The Educational Life Trajectory of a Teacher Trainee in the Sertão Region

Abstract

This article presents a focused segment of a broader biographical study concerning a normal school teacher who, in the course of her career, became the mayor of a city in the interior of Brazil's Northeast Region in 1993. Of poor origin, Dona Creuza completed her normal schooling at Colégio Nossa Senhora Auxiliadora, a boarding school 237 kilometers from her hometown, which prepared young women for teaching, marriage, and childcare. The study aims to analyze the life trajectory of this teacher, focusing on the emergent memories of the educational and religious configurations she maintained during a considerable portion of her life through her schooling and career as a teacher and state public servant. To this end, the primary sources comprised narrative interviews and photographic iconography. The findings examine topics related to her childhood, time in school, and school culture, literacy, classroom punishments and the use of the ferula (cane), calligraphy notebooks, as well as the boarding school environment for teacher training.