Teachers’ Practices and Teacher Models: Anísio Teixeira and Initial Teacher Training (Rio de Janeiro, 1932–1935)

To investigate the relationship between teachers’ practices and teacher models, this article takes as its main thread the work of Anísio Teixeira at the Teachers School of the Institute of Education, in Rio de Janeiro, between 1932 and 1935. In doing that, it resorts to oral and written sources and dares to outline a research methodology. The narrative is organized into four parts, and an introduction. The first part offers a general description of the place where Teixeira’s professional work is developed. Only those aspects of the history of the creation of the Institute of Education deemed as necessary to the study are described. In the second part, we explore the broad features of that teacher practice, interweaving written and oral documentation. In the third part, we focus on the issue of the sources. As our final comments, we consider the importance of historical investigations on teachers’ practice and models.
Keywords: history of education, teacher training; oral history; teachers’ lives; teacher models