Introduction

In their daily practice, teachers live situations in which the abilities of interpretation, improvisation and confidence, among others, are necessary to decide the best course of action. No situation is exactly the same as the other and, therefore, it is required of the teacher to develop indispensable skills during their time teaching. To ^{Dantas (2019}) a teacher’s competence is associated with the concomitant following of students during their professional development, in a human perspective, and the advancement of knowledge. The author highlights that “academic knowledge is not just for those who will learn technical skills; education is more than that, it’s a continuous preparation in order to act in the world” (2019, p. 90, authors' translation).

^{Pimenta et al (2017}) in the research on initial training in pedagogy courses, identifies in the curricular matrices of the course in relation to the categories of knowledge inherent to professional teacher training, numerous weaknesses among them: the performance of internships and teaching practices often without supervision and a very low rate of an integrative or interdisciplinary curriculum organization, generating a fragmented treatment of school knowledge in the early years. Misconceptions in teacher training result in impoverishment of pedagogical activities and understanding of school contexts

^{Xavier (2014}) indicates that from the studies from the 1930s to the 1980s, they founded the vision under recognized professions for having their own body of specific knowledge, ethics and conduct statutes, they establish their professional role with society, advancing in the sociological perspective of education. From this perspective, the teaching profession is recognized as a social construction, from the authors who support this idea, Xavier (2014), ^{Nóvoa (2017}) and ^{Tardif (2002}). In Brazil, recent research demonstrates the devaluation and disqualification of teaching work due to the mismatch between the view on educational policies, teacher training and teaching practice. For Xavier (2014, p. 831), immediacy in search of results generates

[...] confusion, unfounded criticism and misrepresentation about the different aspects of educational practice. On the other hand, a certain discredit in relation to the institutions, especially the school, has contributed to reinforce a very unstable image of the school's role and the positive influence exerted by the teacher in the life of his students and in the social development of their students. More generally. All of this, in our view, is a consequence of a poorly founded perception regarding the potential and limits of the school and the role of the teacher in the individual life of his students and in the social dynamics itself. (Authors' translation)

Thus, when considering that the teaching profession is a social construction and, as such, it is done through interaction, the construction and reconstruction of knowledge according to the need to use them, their training paths and their individual experiences.

Taking into account this scenario, the present work aims to identify the impression on the participants of the Programa Institucional de Bolsa de Iniciação à Docência (PIBID) (Institutional Scholarship Program for Teaching Initiation) in 2018. To what extent can PIBID overcome the weaknesses of initial training? How do students understand such an experience? This study took place in a higher education institution, located in Baixada Fluminense, in a partnership with the Secretaria Municipal de Educação [Municipal Secretariat of Education], in the same city and the Secretaria Estadual de Educação do Rio de Janeiro [State Education Secretariat of Rio de Janeiro].

Teacher training: an open debate

^{Tardif (2002}, p.39) understands that the teacher is Tardif (2002, p.39) understands that the teacher is “someone who must know his subject, his discipline and his program, in addition to having certain knowledge related to educational sciences and to pedagogy and to develop practical knowledge, based on the daily experience with students, and a plural knowledge composed of “diverse knowledge from training institutions, professional training, curricula and daily practice” (^{TARDIF, 2002}, p .54,authors' translation) thus classified into four different types of knowledge, but which are intrinsic to teacher training: the knowledge of professional training; disciplinary knowledge; curricular knowledge and experiential knowledge.

The knowledge of professional training is related to the set of knowledge, mostly non-formal, that is transmitted to teachers during their training process (know-how). Disciplinary knowledge is linked to educational institutions, knowledge being legitimized by society and belonging to different areas of knowledge such as the humanities, the exact sciences and the biological sciences. Curricular knowledge concerns the way in which educational institutions organize themselves with regard to the production and transmission of disciplinary knowledge to students. These are the objectives, methodologies and content that teachers should be able to apply in practice. Finally, experiential knowledge, that which emerges from the teaching experience in the school environment and that is validated through them.

For ^{Tardif (2002} p.287)

[...]professional practice constitutes the original formative and productive place to practice knowledge, because it is the beholder of specific conditions and conditioning that can not be found or reproduced anywhere else “artificially”, for example, in context of theoretical learning in a university or a research lab. These conditioning can’t be classified as abstract problems, as those identified by scientists, nor technical problems as those present in a technological field, as they belong to what Tardiff has called “habitus”, which means acquired dispositions in and through teaching practice. (authors' translation)

^{Nóvoa (2009}, p. 17) contributes to this debate bringing a reflection upon the teachers’ needs in the XXI century, highlighting that “teacher training should play a role in the profession], meaning, professional preparation must be built in the practice of teaching, with the help of more experienced teachers”. (authors' translation)

To ^{Pimenta e Lima (2006}, p. 07), the exercise of any profession is practical, in the sent that it is about learning how to do “something” or how to “act” and, in teaching, the teacher needs to learn how to appropriate the relationship in loco, action-reflection about the action itself. There is, in the practice, a specific way of learning for teachers through the observation and the reproduction of existing models that can be, at times, remodeled by the apprentices. “A lot of time our students learn with us, by watching us, but also by elaborating their own way to be through the critical analysis of ours - and in this process - they choose, they separate what they consider adequate, add new items, adapting it to the contexts they are living.” (^{PIMENTA; LIMA, 2006}, p. 07, authors' translation)

Supported by these references, it is to be defended that teaching institutions should value and promote circumstances in which the teaching student is able to be in contact with the practice and the school environment. Afterall, this will be their profession and it is up to them to decide if this is their path to follow and the way it is to be thought of and made.

In a scenario still of future uncertainties, with elements still recent about the new educational-formative contexts surrounded by the social conditions of a past charged by the precariousness and distancing of educational science (Nóvoa (2019, 2017), ^{Tardif (2002}), ^{Xavier (2014} , p. 838)⁵, it can be inferred, even in spite of the innumerable new legal and political propositions on initial teacher education, that higher education institutions are still stuck in the simplistic action of complying with the legislation. The offer to students consists of the compulsory curricular component in hours of supervised internship for the perceptual elaboration of pedagogical practice, which has been shown to be precarious as a possibility of contact with the profession, either due to its duration, due to the lack of monitoring by the higher Education Institution or even the non-reception by the school where the internship is carried out (^{PIMENTA et al, 2017}).

A research starting based on the students’ comprehension and evaluation of activities proposed in PIBID to reach teacher training is closer to the debates regarding the reaching of teacher training goals and the amplitude of such programs. PIBID can be strengthened by the enunciation of goals towards the training and value of teaching. Without a previous established model, several paths of understanding are possible regarding the program. In the midst of a social-political environment in which the cooperation between institutions is essential, listening to students about their interaction contexts in the school they are working remains to be done. Preliminary, students talk about their first impressions, still unfinished. The ambiguity and the multiplicity of situations lived by students can provide some evidence that PIBID has been a valuable alternative to foresee an initial teaching training policy in cooperation with schools.

Because it is related to a formative experience beyond those provided by college courses, internships and complementary mandatory activities, PIBID makes it possible for the students to experience school environments and to be part of formative experiences promoted by higher Education Institutions, developing abilities regarding the planning of pedagogical actions carried out in these schools with the help of a supervisor and the area coordinator. Upon reflecting about this formative process starting with students’ comprehension and evaluation, it is intended to contribute to this discussion considering teacher training and to know if the requirements of the program are even being attended.

Brief literature review on PIBID and the participant students’ voice

As a way to value and perfect teacher training for basic education, in 2010, the Programa Institucional de Bolsa de Iniciação à Docência - PIBID (Institutional Scholarship Program for Teaching Initiation), during the context of the Política Nacional de Formação de Professores (National Policy for Teaching Training). Its goal is to support student teaching initiation in higher education institutions, aiming to improve teacher training, to value teaching and to contribute to elevate the quality of basic education.

In this perspective, projects developed by the higher education institution should provide students experiences in school environments in a way able to promote observation and reflection upon their professional future inserted in the daily practice of basic education public schools under the guidance of another teacher and a supervisor from their course. This is different from supervised internship because it provides a bigger workload and it is open for students in lower levels. It also comes with a scholarship for students and teachers, both form the higher education institution and in the participant schools. This presence in the school environment must be organic and does not have an observational character such as it can happen in the supervised internship. Living multiple pedagogical aspects inside the school is essential to the scholarship students (IDEB, CAPES, 2012, p. 30).

For this research, we analyzed the scientific production on the theme in the years 2016 to 2018 inclusive. A Scielo search has come up with 28 articles on the subject of PIBID. Only one recent research mentions the criteria of PIBID in relation to scholarship students.

^{Yamin, Campos and Catamante (2016}) argue, in the article “Quero ser professora: a construção de sentidos da docência por meio do Pibid” /“I want to be a teacher: the constructions of teaching meaning through PIBID”, (authors' translation), about the results of research on the impact of the program for initial training, with emphasis on the methodology used by the sub-project on pedagogy by the Universidade Estadual do Mato Grosso do Sul (Mato Grosso do Sul State University). Through data obtained from logbooks, evaluation forms and scholarship reports from 2010 to 2013, the meaning of the word “teaching” was studied. To the researchers, this was the result:

It is not to be said that PIBID can redeem education or is able to reduce the number of teachers that give up their careers, or the lack of enthusiasm for teaching and from teaching students, but it is to be considered an essential public policy for the initial training of teachers. We believe the program can, if properly done, improve education quality as it contributes to bring teaching students and schools closer, in a longitudinal, gradual and systemized way. (YAMIM; CAMPOS; CATAMANTE, 2016, p.43, authors' translation)

Generally, the activities in the program aim to make students understand the meaning of teaching work. This research has confirmed the hypothesis that the sub-project has expanded this profession's limits and possibilities unlike the fast practices in internships.

A search on Academic Google about PIBID and teacher training during the period of 2016 to 2018, has shown 145 works on the subject, among them conclusion course works, expanded summaries in conferences, dissertations, thesis and articles. Through the reading of these summaries the importance of PIBID as formative space, not necessarily as subject in courses, beyond themes such as evaluation, posture, methodology, among others, but as a space where students were able to understand the meaning of pedagogical discourses that permeate their future practice, became clear (^{SOUZA; FERREIRA, 2019}, p. 107).

Among these works, ^{Canan (2012}) stands out by questioning students about the importance of PIBID on their professional future and identifying that the project helps them to “to have a concrete view on teaching, by seeing not only the flaws in schools, but also good practices developed by acting educators in these nets] (^{CANAN, 2012}, p.37, authors' translation).

In general, these results indicate that PIBID has been the main formative process in teaching promoted by public institutions, in which students have seen and experienced challenges in everyday school contexts, and that by bringing those to their higher education institution, they were able to identify confrontations and experiences in order to establish a dialogue between theory and the their formative process (^{AMBROSETTI et al, 2013}).

Among challenging issues, the authors have noticed that inter institutional processes are still incomplete, implying the possibility of transformative formative models inside higher education institution and schools. PIBID enables a proximity that can bring mutual benefits. It is stated in a research that

[...] by promoting a closer relationship between universities and schools and creating favorable conditions to the insertion of training teacher in school environments, PIBID has a transformative potential to benefit both institutions, creating possibilities for the constitution of a privileged space of work and training; It is possible to interpret such movements of this nature as an institutional search for a third formative spare, as proposed by Zeichner (2010), one that effectively involves university professors, students, future teachers and acting teachers.] (^{AMBROSETTI et al, 2013}, p.170, authors' translation)

In view of research on the theme, in different theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches, and different analysis, what still needs to be researched in PIBID? Our goal in giving voice to the 2018 PIBID scholarships students in an adverse place, with a lot of social problems, such as Baixada Fluminense, was to see what has been important for the students participating in it. After so many editions, what is the students’ view of it? Bringing their voices can help the permanence and the adjustments in the program as well as allow new and different steps for it. As it has been seen as a permanent program, there is a need to test its limits and formats regarding the goals set and, at the same time, this discussion is placed within paths and dilemmas for training that influences both higher education institution and schools.

Methodological Procedures

Aiming a dialogue with public policy based on the elapsed time of the PIBID program and future possibilities, this research was done, having as basis studies regarding its implementation, according to the Bottom up model. Such studies are divided in two models: Top down and Bottom up. The first one analyses political decisions in the central level, and the second one the forces present in the local level of a practice.

^{Moreira (2016}) says that

It can be said that the main criticism directed at the Top down model refers to the idea that there is or there could be a linear, causal relationship between goal, actions towards those goals and their results. It is assumed then, that there is pure rationality, predictability and verifiability in a process that, in fact, implies the interaction between numerous interests and a great diversity of actors that act, both at central level, from where the decision comes from and at local realities. [...] The Bottoms up model, built upon the criticism regarding the Top Down model, disputes the assumption that there is perfect control of the implementation process, since its effectiveness depends on the groups to whom the policy is directed, which, endowed with power discretionary, not only can influence, but limit policy implementation. (p.96, authors' translation)

This research has reached students from Biology courses, Pedagogy courses, Math courses, Chemistry courses, Physical Education courses, Literature and Language courses and History courses in a private higher education institution partaking PIBID in 2018. To collect the data, an online questionnaire was made, with open and closed questions on Google Forms.

According to ^{Omote, Prado e Carrara (2005}), an electronic questionnaire has presented itself as an enabler for researchers, because it makes it possible to have a bigger participant scope in a shorter time, with less error. With that in mind, this option was chosen and 14 questions were made using the Likert scale⁶, in which students could identify the options that better fit their opinions, and two open questions in which they could express themselves freely about a certain topic. The fourteen questions were elaborated with five possible positions: strongly agree, agree, no opinion, disagree and strongly disagree.

This questionnaire’s aim was to identify students' comprehension about the experience they have lived in schools and higher education institution. These participants have had contact with the research, through an initial email explaining its goal and containing the link of the to be answered by them. After their acceptance to help, the students received an identification number to preserve their anonymity. 99 students were invited to the study, and 28 have actually become part of it. The obtained data was organized in two categories: PIBID and its formative process in the higher education institution and its subcategories, and PIBID and its experience in schools.

Result Discussion

Initial aspects about the understanding of teaching and the inference of PIBID

In this part, all the questions related to the identification and the systematization applied in the process of understanding the relationship between PIBID and singular aspects are gathered. These aspects are: the relationship between PIBID and teacher’s training value, the relationship between PIBID and the desire to remain in teaching courses, and the enlargement of views about what is teaching.

Source: done by the authors.

Graph 1 Student distribution about the relationship between possibilities from PIBID and the thinking value of PIBID activities and their course 

Source: done by the authors.

Graph 2 Students distribution regarding the relationship between PIBID and their remaining on teaching courses 

The positive answers received, reinforce their professional choice and the relationship between PIBID and their staying in the courses. Beyond the simple discourse that paints a “without commitment and epistemological practice lacking teacher”, PIBID’s permanency is positively attached to students remaining in teacher training courses.

^{Pimenta and Lima (2006}, p. 88) speak about the students’ engagement possibilities in their profession

It’s a human professional (...) it’s a cultural being that dominates its area of scientific expertise and pedagogical-educational and its contributions to understand the world; a critical analyst of society, that intervenes in it using its professional practice; a member of a scientific society, that produces knowledge about its area and about Society (authors' translation)

Source: done by the authors.

Graph 3 Student distribution about PIBID and the enlargement of their view on teaching experience 

Graph 3 expands the discussion brought by ^{Pimenta e Lima (2006}), indicating the program’s relevance to their thinking on their professional choice. Their expanded comprehensive capacity on teaching activity favours or reinforces their choice to remain as teachers. Although their initial choice to become a teacher remains unexplored here, it is possible to see that a better understanding of a teacher's practice, clearer than the theoretical information they usually receive on their classes, makes a difference. However, we should take into consideration that their teaching activities are still under construction in order to better understand the next graph and their professional activities.

PIBID and its experience in higher education institution - a search for relationships and meanings

In this second part, students have taken into consideration the activities they had been present to and have identified a bigger correspondence in relation to their activities in schools. To be in a higher education institution partner school, in a school environment with students and other teachers has been of value for teaching students.

Source: done by the authors.

Graph 4 Student distribution and their view on the activities that have contributed the most to the relationship between PIBID and higher education institution 

The perception of students brings prominence to the activities carried out at school, as advocated by PIBID. It is essential to consider essential subjects about their profession and their relationship between living and observing pedagogical practice as a formative component, even in an initial or experimental state. At times, it is possible to understand teaching as a naive or repetitive activity by teachers we have had, but beyond that, as ^{Franco (2012}, p. 167) states, “It’s also worth thinking that teacher’s training does not accomplish itself in a vacuum, but it’s supposed to be linked to an intentionality, a policy, an epistemology [...] (authors' translation)

The reflexivity promoted by it could be considered a formative component to teaching training that broadens students' future professional performance. This action-reflection field widens the possibility of a better performance because their understanding on theory and practice relationship imposes itself, first as an observed condition and, after, as an experimental one. Identifying the theory-practice relationship as the first epistemological axis of the nature of the teaching profession, demystifying practice is fundamental in the training process.

PIBID and school experience

To favor the professional qualification of future teachers to better exercise a reflective practice in its didactic-practice dimension, it is necessary to interconnect pedagogical knowledge to their practice, attributing to the exploratory field the work to be developed in the teaching-learning process.

Source: done by the authors.

Graph 5 Students distribution regarding the relationship between PIBID and their broadening on understanding the teaching-learning process 

The graphs 5, 6 and 7 mention teaching practice as an observation and comprehension field for the teaching student, and they include their perceptions of the activities performed on their learning curve. As students have identified their broadening on understanding the teaching learning process, they have shown the ability to reflect it on the knowledge that comes from teaching and practice. This meaning can be related to the living of the theory and the knowledge they are able to identify as associated with the relationship between theory and practices and their differences. These moments will establish their own knowledge through individual and group formulation during the formative-analytical process that they have experienced.

Source: done by the authors.

Graph 6 Student distribution in relation to their broadening on the understanding of issues related to the school context given by their participation in PIBID 

The correspondence between practice and theory in the teaching activities starts to give body to the students’ perceptions in between their learning in university and the activities that favor the perception of the relationship between universities and schools. The sense about school context and the teaching and learning process brings grades identifying their interaction with the school and the program, and also, the learning observation that characterizes the understanding of school nature and the pedagogical work developed and the effective teaching-learning process.

In the school context, we observe in graphs 4 to 6, what ^{Franco (2012}, p. 166) highlights throughout his studies, that is, practices become rituals, techniques of making, without necessarily passing through the possibility of being rethought and redone by the interpretation of the subjects destined for it. It is also necessary to check in the training the resumption of the construction of pedagogical knowledge. The experience at PIBID can contribute to strengthen the need to break with the teacher's merely instrumental perspective, and, yes, to confer the comprehensive continuity of the work, its possibility to create objects close to the scientific space of educational praxis, expropriating the place of mechanical actions and not reflective, valuing the formative bonds between teaching and professionalization. The growth of meanings may come to collaborate as a fundamental element for the realization of theory-practice interaction. In this last frame of the research, the context of reflection that complements this last block is made - the interaction is done through collaborative work, demonstrating the relevance of the same, we will have a percentage of 96% for its effectiveness.

Source: done by the authors.

Graph 7 Students distribution about the PIBID opportunity and the experience of collaborative activities with professionals in schools. 

^{Franco (2012}, p. 196) considers that collective work promotes permanent reflection on action. In this eminently collective process of continuous reflection, space is opened for the training of research subjects.

By the end of it, teaching students agree that the quality of the schools where they work was positively affected by PIBID related actions. Through open questions, and among them, it was questioned what were the positive points or contributions that PIBID had brought to its participants. It was possible then to see in the 20 collected answers that students value the possibility of “experiencing theory in a school context” (Student A). Beyond this, the following stands out:

- PIBID allows me to put into practice everything I learn in theory, the internship also allows me that, but PIBID is much more in-depth and it is also one more experience (Student B);

- To be always together, working and sharing concerns and what would their best solution be; since our partnership in schools has come in a troubled time, not only when it comes to education, but also financially, we have found tired, hopeless and unmotivated teachers. This has affected the children. However, we are growing among existing adversities in school nets. (Student C);

- The student-school interaction, the participation in projects and workshops, the motivation to practice teaching the best way possible, respecting the environment and the individuality of every student. (Student D);

- Beyond the baggage necessary to produce content towards improving education, PIBID makes it possible to have a critical view of class taught by teachers and their students' response. (Student E);

- It is an opportunity to bring innovation to the school we are part of and, also, it contributes to our training as teaching professionals (Student F).

Teaching students that have been part of PIBID, have been confronted by the dichotomy observed by Zeichner in his study on the problems of teacher training. In her critical positioning, she understands that educational institutions continue to maintain hegemony over the construction of knowledge and that schools remain in the position of “fields of practice” in which trainees should try to carry out the practices taught at the university. (2010, p.483). Breaking with this separation seems to be the program's contribution, as there are numerous loopholes so that the training institutions and schools can dialogue with each other. This Zeichner (2010) observation is also worth mention:

It is very common, for instance, that supervising teachers, with whom students have worked during their time at schools, know very little about the specificities in their disciplines and the essential topics that their interns have learned at university, just as those who teach in universities know very little about specific practices used in Basic Education classes. (p. 284, authors' translation)

Final Considerations

Through the present study it is possible to consider that PIBID presents itself as an important governmental incentive for teacher training. It enables future teachers to reflect critically about established practices so as to rethink and create “next practices”, in other words, it enables them to reflect upon their own education, about school environment and, specially, about a teaching career. To Freire (1996, p.43):

A critical teaching practice, that implies the right thinking, involves dynamic, dialectical movement, between thinking and doing. The knowledge that spontaneous or almost spontaneous practice, “unarmed”, practice produces is undoubtedly naive, made out of experience, that lacks the methodical strictness that characterizes the subject’s epistemological curiosity. This isn’t the strictness that the right thinking looks for. Because of that, it is essential that in the exercise of teaching training, the learning teacher assumes that the indispensable right thinking is not a present from the Gods and it is not found in the guides that enlightened professors have written since the power center, on the contraire, it is produced by the learning teacher itself in communion with their supervising teachers[...]. (Authors' translation)

PIBID has shown itself, as a public policy for teacher training, to be fundamental, not only with regard to the training of undergraduate students through the possibility of experiencing reflective practices on their own action. The program brings benefits to the other actors involved in this process: the participating public schools, the supervisors and teachers of the HEIs, above all, because it gives rise to a dialogue about the formation and resignification of the school environment, its dilemmas, contradictions and alternatives. Graduates continue to value experiences in the school environment, while allowing students to stay in undergraduate courses and, more intensely, reflect on their own curriculum in teacher training. It is also worth investigating how the experience of insertion in schools unfolded in the academic sphere, specifically in the rethinking of the curriculum, or even, how academic knowledge reached the school.

Finally, in this work, we risk taking into account that, given the trajectory of PIBID, new objectives can be envisaged in which the training institutions join forces in the sense of creating joint projects with training schools, expanding the opportunities for training teachers with special needs. focus on better teaching quality.