Abstract:

This paper presents a summarized analysis of teachers’ questions on the Education of Youths and Adults (EYA), across different areas of the Brazilian State of Rio Grande do Sul, between the years 2002 and 2004, as well as ten years later, from 2012 through 2014. This is a qualitative comparative research, with questions collected from written records and by teachers’ adherence, aiming to verify the effects of the meanings produced. The results, based especially on the Discourse Analysis by Pêcheux (1997, 1999 and 1987), point out that part of the meanings produced are updated again throughout the periods, uncovering that the discontinuities in the public policies of EYA teachers’ continuing educational training produce effects of a sense of circularity.

Keywords:
Discourse Analysis; Education of Youths and Adults; Teachers’ Questions

Resumo:

Este artigo apresenta recorte de análises sobre o que perguntam os professores da Educação de Jovens e Adultos - EJA, em diferentes regiões do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul, nos períodos entre 2002- 2004 e, dez anos depois, 2012-2014. Trata-se de pesquisa qualitativa, de tipo comparada, com perguntas coletadas em registro escrito e por adesão, pelos professores, objetivando verificar os efeitos de sentidos produzidos. Como resultados, especialmente a partir da Análise de Discurso por Pêcheux (1997, 1999,1987), destaca-se que parte dos sentidos produzidos se reatualizam, ao longo dos períodos, denunciando que as descontinuidades das políticas públicas de formação continuada de professores da EJA produzem efeitos de sentido de circularidade.

Palavras-chave:
Análise de Discurso; Educação de Jovens e Adultos; Perguntas de professores

Introduction

This paper presents a glimpse of a part of a doctoral research completed in 2009 about EYA teachers’ questions, across different locations of the State of Rio Grande do Sul²¹ 1 This thesis is entitled “The Meaning Behind Education of Youths and Adults Teachers’ Questions” and was completed in 2009, in the Graduate Program in Education at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. , between 2002 and 2004 in several EYA educational training centers. Ten years later, during the 2012-2014 period, a similar research was conducted taking regional training centers into account, inviting teachers, who positively responded to the calls, by adherence, writing their questions and issues about EYA on blank cards during the training processes coordinated by me.

Since it aims to generally verify the routes indicated by EYA-related questions from a methodological point of view, the procedure adopted was qualitative comparative research in education, theoretically and analytically guided by the French Discourse Analysis especially based on the studies conducted by Pêcheux (1997), Fuchs and Pêcheux (1997FUCHS, Caterine; PÊCHEUX, Michel. Análise Automática de Discurso. In: GADET, Françoise; HAK, Tony (Org.). Por uma Análise Automática do Discurso: uma introdução à obra de Michel Pêcheux. Campinas: Ed. da Unicamp, 1997, p. 61-161.) and Orlandi (1987ORLANDI, Eni. A Linguagem e seu Funcionamento: as formas do discurso. Campinas, SP: Pontes, 1987., 1996 and 1999). According to Nóvoa (1998NÓVOA, Antônio. O Passado e o Presente dos Professores. In: NÓVOA, Antônio (Org.). Profissão Professor. Porto, Portugal: Porto editora, 1998, p. 13-34., p. 82), a comparative education study “must seek to understand how discourses are part of the powers that separate and divide men and societies, that nurture situations of dependence and reasoning lines of discrimination that build ways of thinking and acting”. At first, the questions were compiled according to the year in which they were asked and the themes which they referred to.

By using this set of questions, those presenting any linguistic mark seemingly related to the EYA interdiscursive knowledge were reviewed, pointing to the stances assumed by teachers in this education discourse, which was in the legitimization process within the 2002-2004 period and, subsequently, between 2012 and 2014. The questions were grouped in order to highlight the meanings, the stances, assumed by those teachers and what they were trying to know or affirm, when asking those questions. In the summary presented in this paper, a question from each year of the period is stressed, in order to present a sample of the closest meanings when they were collected and analyzed.

Teachers taking part in these meetings were engaged in the State School System and had different teaching practice tenure. Many of them were involved in regular education with children and young people, while part of their workload focused on EYA regular education²² 2 It is understood that EYA is a regular offer governed by Basic Education regulatory bodies and follows regulations, based on the legal documents in the school. In order to be discontinued, the institution offering EYA must comply with the Educational System regulations. . Among these were hired teachers working mostly during the day who supplemented their income by teaching Education of Youths and Adults classes for a few hours at night. This condition revealed during educational training activities resulted in the absence of teachers who, in some places, were the majority²³ 3 The educational training sessions of the first period were held on Fridays or Wednesdays. Those in the second period also took part in an extension activity, with punctual events, but occurring on Thursdays and Fridays. .

It is considered that due to their group heterogeneous conditions, the questions collected in this research can fairly represent the presence of an EYA teacher in our State during such periods, because they understand and represent the statements of these teachers across the various regions where they work, their working conditions, but under the rule of the public policy of the relevant State. It is assumed that educational training centers are instances where much discursive knowledge can circulate, which can bring heterogeneous subjects together. Aiming to search for answers on how to compile the research objectives, always based on the State educational training policy, questioning and doubt as discursive marks are points of arrival and departure, in order to understand how the subject-teacher relationship has been formed, from this proposed act of asking in the Education of Youths and Adults.

According to the Discourse Analysis, the very form of choice and organization of this corpus, consisting of teachers’ questions, is already an interpretation action produced by the analyst. Within that dimension, analysis devices are triggered, based on the selection and organization of questions. “That justifies the need for theory to intervene at all times to rule the analyst’s relationship with his or her object, with the meanings, with himself or herself, with interpretation” (Orlandi, 1999ORLANDI, Eni. Análise de Discurso: princípios e procedimentos. Campinas, SP: Pontes, 1999., p. 64).

Thus, the methodological path adopted emerges from the research itself, in the correlation between the theoretical and analytical devices, created according to the research goals. For that reason, when submitting the corpus, in their different delivery times and in view of the multiple possibilities in which someone directly involved with teachers’ education and in the concepts that involved discussions about EYA, the paths of analysis have become complex and unique.

Questioning and the Discourse

According to Freire (1997FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da Autonomia. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1997., p. 99), the act of asking builds knowledge, so school would be responsible for “developing epistemological curiosity”. That would be the curiosity to know, indeed; of knowing why things are as such, of knowing the essence and content within “the thing to be discovered”. But for educators to trigger that curiosity in their students, they need to develop their own curiosity. Faundez and Freire (1985) propose a Pedagogy of the Question as opposed to a “Pedagogy of the Answer”, which, according to them, has been “established in our schools for centuries”. The Pedagogy of the Answer is equivalent to the stationary teaching of “answering before questions are asked”, so that, when asked, questions require prompt answers, therefore, there being a limiting and restraining factor in education. According to this view, by limiting students’ knowledge to prompt the answers expected by teachers, teachers themselves would be limiting, through that action, their scope of action.

In order to study the questions and answers in the classroom, Coracini (1995CORACINI, Maria José. A Aula de Línguas e as Formas de Silenciamento. In: CORACINI, Maria José. O Jogo Discursivo na sala de Aula. São Paulo: Pontes, 1995, p. 67-74., p. 75) seeks arguments to understand this process from a discursive point of view and states:

In that direction, Orlandi (1987ORLANDI, Eni. A Linguagem e seu Funcionamento: as formas do discurso. Campinas, SP: Pontes, 1987.) also has considerations to make. The author explains, in his studies, that students assimilating this discourse is also related to the image they create about the teacher, because when manifesting the Pedagogical Discourse (PD), a teacher’s authority is legitimized by the scientific discourse used in the classroom. Thus, what a teacher says becomes knowledge, which authorizes students, for that matter, to also say that they know: and this is called schooling, criticizes the author. The school is the essential place to manifest the Pedagogical Discourse, which as an institutionalized discourse guarantees the school as an institution. Therefore, this type of discourse has its own characteristics, aiming to maintain its eminently authoritarian character, by means of a control structure, especially the control of meanings, with its mechanisms. But, then, how would PD be formed?

Orlandi (1987ORLANDI, Eni. A Linguagem e seu Funcionamento: as formas do discurso. Campinas, SP: Pontes, 1987.) defines Pedagogical Discourse, based on the need to control its reference, by a teacher, as belonging to an authoritarian discourse, featuring characteristics such as circularity, repeatability and scientificity. This circularity is guaranteed and warranted by a “just because” discourse evidenced by the teacher. Orlandi (1999, p. 86) characterizes authoritarian discourse as one in which “polysemy is contained, the reference is deleted by the language relationship established, and the speaker places himself as an exclusive agent, also deleting his relationship with the interlocutor”. From this position, the teacher as a speaker, by repeating concepts, assimilates this scientific discourse, without identifying himself as a mediator. Within this context, the author states (1985, p. 21):

This is where the imaginary formulations are created, where Fuchs and Pêcheux (1997FUCHS, Caterine; PÊCHEUX, Michel. Análise Automática de Discurso. In: GADET, Françoise; HAK, Tony (Org.). Por uma Análise Automática do Discurso: uma introdução à obra de Michel Pêcheux. Campinas: Ed. da Unicamp, 1997, p. 61-161.) will correlate the Production Conditions. That’s why, at school, teachers and students assume, in specific positions predetermined by historical-cultural conditions, their teacher and student positions in the pedagogical process. In view of the aspects towards that direction, in her research, Coracini (1995CORACINI, Maria José. A Aula de Línguas e as Formas de Silenciamento. In: CORACINI, Maria José. O Jogo Discursivo na sala de Aula. São Paulo: Pontes, 1995, p. 67-74.) goes on to affirm that teachers’ questions in the classroom can be classified into didactic questions, which have the only function of establishing the relationship between the teacher and the students, facilitating learning and verifying contact.

Thus, in most cases, her study shows “that the student’s discourse is dependent or subject to the teacher’s discourse, so that the student’s voice seems to only complement the teacher’s voice”. About the issue, Faundez and Freire (1985FREIRE, Paulo; FAUNDEZ, Antônio. Por uma Pedagogia da Pergunta. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra , 1985., p. 51) warn that spreading that Pedagogy of the Answer implies at spreading and perpetuating a bureaucratizing pedagogy. The authors say that “bureaucratization implies adaptation; therefore, minimum risk, no amazement and no questions asked. And they continue: “It does not stimulate the risk of invention and reinvention. For me, denying risk is the best way to deny human existence itself.”

Thus, the Pedagogy of the Answer is a pedagogy of limitation. Not asking or asking pedagogical questions that can lead us to the expected answers is part of the very process of creating an authoritarian PD, not enabling teachers to take on the position of someone who asks, but being the ones who profess truths scientifically rooted through a scientific discourse of which they are mediators.

In order to ponder about that reality and as an attempt to break that crystallized meaning, we would need to pursue learning to ask, so that, thereafter, we could, with our students, in a critical way, also teach them how to ask. In this perspective, Faundez and Freire (1985FREIRE, Paulo; FAUNDEZ, Antônio. Por uma Pedagogia da Pergunta. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra , 1985., p. 48) state:

In view of the work based on the possibility that we need to authorize allow ourselves to ask questions, as the educators we wish to become, teachers’ questions are highlighted, in the different education and study centers. As they believe that they need for a deeper and more critical look at what they announce and denounce, the proposal is reviewing them in the relationships of teachers’ daily life at school. However, it is necessary to consider, in different declarations, the conditions of their production.

In this direction, my position as an interlocutor with EYA teachers also stands out, because, according to Pêcheux (1997PÊCHEUX, Michel. O Discurso: estrutura ou acontecimento. Trad. Eni P. Orlandi. Campinas: Pontes, 1997., p. 83): “What works in discursive processes is a series of imaginary formulations that name the positions that each of us assign to each other and to others”, the image we create of our position and the position of others. It is thus possible to verify that the protagonists’ position in dialogue “intervenes, by way of discourse production”, as the authors point out. Throughout this research, I have placed myself in the position of someone willing to talk to teachers.

The corpus presented herein contains written questions in direct and indirect forms, formulated by the teachers. It is also important to clarify that the focus of the question is being considered as a result of its linguistic-discursive “event” dimension and that encouraging teachers to ask questions was a pedagogical strategy chosen by me, by positioning myself as a “listening” teacher (Freire, 1997FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da Autonomia. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1997.), opening centers for meanings of diverse voices and to make them reflect.

In a way, it meant that the time to ask questions would become an event, pinpointing it as a special place to say. In Pêcheux’s view (1997), the event, as a gesture of interpretation, outlines a current movement on a preconceived stabilized memory. When saying something, subjects capture meanings that occupied spaces in their networks of affiliations. These captured meanings, which had their stabilizing status in the memory of the statement, at that moment, are moved. They are displaced, outlining a current movement caused by the event. Based on that perspective, he states:

Also according to Pêcheux (1997, p. 57), interpretation is seen as “actions arising as positions taken and acknowledged as such, namely, as identification effects assumed and not denied”. In this perspective, then, the statements of EYA teachers’ discourses are reviewed, seeking crystallized meanings, but, as an event, “by their undenied effects of identification”, they outline, in the discursive materiality, the existence of the memory of the old in the present. Memory, construed as defined by Pêcheux (1997), is seen as a “mobile space, of divisions, disjunctions, displacements and resumptions, conflicts and regularization”, but also as deletions that constitute the different forms of a statement.

In a research depicting teachers’ narratives, Mutti (2005MUTTI, Regina Maria Varini. Memória no discurso pedagógico. SEAD - SEMINÁRIO DE ESTUDOS EM ANÁLISE DE DISCURSO, 2., Porto Alegre, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 2005. 7 p. Anais do SEAD. 2005. Disponível em: <Disponível em: http://www.ufrgs.br/analisedodiscurso/anaisdosead2 >. Acesso em 05 de setembro de 2020.
http://www.ufrgs.br/analisedodiscurso/an... , p. 1), ascertains that, while reporting their experience, teachers recapture meanings of what they lived, which has already become memory. In this regard, the author manifests that “in the activity of reconstitution of the event by the memory, the subject mobilizes implied pre-constructed meanings that tend to reinforce regularization, since the ‘already there’ effect comes up; however, they are destabilized by the subject who rescues it in his always unique enunciation”.

Thus, in the activity of formulating a question, whose specificity is characterized as a process different from the narrative of an experience, it is seen that there is something of the meaning that seems to remain always open, i.e., the search to make sense. Whoever asks, although resuming part of one or more experiences recorded in the memory of the statement, when formulating his discourse, always leaves something on hold. There is a specificity in the question that refers to something distant, of new “things to be known” that move this stabilization and destabilization game.

The question, as a new discursive event, is always an effect of that confrontation between regularization and deregularization. It is during this movement that institutional memory is identified. In the institutions, as brilliantly pointed out by Pêcheux, we can find stabilized discursive areas that make a statement true or false. Nevertheless, since such declarations, not limited in their structure, are subject to misunderstanding by different conditions under the influence of “law, rigor, order and sensitivities, principles, etc.” “of things to be known”, they do not occur only due to external requirements, because each one of us - the simple individuals in the face of the “various urgencies of life - have in ourselves an imperative need for logical homogeneity in the things to do” (Pêcheux, 1997, p. 33).

In this perspective, a teacher at school is challenged by an institutional memory that speaks, ritualizes and bureaucratizes by establishing routines with which he needs to live. Changing these networks of affiliations is possible, provided that there are conditions for openness to reflection, other discourses and displacements.

On the contexts: producing narratives about the EYA educational training policies

The narrative produced represents a way of looking, of someone who worked, during the period, in public universities, in teaching, research and extension instances, trying to dialogue, whenever possible, with the public administrations of the State. Based on that, I found out at in the years 2001 and 2002, as proposed by said²⁴ 4 By focusing on how to deal with the EYA and the process of continuing educational training, whether managed or not, the periods, without naming managers and/or their political parties, will be covered. government, that there was, in the period, a movement in search of a redemocratization policy of the State. To this end, “decentralization of actions” was proposed, and the Participatory Budget was the main instance aimed at meeting this need. As per to Azevedo (2000AZEVEDO, José Clóvis. A Escola Cidadã: desafios, diálogos e travessias. In: AZEVEDO, José et al. (Org.). Utopia e Democracia na Educação Cidadã. Porto Alegre: Editora Universidade/UFRGS, 2000, p.23-48., p. 32):

In view of the perspective of democratization of the State action, the School Constitution (Camini, 2005CAMINI, Lúcia. O Processo de Construção da Política Educacional no Rio Grande do Sul de 1999 a 2002: relações, limites, contradições e avanços. Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, PPGEDU, 2005., p. 119) process was created within the education realm, in which EYA also participated and whose principles involved “access and permanence of everybody at school”, “participation as a method of administration” of educational training public policies, “dialogicity as an ethical-existential principle” and “utopia, as a dream that would drive education and the school intended”.

Camini (2005CAMINI, Lúcia. O Processo de Construção da Política Educacional no Rio Grande do Sul de 1999 a 2002: relações, limites, contradições e avanços. Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, PPGEDU, 2005.) presents, in this process, the clarification that the participation of teachers, employees, students and the school community occurred through different stages, involving raising awareness, studying reality, deepening themes picked by participants, establishing principles and guidelines until the State Conference would be held in 2000. As an effect of this policy, the documents of schools and the first participatory elections for school boards and councils were collectively drafted. In this perspective, the Adult Literacy Movement (MOVA-RS) and the Education of Youths and Adults, taking place in schools and Centers for Education of Youths and Adults and Popular Culture, also participated. As the focus of this research are the policies focused to the regular educational training system, I will start to address its characteristics.

This regular Education of Youths and Adults was being redefined, according to the current legislation²⁵ 5 Resolution 250 and Opinion 774, both issued by the State Council of Education of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, standardizing and guiding the functioning of the Education of Youths and Adults. . In 2002, the State had 748²⁶ 6 INEP - 2003 School Census. institutions offering the EYA program, split among schools and centers. During that period, everyone was organizing themselves in search of reorientation of the Education of Youths and Adults. To this end, an EYA teachers’ educational process was started. I see “continuing educational training as happening throughout life”, as stated by Boutinet (1997BOUTINET, Jean Pierre. Metamorphose de Lavie Adulte et Incidences Sur les Metodologiaes de la Formation. Education Permanente, n. 132, déc., 1997., p. 132), but that, in the situation focused by this research, it should be proposed by the current public policy. In this direction, what can be considered an advance in the government educational policy for EYA is happening: a day dedicated to “education” is established for schools and centers throughout the week²⁷ 7 Consistently continuing the proposal/project of the Popular Administration in the City Hall of Porto Alegre. , as provided for in Article 67 of the Brazilian Education Guidelines and Bases (LDBEN) (Brazil, 1996BRASIL. Lei 9394/96- Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Brasileira. Diário Oficial da República Federativa do Brasil, Brasília: 23 dez. 1996.).

Thus, the schools worked with the students, from Monday to Thursday, setting Fridays aside for pedagogical meetings of studies, planning sessions and general discussions about EYA and its operation. Weekly meetings began and, during the second half of 2001, the proposed educational training was held by the State, aiming to reorientation of political-pedagogical projects, rules and study plans²⁸ 8 At that time, the University was invited by the EYA Department to coordinate the educational proposal. . It is noteworthy that in April 2000, the State Department of Education introduces “The EYA Pedagogical Booklet: the public policy of the Education of Youths and Adults in Rio Grande do Sul” (2000RIO GRANDE DO SUL. Secretaria Estadual de Educação. Caderno Pedagógico: políticas públicas da educação de jovens e adultos do Rio Grande do Sul. Porto Alegre, 2000.), containing guidance to teachers on its structure and functioning, based on examples of two schools, as a reference to the experience of EJA schools²⁹ 9 That document proposed the curricular organization of EYA, based on Totalities of Knowledge. The concept guiding the proposal is based on the studies of Pistrak’s Complexes and the Generating Themes, as proposed by Paulo Freire. (Pedagogical Booklet No. 9, SMED, Porto Alegre). , coordinated by the Service for the Education of Youths and Adults (SEYA), in Porto Alegre.

The 2002 elections changed the scenario and the guidelines. From 2003 onwards, the government proposal was changed, and the Participatory Budget was replaced by Popular Consultation³⁰ 10 Instituted by State Law No. 11179 of 1998 which sets forth that the population directly defines a portion of the investments and services included in the State government. . Management strategies reduced the direct participation of the population in the administration. With federal and UNESCO funds, the “Rio Grande Literacy Program” was established, as a replacement for the Literacy Movement (MOVA/RS). The Rio Grande Literacy Program mobilized educators with minimal teaching education to conduct literacy classes in different municipalities of the State. That program counted on funds for the weekly educational training of literacy teachers and Basic Education of young people and adults.

In each Regional Coordination of Education of the State a Working Group for the Education of Youths and Adults (WGEYA) was created. This included the person in charge of EYA in the Coordination Department, a representative from each Municipal Department of Education in the region, a representative from each higher education institution in the region, representatives from entities developing EYA, also including schools boards and affiliated entities³¹ 11 The region comprising the 4th regional education coordination had the participation of union representatives in this category. . The WGEYA was committed to:

In addition to participating in the WGEYA, each partner university participated with proposals for continuing educational training in service for teachers in their region of operation, dedicating 32 (thirty-two) monthly hours to that function, for one year - the period of the agreement effectiveness, possibly renewable for the following years, as it happened until the last year of this government. The selected educational training day in all the 776 schools³² 12 State institutions offering EYA in Rio Grande do Sul (RS), www.estado.rs.gov.br, access on 4/14/06. was Wednesdays. In March 2004, the Public Policy Booklet for the Education of Youths and Adults (2004) was released by the State Department of Education, the Education of Youths and Adults Division (EYAD), the Public Policy Booklet for the Education of Youths and Adults in Rio Grande do Sul (2004), containing instructions about the guidelines, structure and functioning of EYA in EYA schools and centers, in addition to the policy ruling the teachers’ continuing educational training.

The Management Plan for the later period, comprising 2007-2010 RIO GRANDE DO SUL. Governo do Estado: Plano de Gestão 2007-2010. 2010. Disponível em: <Disponível em: https://planejamento.rs.gov.br/undefinedplanos-de-governo-periodo-1950-2014 >. Acesso: 5 de agosto de 2020.
https://planejamento.rs.gov.br/undefined... (p. 32) reported on the Education of Youths and Adults:

Although the proposal was to qualify the provision of Education of Youths and Adults in State schools, there was scarce development of continuing educational training practices within EJA³³ 13 From this period onwards, classes offering the initial numbers of EYA were closed. during that period. The focus was on literacy at the right age, as announced by the campaigns and activities in the period, and the general management policy sought certain alignment and adjustments in the State accounts, which generated recessive measures and little investment. In EYA, some timid educational training sessions occurred, particularly, upon determination of the educational institutions.

From 2011 to 2014, as the public policy of the State administration, upon resuming the EJA teachers’ educational training process, there was a concern of the Regional Coordination Departments of Education, driven by contributions and investments, guided by the State administration. The State University of Rio Grande do Sul (UERGS), in partnership with the State Department of Education and the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, organized Regional Education Seminars, mobilizing centers for EYA extension educational training and research activities, in different areas of the State. In addition, the Department promoted teachers’ educational training movements, articulating with different HEIs of the State. At the end of that period, a publication (State Department of Education, 2014RIO GRANDE DO SUL. Secretaria de Estado da Educação. Concepções e potencialidades da educação de jovens e Adultos na rede estadual de ensino do RS: metodologias, mundo do trabalho e educação ao longo da vida. Porto Alegre: 2014. P.55-74.) was released, named: “Concepts and Potentialities of the Education of Youths and Adults in the State School System”.

By covering part of the period of interest of the research, in a complementary way, studies led by Alves, Comerlato and Sant’Anna (2018ALVES, Evandro; COMERLATO, Denise; SANT’ ANNA, Sita Mara. Demanda Potencial para o Ensino Fundamental na Educação de Jovens e Adultos no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul. In: ALFAEEJA - Encontro Internacional de Alfabetização e Educação de Jovens e Adultos, 5., 2018, Porto Alegre/RS. Anais... Porto Alegre: UFRGS/UERGS/IFRS/UNEB/UFSC, 2018. Disponível em: <https://www.alfaeejauneb.com/anais-do-evento-alfaeeja>.
https://www.alfaeejauneb.com/anais-do-ev... ) reveal a drop in the supply of EYA school in the period between 2007 and 2015.

According to the authors, based on this framework, the private system increased, in the period, its offer of places, in addition to those made available by the federal system, by means of offers made by the National Program of Professional Integration with Basic Education in the Category of Education of Youths and Adults (PROEYA). The chart also reveals that there are opportunities related to EYA places in the State system. Due to the falling movement of places, closing classes and weaknesses in the supply of EYA, as well as the lack of government investments, the Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, developed, from 2017, a series of public hearings entitled In Defense of EYA, in Porto Alegre and the Metropolitan Region, and instituted a Special Committee to review the offer of Education of Youths and Adults, installed on 5/8/2018, with a work plan establishing hearings³⁴ 14 Coordinated by State Representative Estela Farias. in different municipalities and regions³⁵ 15 To be held from May to August 2018, in Porto Alegre, Osório, Cachoeira do Sul, Pelotas, Rio Grande, São Borja, Santa Maria, Guaíba, Ibirubá, Cruz Alta, Capão da Canoa, Arambaré and Passo Fundo municipalities, until the report is presented and approved, scheduled for 9/19/18. , preparing a report presenting the status of EYA in the³⁶ 16 RIO GRANDE DO SUL. Education of Youths and Adults Report: between law and reality. State Legislative Assembly: Special Commission to review the offer of Education of Youths and Adults, by the Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio Grande do Sul. Porto Alegre, 2019. State.

Currently, Education of Youths and Adults as promoted by the State System is in dialogue with Resolution No. 343 of the State Council of Education, approved on April 11, 2018, which changes the entry age into the category, to 18 years. This legal prerogative, which will modify the profile of the EYA audience, will require future research, since it will point to a change in supply, in the demand for places and in the context of teachers’ starting and continuing educational training.

About questioning and the meanings produced

It is important to reiterate that the 2002-2004 period officially comprises the first years of operation of EYA, based on the legislation, which ends the stage of offering supplementary education in schools, instituting the Education of Youths and Adults as a Basic Education program in the State. Teachers were looking forward to the possibilities of attending educational training and, even in view of changing the government, although with different perspectives, educational training policies were continued without being interrupted by the State administrations.

During that period, many doubts were raised about the operation of EYA and not even university professors had a clear guidance in addition to what the current legislation proposed. In particular, the only support we had, regarding such changes, were the personal experiences obtained through the Elementary School Program for Young and Adult Workers (ESPYAW)³⁷ 17 Education for Quality at Work Award, MEC, 1998. of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, with learning instances developed with teachers in different educational training sessions, by sharing their reading material, in addition to the current legislation.

During that period, three meanings prevailing teachers’ questions can be found: Meanings of EYA concepts, meanings of concerns with pedagogical processes on how to do it, and, finally, meanings of concern with one’s own educational training. Thus, in the perspective of viewing in a panoramic way the major meanings emerging from the questions during that period, teachers’ doubts or questions between 2002 and 2004, as a summarizing exercise, will be presented, year by year, as follows:

2002 (a) - What’s up now? Does EYA declare that school time does not count (only the student’s time does)? What about school records from now on?

2003 (b) - Young students, who left the regular educational system after fail, require a different methodology. Which one?

2004 (c) - I would like to have more information about an EYA educator’s training: undergraduation, graduation, master’s degree... I need qualifications

Based on such questions and although there is a multiplicity of meanings in the questions collected between 2012 and 2014, during the analyses, the themes of a few questions were similar, in order, to those of the previous period. The hypothesis raised is that the absence or lack of continued educational training processes in the government policies, between 2005 and 2011, may have generated effects and meanings of circularity, of returning to the beginning, based on the resulting meanings and discursive sequences similar to those of the previous period. In this perspective, the following questions stand out:

2012 (d) - After all, what is the EYA based on? (A legislation that supports - because of time, more content, less content?)

2013 (e) - How can I work with a very young student?

2014 (f) - Which institution offers EYA specialization? What’s the future of the EYA teaching educational training?

It is noteworthy that the annual progression of the 2012-2014 period was stressed by a continuous process of educational training by this administration. This is an important similarity to be highlighted. In general, questions from both periods reveal teachers’ distress and concerns. In view of these statements, we can see a teacher, who highlights, in the position of someone who appoints interdiscursive knowledge, pre-built and quite rooted to institutional and institutionalized practices of the Pedagogical Discourse.

In the historical field, there are practices of a traditional and technocrat philosophy, originating from the dialogue with the established practice of supplementary education, since EYA still appears strongly connected to this type of teaching and, in turn, to traditional and technical regular teaching (Sant’anna, 2015SANT’ANNA, Sita Mara Lopes. Ensino Supletivo ou EJA? Sentidos e perspectivas da formação continuada de professores do Rio Grande do Sul. Revista Educação, Ciência e Cultura (ISSN 2236-6377), Canoas, n. 2, p. 9-29, jul./dez. 2015.). As an example of this movement, the notion of time, existing in formulations (a) and (d) is highlighted. The idea of time in supplementary education (Brazil, 1971BRASIL. Lei 5.682, de 11 de agosto de 1971. Fixa Diretrizes e Bases para o ensino do 1° e 2° graus. In: VASCONCELOS, José (Org.). Legislação Fundamental. Rio de Janeiro, 1972.) remained strongly connected to school time, although the legislation at the time proposed flexibility as necessary to validate students’ knowledge³⁸ 18 Opinion 774 and Resolution 250 of the State Board of Education of Rio Grande do Sul. .

Hence, just like teachers are perceived in the space of perceptivity, of welcoming this place of doubt by questioning, resistance, indignation towards the future, possibility, change are all found in some of their statements (here we can see teachers questioning because they know they will find “something different”). By diligently soaring over their questions, we can them surrounded by a kind of constant fear of being leaked in this place of institutional power, which is socially and bureaucratically guaranteed by being a teacher. According to Souza (2002SOUZA, Ricardo Timm de. Ainda Além do Medo: filosofia e antropologia do preconceito. Porto Alegre: Editora Palmarinca, 2002., p. 63), “fear is the brutalized, petrified, mesmified moment. It is the most subtle defense against true novelty.” Similar to human fears, these are processed: fear of uncertainties, fear of having fear, of not wanting to suffer. According to the author, not wanting to suffer immobilizes and calls for normality.

As per Pêcheux (1997, p.33), during “an equivocal need mixing things and people”, all the statement produced would be under the effect of this bipolarity of the need for “a semantically normal world” and the adverse conditions of “things to be known” considered as acquired universal knowledge, which produce the effect of domination/resistance. Institutional memory would be affected by this domination and resistance movement, in the relationships, which are human, that include feelings, uncertainties, fears, doubts.

Holding on to an institutional memory, then, can produce a sense of guarantee in the teacher and, if being a teacher guarantees, perhaps to escape knowledge by exposure, many immobilized ones lock themselves in the school, as if in gated condominiums, forming strengthened groups, kinds of ghettos and strongly resisting any possibility of change. However, in the face of these possible meanings, another implication pervades their questions by the incidence of the word how present in (e), explicitly or as methodology. An implication that may require, when interacting with their interlocutor, a response; a response that may lead them to “build with” a path. Such questions that were raised during educational training sessions with teachers also resonate in the excerpts of the documents and recall expressions that have been exhaustively reproduced by these legal documents. As an example, Opinion 774 (Rio Grande do Sul, 1999RIO GRANDE DO SUL. Conselho Estadual de Educação. Parecer nº 774/99: Estabelece normas para o funcionamento da Educação de Jovens e Adultos no Sistema de Ensino. Conselho Estadual de Educação do Rio Grande do Sul, Diário Oficial do Estado, 1999., p. 5) reads:

By following this same train of thought, we can find in Opinion 11 (Brazil, 2000BRASIL. Conselho Nacional de Educação. Parecer CNE nº 11, de 10 de maio de 2000: Estabelece as Diretrizes Curriculares Nacionais da Educação de Jovens e Adultos. Brasília, DF: Diário Oficial da União, 03 de julho de 2000., p. 36) a referral in search of a flexible curriculum, in view of the treatment given to the different times of a student, as expressed in the document: “Curricular flexibility should mean a moment of leveraging the diverse experiences that these students bring with them, such as how they work their times and their daily lives.”

As can it be depicted, the discourse of the EYA educational/legal policy was on paper, passed into a law, and the teacher knew about that - he had already been questioned by this discourse and realized it; therefore, he questions and criticizes: with outrage and in a position taken and not denied. In (a), we can see a resistance movement, which can take us to other statements: Has history changed? Or, Is this the EYA history? Or perhaps, based on the statements to which the questions can lead, EYA, in its history, assumes that the student’s time is the time proposed by the school?

Isn’t this the historical logic of the supplementary education (with its latest one having been issued almost thirty years ago) that reduces the student’s “curricular” time and student’s time in and by the school? In What’s up now, a teacher resists to change and to how it was made, imposed by legislation. Perhaps this question in itself takes on an imperative tone of non-conformity. In (d) - After all, what is the EYA based on? This happens too. Once again, statements made by these teachers recall Pêcheux (1997 p 34-35), who writes:

This domination and resistance game produced by the need for the logical stabilization of these “pre-built” aspects as expressed by remembering the supplementary education, as opposed to the established ones, by the reality of the legislation, is present in the discursive memory mobilized by teachers.

In questioning (b) Young students, who left the regular educational system after fail, require a different methodology. Which one? Or in (e) - How can I work with a very young student? An EYA characteristic drives a modification, a desire. The EYA subjects, the young students, are those who start changing something established: the pedagogical processes. Paiva (1987PAIVA, Vanilda Pereira. Educação Popular e Educação de Adultos. 5ª edição - São Paulo: Edições Loyola, Ibrades, 1987.) reports, from a historical point of view, that talking about Education aimed at young people and adults in Brazil, is mainly addressing a history of actions of Adult Education. The phenomenon of the mass coming of young people in search of schooling is recent and becomes a movement very present in EYA classes in our State, since, from the legal viewpoint, LDBEN (Brazil, 1996) enables fifteen-year-old teens to participate in one-on-one courses. Therefore, these teachers, in their professional history, in general, have lived with adult and elderly students, who characterize a specific audience: Adult Education. The presence of these young students, as mentioned by the teachers, change this context, producing this effect of change in the relationships that take place in the classroom and, consequently, in several discourses of these teachers, this modification has been causing some discomfort, in view of “generational conflicts” that have been occurring in EYA classrooms.

In this regard, Dayrell (2005DAYRELL, Juarez Tarcísio. Juventude, Produção Cultural e Educação de Jovens e Adultos. In: SOARES, L. et al. (Org.). Diálogos na Educação de Jovens e Adultos. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica , 2005.) states that such conflicts, caused by the fact that this category deals with at least two types of subjects - young people and adults, somehow, although seeming “obvious”, are due to the fact that specific realities and demands of these different groups are at stake. Yet, the author warns about the need for serious discussion about the issue of subjects in educational processes, which seem not to be very clear to teachers. In this regard, Dayrell declares (2005, p. 55):

This author states that this discussion must occur in the activities of starting and continuing educational training sessions with EYA teachers. Then, the teachers’ statements somehow explain that the presence of young students brings on the daily need of a change, which, in their ways of seeing, would be directed to a distinct methodology. However, as Dayrell also warns, this issue becomes much more comprehensive, requiring deep reflection on EYA subjects and, in this particular case, on youth. The author also provokes reflection on which the young people attending each of these centers actually are. This is the necessary questioning to be able to start moving universalizing pre-constructions and stereotypes.

Young students, who left the regular educational system after fail, require a different methodology. Which one? This statement also refers to another reflection, related to a distinct methodology. If there is distinction, there is something speaking differently, outlining a difference. The dictionarized meanings of the word distinct, in part, reinforce the meanings expressed in the teacher’s discourse, as presented by the Brazilian dictionary Aurélio (1986, p. 600):

This difference, which can be of “size and/or manners”, requires a specific pedagogical approach. However, the apposition, who left the regular educational system after fail, in addition to being a denouncement that regular teaching, by its “separatist practices that favor hiring under Brazilian labor laws and that encourages grading”, as upheld by Arroyo (2006ARROYO, Miguel. Formar Educadoras e Educadores de Jovens e Adultos. In: SOARES, Leôncio (Org.). Formação de Educadores de Jovens e Adultos. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica/SECAD/MEC/UNESCO, 2006.P.17-32., p. 30), has been inefficient and has produced many of the students who arrive at the EYA, as well as it may be implicitly reinforcing that the methodology needs to be changed, modified, because it cannot be the same, neither from the point of view of the practice repeated with adults nor from the practice repeated in non-EYA teaching modalities.

The teacher knows that the practice has not worked and, perhaps that’s why he used the apposition, which is instituted as an explanation of a situation, of a condition, in this case, of a student’s experience, which is known by all. This example is useful for us to be aware on why the methodology (as in question (d)) needs to be distinct, different and specific.

Moreover, it is known that young students generates a change in the audience to be reached by the practice and this will require that actions be directed no longer to adults, but to adults only,. The practice with young people, i.e., also with teenagers, implies, in this teacher’s view, another approach. Conflicts, which the EYA has been seeking to manage in recent years, are related to these emergencies. Therefore, in the discussion that needs to occur by focusing on the methodology, teachers ask, Which one? It exists. It is known. So, in the face of different subjects and contexts, choices and agreements must be made.

Question (c) I would like to have more information about an EYA educator’s training: undergraduation, graduation, master’s degree... I need qualifications, and question (f). Which institution offers EYA specialization? cover meanings of concern for an educational training. Teachers understand the need for continued studies and propose to advance in this direction. However, the objective of this qualification is transferred, according to the following sequence: undergraduation, graduation, master’s degree, specialization - to an academic educational training. There is something that speaks to teachers about the need for this qualification. What they are experiencing in continuing their educational training may be calling them to reflect and show them a lack.

In that sense, ellipsis, as a mark of heterogeneity (Authier; Revuz, 1990AUTHIER-REVUZ, Jacqueline. Heterogeneidade(s) Enunciativa(s). Cadernos de Estudos Linguísticos, v. 19, p. 25-42, 1990. Disponível em: <Disponível em: https://periodicos.sbu.unicamp.br/ojs/index.php/cel/article/view/8636824 >. Acesso em 30 jun. 2019.
https://periodicos.sbu.unicamp.br/ojs/in... , p. 4), may represent the presence of other voices, which reinforce this need, pointing out any and other possibilities of educational training that they do not know or, in this same sequence, a possible doctorate or post-doctorate. Nevertheless, teachers are not complacent; they need to know more, more qualification, as they so declare. They have some information about the possibilities of educational training, but they need to know more.

It is important to highlight in the focused question the expression educator’s training used by them. The word educator, as an effect of the relationship between language and history, has meanings that multiply, by the debate promoted, sometimes for, sometimes against the traditional meaning of the word teacher. This debate implies issues that go beyond the meanings of the profession; of being a teacher, as a professional with a specific educational training and certification for such and of being an educator, who can be a teacher, with certification or not, as it occurred and still occurs, in literacy experiences in our country.

The relationship of the word educator with history reminds us, once again, of the legacies of Popular Education and of Freire, its best known representative. From this context stem the multiple meanings of reflexive practices, problematization, engagement, education as a political act emerge: dialogue, listening, construction... and the broad debates that took place, especially in the 1970s, as recorded by Dornelles (1990DORNELLES, Malvina do Amaral. O Mobral como Política Pública: a institucionalização do analfabetismo. 1990. 293f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Educação) - Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação, Faculdade de Educação, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, 1990.).

Thus, the expression the educator’s training, instead of being the teacher’s training, as commonly heard, places the interlocutor in a differentiated position, of someone who is or has been, at some point, in place of a person who evaluates their own condition, in the teaching profession. Talking about an educator’s training implies acknowledging that, in this desired educational training, something else is desired, something that implies the engagement of a teacher and of teachers who manage the educational training, all of them are committed to social and global praxis - which goes beyond knowing the³⁹ 19 Freirean praxis is comprised by a reflexive-critical process in action, reflection and new action. strictly pedagogical processes. The word educator, in this form, mobilizes a historical memory, beyond the known school institutional memory.

This term has also been widely used in regional, state and national forums, in addition to the EYA National Meetings. It has also been the focus of events in the area, such as the 1st and 2nd National Seminar on the Educator’s Training of Youths and Adult, held in 2006, in Minas Gerais and in 2007, in Goiás, respectively, and many other locations⁴⁰ 20 Also, complementing the period, the 3rd National Seminar in Porto Alegre, in 2010, and the 4th Seminar, in Brasilia, in 2012. . Universities are also addressing this issue.

This way of terming, thinking from a discursive perspective, has produced effects, revisiting historical meanings, recording them in the collective memory of EYA teachers, as events, reifying, as mankind’s work about language, as evidenced by Orlandi (1996ORLANDI, Eni. Interpretação: a autoria, leitura e efeitos do trabalho simbólico. Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes, 1996.), somehow, the meanings of rights to education and starting and continuing educational training sessions within EYA. By stating that they would like to have more information about an EJA educator’s training, teachers encourage the University and higher education institutions to release a response that compromises them, since they know that this educational training should be based on the very history of Education of Youths and Adults and, why not, on Popular Education?

Hence, in view of the meanings expressed and represented in these periods, the following chart was created:

In general, this chart shows that the meanings produced and present in the teachers’ statements are close, following a sequential temporal order: first, demanding meanings that involve the concerns and demands with the concepts of EYA, then with the pedagogical processes and, finally, with the educational training itself.

Final Reflections

After reviewing the analyses conducted, taking teachers’ statements in their contexts as reference, involving their years of production, a few considerations are necessary.

In general, we find them constantly bringing their knowledge and experiences to the discussion. Such knowledge, sometimes the effects of a movement of search for qualification and sometimes referred to experienced facts, sometimes become uncertain and doubtful when facing the realities, the complexities of pedagogical relations and the specificities of EYA contexts.

The hypothesis formulated, that these meanings are thus aligned, is reiterated, because they are formed by long absence of public policies addressing EYA teachers’ continuing educational training. In this study, this circularity effect was pointed out by the results of the analyses, since the continuous processes of educational training sessions were resumed, which allowed the development of this research. It is also important to note that during the administrations of popular governments, which repeated themselves throughout the researched period, policies for EYA teachers’ continuing educational training were continued. In addition, it is noteworthy that in the complexity of the relationships established during the educational training, the questions centers were essential, because in addition to the research developed, a broad movement of listening, dialogue and reflections on teacher’s demands was established.

The scenario presented is not permanent, because it represents the meanings, the linguistic-discursive events stressed throughout History involving the contexts of teachers’ education policies in the Education of Youths and Adults in Rio Grande do Sul. What remains as learning is the importance, the need, the mobilization, the resistance and the creation of fronts, in order to actually foster the existence of the right to continuing educational training and services focused on EYA teachers in our State.

Referências

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