Deconstruction of Paradigms for Teacher Training:                                A Transdisciplinary Perspective

Maria das Graças Viana Bragança¹, Zélia Maria Freire de Oliveira^{2 }
(1. Universidade Católica de Brasília, Brazil; 2. Centro Universitário Euro-Americano, Brazil)

Abstract: We reflect on the necessary changes in paradigms for teacher training programs, based on bibliographical research and on three empirical studies. It is necessary to go from a conservative paradigm, where reproduction of knowledge predominates, to an emergent or innovative paradigm, where knowledge is produced. The holistic approach to education has become more important, as it can confer quality to teacher training programs, since teachers are agents of transformation. The higher education institutions play a decisive role in teacher preparation and training. However, in most of these institutions, teaching is distributed into disciplines; sometimes they adopt a multidisciplinary approach; but they rarely adopt an interdisciplinary one; and a transdisciplinary perspective is a challenge. Without a systemic, interdisciplinary perspective, teacher training fails to approach sustainability, to a desirable extent. Research on teacher training shows efforts aiming at innovations. However, many obstacles remain, since anything new is perceived as a risk, so, many people prefer not to leave their comfort zone. The three pieces of research analyzed showed that, although many professors wish for a more efficient performance and a pedagogical and didactic improvement, they do not reach those goals while being trained. There still is the predominance of syllabi divided into countless disciplines, making it difficult to have a transdisciplinary perspective of the current global reality.

Key words: teacher training, conservative paradigm, emergent or innovative paradigm, transdisciplinary perspective, sustainability