1.1. The construction of the teacher’s professional identity
Is the task of educating a vocation? Is it a profession? Is it a dynamic balance between the two? Can there be professionalism without vocation? And vocation without professionalism? What does it mean to be a teacher in today’s social and cultural contexts?
The Practicum is the space in which students start building their professional identity as a teacher. Identity is built from retrospective experiences and, also, depending on the context and an individual’s self-perception, their future projection representations may vary.
“The aspiring teacher is exposed to socializing experiences supported by different and even antagonistic cultures, building their new identity based on the transition from a “previous” identity to a “future” identity, but which is always lived in a “present” trapped in those two identities.”
According to Freire (1998), the more one knows about oneself (from one’s own experience as a person and as a social group), the better one is able to develop patterns of independent and autonomous action, to grow as a person and as a group in a given context. In this sense, self-knowledge becomes an extremely powerful tool for the construction of the professional identity of teachers.