooted in the New School and norms established by the central power, aimed at training teachers to promote social transformation consistent with the intended ideological and cultural homogenization of children, according to the ideology of the ruling elite. The interlocution with the written documentation and with testimonies by female teachers who attended the Normal School during the period under study, obtained through interviews, shows that the educational proposals outlined by the Government of Paraná were, to a large extent, achieved.