PAULO FREIRE IN UNIVERSITY EXTENSION: FORMATIVE CIRCLES WITH BEGINNER/NEW TEACHERS

Abstract

The extension project Formative Circles with Beginner/Incoming Teachers has been under development since the beginning of 2018 and aims to strengthen the teaching career through the reorientation of work and self-assessment and, thus, subsidize public policies to support teachers. It is necessary to highlight the conception of extension defended by the extension workers: the organic-procedural extension (REIS, 1996), that is, an action of a permanent, dialogical nature and exchange of formative experiences. The methodological proposal of the project in question is the promotion of Formative Circles, which are based on Paulo Freire's Culture Circles, horizontal, dialogical and liberating formative spaces. Thus, the objective of this work is to discuss Freire's conceptions of Culture Circles and generating themes and to draw a parallel between these definitions and the experiences lived in the Extension Project throughout the first half of 2021, especially with regard to the approximations to the Culture Circles and the choice of themes to be developed. Finally, it is emphasized that the Project, as a historically positioned reality, is always in the process of (re)construction and, in this way, the study and reflection about it is a way to unveil challenges and possibilities, as well as to reaffirm the inseparability between teaching, research and extension.