The context of this paper is teachers’ education programs developed in the context of Higher Education Institutions (HEI), specifically the ones that educate early childhood educators and primary school teachers. In the aftermath of the Bologna Process, European HEI were engaged in a transformation of their curricular plans, their organizational features and their practices. In Portugal, after some controversy, the training of early childhood educators and of primary school teachers suffered a big change, since it went from a specialised degree course to a bi-staged program composed of a common degree in basic education and a master program on pre-school education and/or primary school teaching (Conselho Nacional de Educação, 2015). This transformation was initially decreed in 2007, and rephrased in 2014, and HEI had little time and conditions to rethink themselves in order to correspond to external demands, both national and international, given the rising European space of education.

In this context, the focus of this article is on the interactions between current features of the Portuguese bi-staged programs and the pedagogical practices of teachers working on them. According to Russel and Flores (2020), teachers of teachers have been described as a peculiar group of teachers because their pedagogical practices are significantly different from those of other higher education teachers. And, even if this group of teachers is considered crucial for the increasing quality of education, the fact is that there is little evidence about their beliefs and their practices (Flores, 2015; Nóvoa, 2017; Russel & Flores, 2020).

This paper contributes to the debate by discussing preliminary findings of a self-study (Russel & Flores, 2020; Loughran, 2009) conducted by the author, while teacher of futures teachers in the subject areas of pedagogy and clinical preparation. Arguing that future teachers learn from their teachers’ teaching practices, the author aims to discuss practices that are able to allow these students to develop their own pedagogic composition. As Nóvoa (2017, p. 1125) argues, no two teachers are the same, which demands that each student has to find her/his own way of being a teacher. This process of making up one’s pedagogic composition takes place with others, and teacher education programs should open space for this work to occur. In a previous paper (Gomes, 2020), I argued for the possibility of taking the place of the ignorant school master (Rancière, 2010), as I teach students to become childhood educators or primary school teachers without ever having been either one of them. Thus I prevent myself from being a model to my students as I reveal that I do not really know how to perform as an early childhood educator or a primary school teacher, rather I am interested in studying with them the diverse performances throughout their initial work of becoming a teacher. Also Dias (2011) elaborates a deep critic of “methods do like I do” and opens up the possibility of experiencing “methods do with me” in teacher education programs. The first are anchored on a priori teacher and teaching models, definitions and technics before which students shall conform. On the other hand, “methods do with me” do not work with models but with risk and unpredictability, making possible for students the experience of freedom.

Grounded on this theoretical framework, this paper aims to analyse and discuss the possibility of experiencing pedagogic practices that promote freedom and a sense of singularity in teacher education programs.

Russel and Flores (2020) argue for the need of investigating more about how teacher educators learn and how they teach, and consider that teacher education self-studies play a decisive role in understanding and questioning training programs, processes and practices. Self-studies are a methodological approach grounded on reflexive practice as they aim studying one’s own practices in the field of teaching teachers. Souza and Flores (2014) state that self-studies allow a close scrutiny of pedagogy inherent in the process of teaching about teaching in order to develop knowledge about this same practice. The self-study introduced in this paper observes the author’s work in subjects that occur in different stages of a teacher training program of a Portuguese HEI during 2020/2021. The subjects are: Childhood Pedagogy (1st semester of the 1st year of the degree course), Curriculum Theory and Management (2nd semester of the 2nd year of the degree course), Clinical Practice in Creche/Day care centres (1st semester of the Master course in Pre-school education; 2nd semester of the Master course in Pre-school and Primary school teaching). It departs from the author’s narration of her own classes, which will be related to the analyses of students’ written works along with recordings of lessons where the author’s teaching practices were discussed with students. More specifically: a) In each subject, students were asked to deliver written works that were objet of feedback throughout the process of making, during the semester; its’ analyses will compare both versions of students’ work as well as the authors’ feedback; b) In the end of the semester, and with students’ informed consent, the author recorded one lesson of each of above mentioned subjects and classes, during which students talked about their perceived impact of the author’s pedagogic work; these recordings will be analysed through a thematic content analysis.

Data analysis will allow to shed light on the pedagogic processes experienced by a teacher and the way a group of students perceive those practices, and enact before it, as I believe that It is impossible to teach people how to teach powerfully by asking them to imagine what they have never seen or to suggest they «do the opposite» of what they have observed in the classroom. No amount of coursework can, by itself, counteract the powerful experiential lessons that shape what teachers actually do. It is impractical to expect to prepare teachers for schools as they should be if teachers are constrained to learn in settings that typify the problems of schools as they have been (Darling-Hamond, 2014, p. 553). Following this assertion, I expect to understand whether students experience what I would like to be a classroom environment based on authenticity and freedom, and not on the transmission of information, theories and models about teacher and teaching (Dias, 2011). Bearing this in mind, data analyses will deepen students’ perception of the feedback given through the process of making written works as well as their understanding of my eventual contribute to their initial process of composing their unique way of being a teacher in the subjects of clinical preparation. Self-studies are not an end in itself, but rather a means to make higher education teachers present in the face of their own work with their students (Russel & Flores, 2020; Souza & Flores, 2014; Loughran, 2009). Therefore, through this study I expect to contribute to the debate concerning the quality and relevance of teaching in teacher education program in the framework of the Bologna process.

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