Career development and Teaching Concerns: an analysis with Brazilian Physical Education teachers ^{1 2 3}

Abstract

This study investigates teachers' concerns during career development that are not present in Fuller and Bown's (1975) construct of concerns. Twenty Physical Education teachers at different stages of their careers participated in the research. Semi-structured interviews and content analysis were used to collect and analyze data. Two dimensions of emerging concerns were evidenced: public policies and social issues. Two emerging indicators for the Self dimension were found: teacher education and health. The emerging concerns of Physical Education teachers permeate the existing situations between school and the social context, affecting school routine.

Keywords
Teacher; Concern; Teaching Career

Resumo

O objetivo do estudo foi identificar quais são as preocupações apresentadas pelos professores durante o desenvolvimento da carreira que não estão presentes no constructo de preocupações de Fuller e Bown (1975). Participaram da pesquisa 20 professores de Educação Física em diferentes momentos da carreira. Na coleta e análise de dados, utilizaram-se a entrevista semiestruturada e a análise de conteúdo. Foram evidenciadas duas dimensões de preocupações emergentes: políticas públicas e questões sociais, presentes durante toda a carreira. Foram encontrados dois indicadores para a dimensão consigo: formação docente e saúde. As preocupações emergentes dos professores de Educação Física permeiam as situações existentes entre a escola e o contexto social e que afetam a rotina escolar.

Palavras-chave
Professores; Inquietações; Carreira Docente

Introduction

The teaching career is established through professional development, which reflects a continuum of experiences and is permeated by lived situations, motivation moments, and discontinuities (Farias et al., 2018). Despite the complexity of professional development, studies on teaching careers help to understand how the professional world of teachers works (Gonçalves, 2007).

Based on teachers' professional and personal characteristics during their careers, some authors established phases or stages of the teaching career (Farias et al., 2018; Sikes, 1985).

Therefore, the phases of teachers’ careers and their characteristics directly depend on their social, economic, and political context. Regarding the reality of physical education (PE) teachers in Brazil, Farias et al. (2018) created a theoretical model with five cycles of professional development (CPD). The first cycle, Career Entry (CE) (between 1 and 4 years of teaching), is characterized by the reality shock and the new experiences in the career. Teachers consolidate actions, competencies, and behaviors during the second cycle, Consolidation of Professional Career Competencies (CPCC) (5 to 9 years). The third cycle, Career Affirmation and Diversification (CAD) (between 10 to 19 years of teaching) is the phase of confirming teachers' actions in the pedagogical practice through several forms to obtain knowledge. In the fourth cycle, Career Renovation (CR) (from 20 to 27 years), we find three teachers’ profiles: those in love with teaching, those defending the teachers’ causes, and the renovators of professional work. In the last cycle, Career Maturity (CM) (28 years of teaching or more), teachers value public education, other professions, and the fight for work improvement. On the other hand, some teachers become bitter due to the negative perception of their education conditions.

During career development, teachers are influenced by several factors, such as tensions in the work environment, life quality, and personal aspects (Farias et al., 2018). Besides this, PE teachers have some peculiarities compared to other areas, mainly the clothes they wear during work, the materials used, and the place they teach (Wittizorecki & Molina Neto, 2005). The elements influence teachers’ practices and can be reflected in teachers’ concerns.

When using the term concern referring to the teaching practice, we mention feelings, actions, and behaviors shown by teachers related to their work context. Factors such as sociability with colleagues, infrastructure, number of students per class, and planning can raise teachers' concerns (Vieira, 2017).

In 1969, Fuller started her studies on teachers' concerns in the North American reality. According to the author, there are three phases in the process of teacher education: before becoming a teacher (Pre-Teaching), the beginning of the career (Early Teaching), and the phase after starting teaching (Late Teaching) (Fuller, 1969).

After years of studies, Fuller and Bown (1975) improved the model, identifying three dimensions of teachers’ concern linked to the phases described by Fuller (1969), which can nowadays be connected to the CDPs. The authors state that the three concern dimensions can change depending on how long people teach.

The first dimension proposed was the Self, which refers to the concerns regarding teachers' survival in the work environment, which is more prominent at the beginning of the career. In the second dimension, entitled Task, teachers show their concern with education and their pedagogical activities, and generally, they appear after their Self concerns decrease. Finally, the dimension Impact on Task relates to the concerns connected to the influence of their actions over the students. It is identified in Late Teaching when teachers are more experienced in their profession (Fuller & Bown, 1975).

When considering the model proposed by Fuller (1969) and Fuller and Bown (1975), George (1978) created an instrument to evaluate teachers’ concerns (Teacher Concerns Questionnaire – TCQ). However, studies that use this instrument with trainees and PE teachers questioned the use of TCQ to evaluate the concerns of PE teaching practices (Behets, 1990; Wendt & Bain, 1989). McBride (1993) conducted a specific study adapting TCQ, particularly the task dimension, to be applied in the PE area.

In this study with English trainee PE teachers, McBride (1993) incorporated five new items in the task dimension to be used in the PE area: lack of continuity of the yearly PE programs; the lack of administrative support for the PE program; lack of a consistent policy in the PE teaching years; work with large classes; and poor or inadequate planning of PE classes. The study conducted with the adapted questionnaire was more consistent in the task dimension, showing that the new indicators seemed more suitable for PE teachers.

Besides this, studies pointed out that the concerns encompass more factors than those mentioned in the dimensions of Fuller and Bown (1975). Students’ social problems, the schools’ context, and the family presence in the school also affect and raise concerns (Favatto & Both, 2019b; McBride, 1993; Riopel, 2006; Smith & Sanche, 1993; Wendt & Bain, 1989).

As previously explained, teachers' concerns are, among other factors, related to their time teaching. In this sense, some studies link the concern dimensions proposed by Fuller and Bown (1975) with the time of professional experience (Conkle, 1996; Folle & Nascimento, 2011; Wendt & Bain, 1989). Furthermore, studies show that the context of professional work affects the concerns of PE teachers, identifying the concern dimensions proposed by Fuller and Bown (1975) and new ones (Favatto & Both, 2019b; Riopel, 2006).

Therefore, it is essential to highlight the relevance of the theoretical model of concerns to understand teachers' work. However, the theory was created in a North American context and, consequently, is permeated by the conditions of its time. They might not be enough to explain the reality of Brazilian PE teachers.

In this sense, the questions guiding this study were: Do Brazilian PE teachers have concerns not present in the theoretical model of Fuller and Bown (1975)? What are those concerns? This work aimed to identify teachers' concerns during their career development that are not present in Fuller and Bown's (1975) model, seeking to analyze the reality of Brazilian physical education teachers.

Methodological procedures

The research was descriptive with a qualitative approach. It sought to value participants' experiences through interviews, highlighting the concerns affecting PE teachers in their work routine (Minayo, 2010).

Thus, four PE teachers from each Professional Development cycle proposed by Farias et al. (2018) (CE, CPCC, CAD, RC, CM) took part in the study, resulting in 20 participants (15 women and five men). The majority of women in the research reflect the educational reality in Brazil, where 79.4% of teachers in 2020 were women (Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira, 2021). The interviewed teachers taught in schools connected to the state of Paraná (PR) or the city of Maringá (PR). Due to the large number of Physical Education teachers in the two systems, we established some inclusion criteria for the participants; amongst them, teachers should be working with students in Physical Education and have a formal work contract with the state and/or city. We excluded teachers who were not currently teaching for any reason. Some participants worked in the city's peripheral regions and social risk areas. Most participants were single, had specialization diplomas, with a workload of over 20 hours weekly, and worked multiple jobs, i.e., working in two schools connected to the same educational system (internal multiple jobs) or in another workspace beside the municipal or state schools (external multiple jobs).

When considering the city of Maringá-PR, some information stands out. Maringá is the third largest city in Paraná and the seventh greatest in the southern region. It is considered a medium-large city in the country. The Human Development Index is 0,808, considered very high and the second greatest in the state (Programa das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento, 2013). This information is relevant to the study analysis because, despite being geographically located in a developing country, Maringá has different characteristics from Brazil's poorest and more unequal regions.

To collect data, we conducted semi-structured interviews asking about professional information, such as work contracts, workload, time working in the system, and other questions. Afterward, we asked three questions about teachers' concerns, aiming to identify their real concerns, not relating them to the classification proposed by the theoretical model of Fuller and Bown (1975). We proposed questions related to the concerns with teachers' routine and work roles: "What are your pedagogical concerns?", "Which are the most significant difficulties⁴ faced in the school routine?”, and “Do you have any concern not mentioned previously?”. After the authorization of the responsible bodies (Municipal Education Secretary and the Regional Nuclei of Education) and the approval of the Research Ethics Committee at Universidade Estadual de Londrina (report number: 1.664.969), data collection started. The interviews took place in the schools where the participants taught, according to their availability, during the slot for class planning (called activity hour or planning hour. All interviews were recorded with an audio recorder from a mobile phone and fully transcribed, with an approximate duration of one to three hours of transcription. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and handed to the participants to be read and confirmed.

We examined data using Bardin’s (2011) content analysis. First, we conducted a pre-analysis by reading the interviews transcribed, followed by a material exploration analyzing teachers’ discourses and identifying the frequency and intensity of the concerns not present in the theory of Fuller and Bown (1975). We also conducted a critical analysis to understand the macro-generating aspect of a specific concern (indicator) presented by teachers (for example, mentions about the deterioration of public education have as a generating element the Educational Public Policies and not Teachers' Survival in the Workplace or their Tasks). Finally, we treated data with the inference and interpretation between the reality presented in the participants' speech and the works on the topic. In this sense, the analytical categories were not defined a priori but emerged from the data analysis. The dimensions were proposed based on grouping indicators with similar generating elements.

The first author coded and categorized the data, while the other authors participated as “critical friends” during the analytical process. This means that they periodically revised and criticized the analysis and allocation of indicators and dimensions, questioning the first author to develop the categories of analysis (Merrem & Curtner-Smith, 2018). Thus, the study reviewed the information that described and illustrated, during the CDP, new dimensions of teachers' concerns emerged, which were not present in the dimensions proposed by Fuller and Bown (1975).

We used codes depending on the professional development cycle to identify the teachers participating in the study. The teachers in the CE cycle were represented by E1, E2, E3, and E4 (three women and one man), with an average of 29.5 years old and 2.5 years of teaching. Teachers in the CPCC cycle were identified as C1, C2, C3, and C4 (three women and one man), with an average of 29.7 years old and 5.9 years of teaching. In the third cycle, the participants were represented by four women (D1, D2, D3, D4) with an average of 38.2 years old and 12.5 years of teaching. In the fourth cycle, teachers were identified as R1, R2, R3, and R4 (two men and two women), with an average age of 51.7 years old and an average of 23.5 years of teaching. The last cycle is represented by M1, M2, M3, and M4 (three women and one man), with an average age of 52.2 years old and an average of 31.8 years of teaching.

Results and discussions

When analyzing the emerging teachers’ concerns and the CPD, we could identify two dimensions: Public Policies and Social Issues. Besides this, we found two indicators of emerging teachers’ concerns connected to the Self dimension: Teacher Education and Health.

The indicators and dimensions were categorized from the frequency of mentions and the intensity, order, and direction (Pasquali, 1996) evidenced by teachers during the interviews. Therefore, the dimensions are characterized by aspects of greater magnitude in the population researched, and the indicators refer to a specific dimension (Pasquali, 2010). This justification does not eliminate the fact that the dimensions could be related, that is, that they interfere with each other or stimulate concern with other dimensions or indicators from other dimensions. Next, we present each emerging dimension and indicator depending on its presence in the CDPs.

Emerging dimensions of teachers’ concerns: Public Policies and Social Issues

The first dimension of PE teachers' concerns identified was Public Policies, referring to governmental actions and activities to benefit the population. They can encompass macro-organizational concerns (involving the whole city of state)⁵ or micro ones (encompassing only the local work environment).

We identified 13 mentions among the participants referring to these concerns. Among these lines, seven were related to the Deterioration of Public Education (E2, C2, C3, D4, R2, M2, M3), expressing feelings of angst and concerns with the neglect and lack of investment in education, and six speeches regarding the Devaluation of Teachers (E2, D1, D4, R3, M3, M4). Teachers' words reflect the low payment, high workload, and lack of support for continuing education, among other aspects.

If students come to a precarious school, they aren't going to care for it because it's already bad. The structure deterioration makes them feel less excited because we like to see beautiful things and see them organized. So, it's a project to destroy public schools (E2).

There is a new project of law to reformulate High School that proposed the decrease of some subjects, and, guess what, which is the first subject to be eliminated? Though I think that High School has much content, and many subjects, part of it should be decreased. They learn everything superficially just to pass the university admission test [vestibular], this is not just in Physical Education (C2).

A study with Canadian teachers showed concern with some realities of teachers' work that, in a way, portray the Public Policies dimension. We highlight students' social problems, teachers' work conditions, and the continuation of their education philosophy in the context of social and political mobility (Riopel, 2006). In this reality, teachers’ work conditions intensify and become more complex, as in the work in class, when the social questions that affect students reflect in their school performance (Riopel, 2006). Besides this, studies in the national reality have shown that the devaluation of the profession and educational public policies, elements of the Public Policies dimension, negatively affect teachers' satisfaction and, consequently, interfere with their pedagogical practice (Krug, 2008; Flores et al., 2010; Krug, Krug & Telles, 2018).

Both (2011) indicated that the governmental actions in education, micro and macro-organization, affect teachers' work. Furthermore, in recent years, there have been attacks against Brazilian public education, such as the Social Security reform made official in 2019 (Brasil, 2019), changing the age and contribution time to retire, as well as the Constitutional Amendment nº 95 which foresees alterations in the use of public funds for education, going against the dispositions established in the Federal Constitution (Brasil, 2016). These conflicts, associated with the lack of public admission exams, intensify teachers' work due to decreased permanent contracts. Therefore, teachers can be more critical and aware of their responsibilities, besides the future unfolding of their works, which are elements connected to the dimension of Public Policies.

The data analysis showed that CE and CPCC teachers had lower levels of concern with the category Public Policies when compared to other CPDs. This data can be explained by the evidence presented by Fuller and Bown’s (1975) theory, according to which teachers at the beginning of their careers are more concerned with themselves than with other actors and factors because, in this cycle, they are experiencing a reality shock (Farias et al., 2018).

On the other hand, when considering the characteristics of the Public Policies dimension, extrinsic aspects were primarily represented by governmental actions independent from the will of the school community. Furthermore, the knowledge and understanding of these situations indicate a greater involvement and experience of the school reality, which is still recent for teachers in the CE and CPCC cycles. Besides this, a study conducted with PE trainee undergraduate students close to teachers in the CE phase has shown that students' concerns refer to immediate action in everyday life (Capel et al., 2011).

Nevertheless, in the CAD cycle, teachers have higher concern levels related to this dimension in the two identified indicators: devaluation of teachers and deterioration of public education. These concerns stand out from this cycle forward because teachers who have a considerable amount of time at work feel unmotivated, as they cannot foresee improvements in the work routine and career progression seen in the interview with D4.

At this moment, I feel pressured by the government, by these laws, the changes that are taking place. You get to work demotivated because of outside things that are directly related to your work and the progression within the state (D4).

With more time of involvement and knowledge about teachers’ reality, the concerns related to the Public Policies dimension start to be more evident in these teachers. In this sense, when studying the learning progression of PE teachers, Armour, Makopoulou, and Chambers (2012) showed that older teachers were more demotivated with continuing education over the years, which can be seen in D1's testimony.

I think there is a concern; I notice that the system now has more teachers with higher educational levels, with specialization and master's degrees. However, the financial support, the financial recognition is still nonexistent for the teachers, even with good people working, and sometimes people leave the system mainly because the financial support is lower (D1).

Indeed, in the CAD cycle emerge several expectations, exchange of experiences and positions, and mobilizations (Farias et al., 2018), which, mediated by teachers’ realities, can lead to disappointments and demotivate teachers. In the CR cycle, two teachers reported their concerns: one regarding the devaluation of the profession (R3): “It is a very high workload, what leads to a constant stress. We have to face them to reach our goals”, and another on the deterioration of PE materials (R2), affecting the quality of the classes.

At this point, it is important to say that, by the end of the career, teachers have higher concerns regarding the indicators of devaluation (M2, M3) and education deterioration (M3, M4). The CM characteristics can explain this reality. The need for recognition and professional valuing is not fulfilled by the end of the career, which can lead to teachers’ disappointment and discouragement (Farias et al., 2018).

If our salary was enough for us to work 20 or even 40 hours, we could be more involved; we could use the time to plan and research because things are also evolving. We have to do something we're interested in. However, we end up overworked. At the end of the day, you work 60 hours a week to have a better income. So, I think that this workload is very heavy (M4).

The junina parties are generally linked with some saints but, in fact, the school does them to keep it on its feet, considering the government’s funding. I mean, the Junina party is now not remotely connected to its initial intention; the issue is financial. The school needs to raise funds, but it is also used for development, and secondarily for the dance, to get funds. When we analyze the bureaucratic issue of educational policies, it is a way to minimize the State within the school. This is also a part of Physical Education, and students also need to know about this problem (M2).

Characteristics linked to the Public Policies dimension, such as long working hours, task intensification, and low salaries, are highlighted in studies with teachers (Caetano & Neves, 2012; Iório & Lélis, 2015). The precarious state of teachers' work is experienced for a longer time by those in the last professional cycles, which can provoke more significant discontentment and concern related to this dimension. Porath et al.’s (2018) study of PE teachers at the end of their careers has shown a bitter disinvestment caused by the governmental disregard toward education. In these last CPDs, teachers have a greater mastery of routine work activities (Farias et al., 2018), connected with negative experiences, and have followed the attacks against education. Thus, they can experience a bitter professional disinvestment, questioning and emotionally disconnecting themselves from the profession (Gonçalves, 2007; Huberman, 2007; Porath et al., 2018; Farias et al., 2018).

In the Public Policies category, all CPDs showed concerns. This can be explained by the macro and micro-organizational scenarios experienced by teachers, which affect public education, such as the neoliberal policy established in the state of Paraná promoting, for instance, the lack of state responsibility toward essential services, among them, education, leading to outsourcing and, consequently, the precariousness and commodification of education (Mendes et al., 2020). Brazilian reality and, specifically, in Paraná has currently adopted measures that negatively influence public policies and, consequently, a loss of teachers' rights. To illustrate, we can cite the recent reform of Social Security (Brasil, 2019) and the freezing of resources for education (Brasil, 2016), measures implemented to try to solve the high expenditure with Brazilian public debt. These governmental actions directly affect teachers' work conditions and influence their classes.

The second dimension of concern for PE teachers was social issues. Social reality and several problems that permeate students and schools affect teachers’ pedagogical practice. Among the concern indicators of this dimension, all CPDs showed some distress, identified in five speeches about students’ aggressiveness (E1, E4, C1, C2, C4), eight mentions about family relationships (E1, D2, D3, D4, R3, M2, M3, M4) and six references in the social context (D1, D2, D3, R4, M1, M4).

At schools, the pedagogical staff often tries to camouflage the violence. The children have no family structure. It is hard to arrive at a First Year class and know that a student's father has been arrested and that another was sexually abused. So, the children are often violent because that is what they live at home. It's not use for me to want this child to give me some affection, love, and attention if they don’t have this at home. That is why the student attacks the teacher (E1).

I’m very concerned with the relationship between the students and the family. It directly interferes with students’ learning. The discourse is often repeated, the families are not committed, there's a symptomatic lack of commitment in our society but, while it is symptomatic, it also needs to be discussed, not to be seen as natural. So, we can't contact this family. These are students with no maternal or paternal figure. They have nobody to turn to. You say:’ I’m gonna call your dad, your mom to talk', they laugh and say: 'you can do it, nobody is coming, teacher'. The child is something wild, as if they had been abducted and thrown on this planet [laughter] (D2).

Studies conducted with Canadian teachers have also shown similar concerns related to problems in students' social context and school performance (Riopel, 2006). Brazilian teachers are also concerned with the social issues of the school community, aspects such as the lack of family support, basic needs, and the follow-up of students’ academic life, as well as the absorption by the school of questions occurring outside it, for instance, drug trafficking (Trusz, 2016; Favatto & Both, 2019b). Adding to this panorama, Smith and Sanche (1993) researched trainee teachers identifying concerns outside the theoretical model proposed by Fuller and Bown (1975), calling them out-of-school concerns, i.e., those beyond the school environment, such as the relationship with the school community.

Wittizorecki (2001) and Conceição and Molina Neto (2016) pointed out that, when working in economically disadvantaged places, where social problems are more evident, teachers aggregate essential elements of social responsibility, in which doing a task goes way beyond students’ needs. Teachers’ work in poor areas is not only related to educational issues but also a social responsibility with the space they work (Wittizorecki, 2001; Conceição & Neto, 2016).

The social issues that affect the school community and, consequently, teachers’ work permeate all CPDs. However, in the initial cycles CE and CPCC, teachers are less concerned with this dimension, connected with students’ aggressiveness and family relationships, aspects that influence their classes and students’ learning.

Schools are now responsible not only for teaching but also for educating. The father leaves the child at 7:30 at school and picks him up at 5 p.m. They spend 5 hours with their kids, and they just put them to bed, and it's the same thing the next day (E1).

We notice that the students, sometimes the father hits the mother, and we see that their behavior is hindered. They reproduce the violence they suffer at home. And this often happens with the teachers. I’ve been slapped, kicked, scratched (C4).

This lower mention of concerns connected to the Social Issues dimension by less experienced teachers can be explained by the shorter period of involvement and knowledge these teachers have about the school work dynamic and, thus, they can be more enthusiastic about work, a characteristic of novice teachers (Farias et al., 2018). At this moment of their careers, teachers are also more concerned with their survival in the work environment and, thus, they are focused on actions related to this (Shoval et al., 2010) and paying less attention to other demands, such as concerns regarding social problems.

A study conducted with trainee PE undergraduate students from Uruguay identified concerns related to social context similar to those reported by CE teachers, for instance, the coherence of students' context and what is taught, the social situation of students' families, and others (Piovani et al., 2012).

Teachers in the CPCC cycle were only concerned with students’ aggressiveness. This result might reflect the work environment and the new experiences teachers are living, showing that the teacher is concerned with factors that directly interfere with their practice; for example, students' aggressiveness can physically and mentally exhaust teachers (Martins, 2016; Sant'Ana, 2012).

The CAD cycle showed higher levels of concern with social context and family relationship indicators, as reported by D2.

Sometimes, I arrive in the class and notice that something is wrong, so they normally come and say: ‘teacher, I gotta tell you something’. We often need to take some time for that specific content. So, we talk about something it is not related to the content of Physical Education; it's about human learning, so we discuss and talk (D2).

This can be explained by the characteristics of this cycle, in which teachers are more stable in their professional competencies and master the basic school routines, allowing them to be more secure in the discussions and topics involving the school context (Farias et al., 2018).

The CR cycle was also less concerned with the Social Issues dimension: a teacher was concerned with family relationships and another with the social context. Besides the low level of concern, teachers stated that these situations did not depend on them and were not centered in the school, as observed by teacher R4.

There are some conflicts, for instance, the issue of drugs in school. This year has been really complicated; there have been some cases with students from the afternoon shift in Middle School dealing LSD in the school, not to mention pot because pot is like drinking water, you know? And the prosecutor's office takes no action because they have to have X charges, the Social Service is the same, the Police is the same. So there are a number of issues out of our reach, it’s not something the school can solve (R4).

The number of men in the group investigated can explain this lesser concern. As seen in other studies, men had fewer concerns when compared to women (Farias et al., 2018; Trusz, 2016; Zounhia & Harziharistos, 2005). Besides this, teachers from this professional development have improved professional competencies and control over activities and school routine, allowing them to have fewer concerns related to the feeling of normalcy with lived experiences (Farias et al., 2018).

Finally, the CM cycle was deeply concerned with family relations and social context. In her interview, the teacher M4 states that the students bring affective and social needs to school beyond learning ones.

School is a lightning rod; everything happens in school, and this is a concern because, in today's world, the values are quite different, right? We are at school; everything ends up there. So, this is a constant concern; the point is that we have to attend to that student and answer their needs sometimes a student needs to talk much more than in a class in which they are just learning how to do things (M4).

Vast experiences with educational experiences characterize this cycle of professional development during the teaching career, which allows these teachers to have a broader view of education, guide their professional practice, and seek, through their experience, to understand new demands of society and the social context where they work (Farias et al., 2018).

According to Oliveira, Cândido, and Dornelles (2010), the context of the school community might raise teachers’ concerns by creating a greater responsibility to change or help improve students’ reality. This logic corroborates with the reality of public school teachers, often in peripheral regions or in contact with students from socially risky contexts.

Indicators of emerging teachers’ concern in the Self dimension: Teacher Education and Health

When analyzing teachers’ interviews, we perceived that the indicators related to the Self dimension were cited but were not found in the characteristics described in the original proposal of this dimension in Fuller and Bown (1975). In the teachers’ interviews, we identified five mentions of concern, two of them connected to teacher education (E1, E3) and three to teachers’ health (E1, R2, R4).

School is not easy. We joke that only the physical education teachers don't use controlled medicines. I think it’s because we do physical activities with the students or we are outside or we can see the sun [laughter], the rest, 90% of the teachers in this school take some kind of medicine to sleep, for anxiety, for depression (R4).

The indicators of Teacher Education and Teacher Health are connected to the Self dimension of Fuller and Brown (1975) model because they refer to situations and circumstances that teachers face to adapt and survive in the teaching environment and keep control of the classes (McBride, 1993; Meek & Behets, 1999).

Therefore, the first indicator, Teacher Education, reflects teachers' concern with the lack of coherence between theory and practice and teachers' lack of knowledge to work with inclusion students, as established in laws 7.853/89 and 9.394/96 (Brasil, 1996; Brasil, 1999)⁶

You prepare a class and it often doesn’t work, it is one the greatest shock that we find when we teacher. Many times during undergraduate, teachers talk a lot about how perfect it would be, it’s a wonderful theory, but when the reality comes, it doesn’t work. Many professors did a master's and a doctorate and never went to a school. These teachers bring endless proposals that won’t work because they don’t know the reality of a school (E1).

However, we highlight that only CE teachers were concerned with this indicator, which can be explained by the fact of being recently graduated or have been teaching for few years. In this sense, the proximity they still keep with undergraduate studies raises in teachers some concerns about the theory studied and the pedagogical practice (Farias et al., 2018). A study with PE students identified that the period of contact with school

A study with PE students identified that the period of contact with school reality during their undergraduate degree might not be enough to understand the whole reality of the work environment, as they considered that the knowledge acquired in the practical experience are more influential than the theoretical part of the degrees (Capel et al., 2011). Besides this, Armour et al. (2012), when investigating PE teachers reported that, for several times, the learning in the undergraduate degrees is disconnected from the practical reality. In many cases, teachers do not have an adequate learning progression during their careers that supports their teaching practice and a planned continuing education.

Still, the conflict with the work reality and the new situations experienced by teachers raise concerns, for instance, work with inclusion students. This insecurity might refer to the fact that their early training cannot encompass all the needs and specificities demanded by teaching. A study conducted with PE undergraduates training in Special Education showed that students see themselves less prepared to work with several handicaps in school (Schiarolli et al., 2018a).

Thus, the lack of connection with the work reality and early training might have incited concerns in teachers closer to undergraduate school. The experience of an early education distant from what takes place in teaching spaces can create a greater shock with the professional reality and, when closer to real educational situations, can offer more significant support in the early career (Leone & Leite, 2011; Figuerêdo & Moura, 2018). Some studies about initial education in PE show maladjustments regarding teachers’ work reality, pointing out decontextualized teaching practices in higher education degrees (Azevedo et al., 2011), the inability of undergraduate degrees to answer the future challenges teachers will find in their work reality (Colombo & Cardoso, 2008), and the distance between early training and the problems of professional practice (Gariglio, 2010).

At this point, Neira (2016) analyzed the Brazilian curricula of PE teacher education and identified that they do not encompass all the knowledge needed for future teachers. Some subjects are not related to reality. Thus, we perceive a distance between initial education in SEM and teachers’ work reality, shocking novice teachers.

Considering the theme of Teachers' Health, the concerns turned to the consequences of the teaching work in their lives. The EC and the CR teachers were the only ones raising these concerns. Teachers mentioned mental diseases caused by work, which culminated in their demand to quit their jobs, as mentioned by E1.

This is happening, there are so many teachers getting depressed, so many sick teachers, because more teachers are quitting, asking for their resignation. (E1).

We highlight that health problems can encourage people to leave the profession. Some studies show that the increased levels of physical and emotional exhaustion from work can consume unnecessary energy, which might lead to stress and the wish to quit teaching (Sant' Ana, 2012; Wagner & Carlesso, 2019).

In the CE cycle, two studies about teachers' well-being identified that less experienced teachers have higher exhaustion levels and health issues (Martins, 2016; Favatto & Both, 2019a), which can be connected to shock with work reality faced by novice teachers. The lack of experience can also be a factor associated with this situation, becoming more evident in PE teachers due to the characteristics of their workspace, normally open spaces, demanding voice alterations (Farias et. al., 2018; Favatto & Both, 2019a; Gonçalves, 2007; Huberman, 2007; Martins, 2016).

There was also evidence of Health concerns on the CR cycle. Martins (2016) found out that teachers had several health complaints. The author explains that teachers’ age (40 years old or more) and the fact that they are closer to the end of their careers can lead to negative perceptions of their careers and retirement. Germano (2018) investigated teachers close to retirement and identified reports of physical exhaustion, voice problems, obesity, and depression during their careers.

We also highlight that older people usually are more concerned with health, motivated by the need to treat pathologies (Brandão & Duarte, 2003). Besides this, personal aspects (teachers' job satisfaction and the increase in the percentage of positive behaviors regarding lifestyle) and administrative ones (improvement of job conditions, better pay, and offer of programs to promote teachers' health) can influence teachers' health (Both, 2011), which is related to the dimensions Public Policies and Social Issues evidenced in this study.

Conclusion

This work sought to identify PE Brazilian teachers' concerns during their professional career development, which are not present in the concern theory of Fuller and Bown (1975). The study results allow the identification of two emerging concern dimensions, Social Issues and Public Policies, and two emerging indicators in the Self Dimension (Fuller & Bown, 1975), Teacher Education and Teacher Health.

The Public Policies dimension refers to the actions and attitudes of the government in favor of the population. We highlight that, in the micro and macro-organization levels (education deterioration, low pay, devaluation of the profession), governmental actions worry teachers and influence their practice in all CDPs. The reality experienced by teachers and students, the decrease in public policies, and the loss of rights explain these concerns.

The actions and policies the government establishes, in different power instances, influence and raise concerns in this category and other dimensions found. In this direction, the organization of the work and academic class must conduct new studies that show the impact of governmental policies on teachers’ tasks and the education quality to ground and claim to the federal and state governments the review of the measures established that endanger teachers’ rights and the quality of K-12 education.

In the Social Issues category, the lack of family/guardians at school or the precarious system of service and care for children provokes in students some behaviors that are reflected in school, such as aggressiveness. In this direction, the school is characterized as a "lightning rod," mirroring its community with the problems experienced outside the classroom within the school. All cycles demonstrated concerns; however, the concerns intensified in the last cycles.

In this case, it would be essential to offer psychological and pedagogical support to teachers in the schools or administrative bodies to guide and help them deal with the social aspects that go beyond schools’ walls, as these issues often affect the education and the work atmosphere in the school staff, also harming teachers’ health, mainly those in the last cycles of the career.

We discovered that the lack of relation between theory and practice and the unpreparedness of early education make up the indicator Teacher Education. The fact that only the CE cycle was concerned with this indicator suggests that the reality shock that constitutes an evident characteristic of this cycle and teachers’ proximity with early education raise some questions. In this sense, there should be some type of didactic-pedagogical support to the teachers joining the profession in the public system, offering them possibilities to progress their learning. This support could be anchored in the collaborative learning with older teachers from the system and the help of higher education institutions to create a continuing education program to answer the differences between the CDPs.

In the indicator Health, teachers are concerned with the exhaustion that may be caused by teaching. However, only the CE and the CR cycles showed concerns. The characteristics of each phase, such as the reality shock in the CE cycle and the more advanced age and proximity with retirement in the CR cycle, can explain this evidence. Therefore, we perceive that pedagogical and psychological support actions to face everyday situations are necessary because they reverberate not only in professional tasks but also in teachers' life conditions that, in turn, affect teaching.

Hence, the concern of PE teachers reflects the intense relationship between the school environment and society, which can be seen in the dimensions identified regarding external factors to the school that end up interfering with the school routine. For this reason, more studies are necessary to approach the complexity of this relationship, the task of teaching, and the social environment to better understand and propose measures that improve education in general and PE in particular.

• 2
  References correction and bibliographic normalization services: Maria Thereza Sampaio Lucinio [e-mail]
• 3
  English version: Viviane Ramos [e-mail]
• 4
  The term difficulty was used to deepen the reality of school routine and, consequently, of school work, seeking to identify the difficulties that teachers are more concerned with among those they face daily.
• 5
  According to the Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional [LDB- Law of Directives and Bases of National Education] (BRASIL, 1996), the Brazilian educational system is organized in a co-responsibility system of all bodies (Federal government, states/Federal District, and municipalities) following Brazilian Constitution (article 205). The responsibilities are shared between the municipalities, states, and the Federal government. Municipalities' primary role is to offer places for Childhood, Elementary, and Middle Schools. States must prioritize High schools but can also act with the municipalities to offer Elementary and Middle Schools. The federal government organizes the whole system and regulates Higher Education. However, this definition does not mean that the other bodies are exempt from responsibility for non-priority levels, as LDB foresees cooperative work.
• 6
  In Brazil, the education in different levels of people with handicaps is guaranteed by law (Decreto nº 3.298/99; Art. 88 4.024/61; Art. 59 9394/96 – LDB).

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1

Responsible editor: Silvio Donizetti de Oliveira Gallo. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2221-5160

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  31 May 2024
• Date of issue
  2024

History

• Received
  27 July 2021
• Reviewed
  12 June 2023
• Accepted
  29 June 2023