The enhancement courses and the propagation of various proposals for the teaching of Physical Education in Brazil (decades from 1950 to 1970)

Presentation

Between the 1950s and 1970s, there was extensive financial and pedagogical investment in short-term improvement courses as a strategy to enhance the training of Physical Education teachers in Brazil. It is possible to say that it was interesting to teachers who were in charge of administrative bodies and entities - linked to the government or independent - ​​to provide students and educators with the opportunity to contact references from different countries and with different pedagogical emphases. In this sense, this contact took place through already known proposals, such as the French Method, others remodeled, such as Swedish Gymnastics, and some considered “new” and “modern”, such as the Austrian Natural Method, Physical Education Generalized Sports and Modern Women’s Gymnastics.

The Department of Physical Education of the State of São Paulo (DEFE-SP) was a pioneer in organizing these courses, with the city of Santos, as the event's headquarters, receiving at least 300 registered teachers in 1951². It can be argued that the Santos Technical and Pedagogical Improvement Courses served as a model and inspiration for other entities in promoting similar initiatives, even though they are, in most cases, not recognized as such. In this sense, it was common to find advertisements for courses of this nature, held after 1951, in other cities, highlighted as "pedagogical innovation", "unprecedented initiative in Brazilian Physical Education" or "inaugural event".

Over the three decades studied - 1950, 1960 and 1970 - there was considerable investment in short-term improvement courses, which allows us to infer that they were adopted as a possibility for professional training and qualification. Furthermore, when considering that many teachers and students established together their first contact with “new” proposals for Physical Education, it is perhaps possible to assume that these courses corroborated the process of affirming this knowledge, reinforcing the need for specific training and improvement in teaching methods. In this sense, they also constituted important bases for promoting debates and actions focused on the field in Brazil.

We consider that these courses provided the opportunity to welcome different ways of thinking and doing physical education, when appropriate, constituted a kind of meeting of different teaching methods, aiming to expand the teaching repertoire. In this direction, in this article we seek to weave a narrative that allows us to understand these training strategies, which were developed in some Brazilian cities in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s³. In the research movements, diverse documents were gathered, such as newspapers, magazines and specialized bulletins, handouts, Annals, photographs, lesson and course plans, among others. Documents that are under the custody of different collections, among them: the Inezil Penna Marinho Memory Center of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (CeMe/UFRJ), the Physical Education, Sport and Leisure Memory Center of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Cemef/UFMG), the Library of the School of Physical Education and Sport at the University of São Paulo (USP); the Virtual Repository of the Physical Education Memory Center of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (LUME/CEME/UFRGS); the Public Archive of Paraná and the Digital Hemeroteca of the National Library.

It is worth highlighting during the period in question that other initiatives were launched in different places in the country in order to circulate knowledge and proposals for Physical Education⁴. Therefore, this text does not intend to present all the initiatives that were carried out with the aim of improving the pedagogical teaching profession during the period in question. But, to highlight how some entities and subjects organized themselves effectively to circulate through some Brazilian cities what was thought and done, considered “more modern”, in different parts of the world, problematizing how this reverberated in teacher training of Physical Education, mainly in the 1950s and 1960s. In this direction, in this study, those strategies delimited by their creators as improvement courses and which had the international as a demarcation were brought together.

To this end, in mobilizing the gathered documentary corpus, we established the terms “international course” and “technical pedagogical improvement” as “guiding threads” in the selection of sources that made up this research. Let us also consider the linking of courses to class entities and/or institutions belonging to the State.⁵ It was possible, in this exercise, to identify strategies in some Brazilian cities in which more than one edition was organized, composing specific sets of courses that were intended to be repeated periodically - annually, in most initiatives. We then call these sets of courses “historical series” and, through them, it is possible to better recognize and understand these strategies, the subjects who participated in them and the topics covered. This arrangement will be presented more fully later; rather, it is necessary to clarify some elements of the context and what were the conditions of possibilities that allowed these initiatives to be designed and put into practice.

Context elements

Between the years 1945 and 1964, Brazil went through a significant set of changes in different areas, such as cultural, social and political, driving significant changes in the ways of Brazilians’ social organization and daily life (^{GOMES, 2013}a). Nationalism and developmentalism, inherited from the “Vargas Era”, were still present in political discourses and practices, allied especially from the 1950s onwards, to democracy. These three terms - nationalism, developmentalism and democracy - as well as people, organization and integration are considered, by ^{Gomes (2013}a, p. 25), “keywords” in the vocabulary of the time and can also be approached as interpretative themes of the period. In a short space of time, more specifically from 1950 to 1964, different issues were faced in the country, creating a complex situation. It is, without a doubt, a troubled period that can be observed and understood through the “lines of continuity and discontinuity” that delimit it (GOMES, 2013a, p. 27).

In the midst of this dynamic and complex web, Brazil, which was considered a young nation, received and produced very positive expectations about its economic growth and social and cultural development (^{KLEIN; LUNA, 2014}; ^{RIDENTI, 2014}). In the period from 1945 to 1964, there was an effort to bring Brazil closer to other countries on the American continent, as well as to promote trade agreements with Asian countries, even though the country remained closely linked to the economic policies of the United States of America. It is important to remember that “the international order” was guided by the “logic of the Cold War”, which caused Brazil to move away, for a while, from the Soviet Union in order to demarcate its place of support for the USA (^{PINHEIRO, 2013}, p. 160). It is also worth highlighting the actions of the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC), created in 1948, aiming at the economic development of the region, autonomy and independent action of the countries that make up it. In this direction, within the scope of Physical Education, it was possible to identify the intensification of an effort of rapprochements and exchanges, mainly among Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Mexico, in the decades from 1940 to 1960, carried out by institutions of teaching and government bodies, as well as made possible by personal initiatives. Efforts that enabled the movement of subjects and objects, and the consequent sharing of ways of doing and thinking about physical education.

In the educational field, several problems were highlighted and different resolution proposals were drawn up. According to ^{Xavier (2012}), Brazilian intellectuals were willing to explain and guide the process of national development in the 1950s and 1960s. According to “analytical perspectives linked to the economic dimension”, they assigned school education the task of “forming the skills required by the 'modern world', disseminate technological advances and material progress and prepare subjects for democratic life” (^{XAVIER, 2012}, p.210. Author's emphasis). In different political affiliations, different speeches circulated that expressed the belief in education “not only as a factor for transforming social mentality, but simultaneously as a driver and development consequence” (^{DAROS, 2012}, p. 185). Education for democracy was also a constant in the educational proposals of the period, an issue that was accentuated, in different parts of the world, in the post-Second World War period (DAROS, 2012; XAVIER, 2012).

The focus on the relation between education and economic development linked the need to promote institutional reforms to investment in “human capital”. The term “Brazil as a Laboratory” is used by Libânia N. ^{Xavier (1999}) to highlight the various investments in the educational field characteristic of the mid-1950s, especially with regard to the search for specialization, autonomy and investment in related research to teaching, and also, by the revaluation of methods in which observation was prioritized. To this end, it was important to invest in technical knowledge. In this way, professional preparation was understood by different bodies, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), ECLAC and the Brazilian Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Educacionais (CBPE), as one of the main attributions and concerns of any educational system. Therefore, strategies should be thought of from a transnational perspective (^{XAVIER, 1999}; ^{DAROS, 2012}).

In this sense, it was on teacher training that most of the interventions aimed at education in the period focused, although problems relating to access to education, the high rate of illiteracy and the precarious infrastructure of schools were also presented. In this way, the 1950s and 1960s became fruitful for actions aimed at training and updating teachers. Aware of the positive scenario for technical improvement actions, many Physical Education teachers declare the practice to be a fundamental element of the individual's integral formation and demanded a place for such practice within the Brazilian educational project, affirming it as inseparable from education and demonstrating concern for the training of their teachers. The defense of this belonging to education was present in the speeches of different teachers such as Hollanda Loyola, Waldemar Areno, Peregrino Junior, Antônio Boaventura, Alfredo Colombo, Alberto Latorre and Inezil Penna Marinho (from the 1940s to 1960s). In this context, the possibilities for action have expanded and the requirements for the specialized title have become more rigorous. However, this requirement came up against the scarcity of training schools in the country. If this lack was felt in the capitals, it seemed to be even more alarming in the interior of the states⁶.

In order to resolve these problems, from the 1940s to the 1960s, some measures were considered, such as the creation of new higher schools, the offer of scholarships for students from inland cities or other states⁷ and the promotion of higher education courses. short-term courses, such as “intensive courses”, “correspondence courses”⁸ and advanced training courses - which are the subject of this article. These courses were carried out with the direction and assistance of administrative bodies and higher education institutions. I highlight, among them, DEFE-SP⁹, from the Divisão de Educação Física (DEF)¹⁰ and the Diretoria de Esportes de Minas Gerais (DE-MG)¹¹; the Associação de Professores e as Escolas de Educação Física (APEF's) from different states¹². These bodies were coordinated by teachers who worked at different institutions that dealt with Physical Education in their states and who established links among them through activities carried out in national and international contexts.

Among the exchanges and meetings that took place between the 1930s and 1960s, the realization of the II Lingíada, in 1949, deserves a careful look, in order to understand the articulation movement of some subjects. In that year, a delegation of representatives left Brazil to participate in the prestigious event in Stockholm, Sweden. The group was made up of doctors, military personnel and teachers. As head of the delegation, Major João Barbosa Leite, director of DEF, and as delegates: professors Inezil Pena Marinho, Alfredo Colombo, Antônio Boaventura, Sylvi José Raso, Vicente Caselli, Carlos Alberto Nembry de Brito, José Benedito de Aquino, Aluízio Machado, and the teacher - the only woman in the delegation - Maria Jacy Nogueira Vaz; doctors Paulo Frederico de Figueiredo, Guilherme S. Gomes Junior, Humberto Ballariny, Otacílio de Sousa Braga, Manuel Monteiro Soares, Luís Maluf, Nilo Chaves Brito Bastos; and the soldiers Arrisson de Sousa Ferraz, Sílvio Américo Santa Rosa, Arnaldo Bezerril Fontenele, Levi Paiva, Jair Jordão Ramos, Gerônimo Bastos, Sílvio de Magalhães Padilha.¹³ After returning to our country, some of these subjects recorded their experiences through texts published in some specialized periodicals and newspapers with wide circulation. In the reports we had access to, it is clear that they were mobilized by the knowledge and pedagogical practices that they had possibly come into contact with for the first time.¹⁴

As an outcome of this trip, in a movement that “intended to expand and strengthen relations with other American and European countries”, some Brazilian teachers were elected delegates of the Fédération Internationale de l'Education Physique (FIEP) (^{CUNHA, 2017}, p. 78). Such coupling seemed, in addition to a way to strengthen ties among different continents, a strategy to organize joint actions that would be disseminated in different locations in Brazil. To this end, each delegate was responsible for taking care of Physical Education referrals for a specific state and region, distributed as follows: Jacintho Targa, Rio Grande do Sul and southern region; Antônio Boaventura, São Paulo and the western region; Alfredo Colombo, Rio de Janeiro and eastern region; and Sylvio José Raso, Minas Gerais and northern region. This division of Brazilian territory was relatively recent at the time of the II Lingiada, as it was made official in 1942¹⁵. It invites reflection on its appropriation by teachers who, in addition to being FIEP delegates, held management and teaching positions in Brazil, in bodies at federal and state level, since the beginning of the 1940s. No less important, it is to highlight how much the distribution of these teachers, taking this arrangement as a reference, reveals a certain idealization of the nation and its integration. It also demonstrates the artificiality of this ideal of propagating physical education throughout Brazil, since neither the number of delegates nor the division made seemed compatible with the extent and diversity of the national territory¹⁶. Added to this element is the presence of the same subjects in different bodies linked to the field of Physical Education, which directed actions towards the objectives and intentions of a small teachers group.

The encounter with other ways of thinking and doing, through a large event, seems to have been relevant for these subjects, as a possibility for sharing and promoting new strategies for the dissemination of physical education. For Brazilian teachers - mainly Alfredo Colombo, Antônio Boaventura, Sylvio J. Raso, Jacintho Targa - it was a time and place to design improvement courses in Brazil, with the presence of foreign teachers, so that new knowledge about this practice could become accessible to other Physical Education teachers and students. Furthermore, they also introduced new themes into their teaching programs, produced books, wrote texts and gave lectures.

Colombo developed his professional activities in the state of Rio de Janeiro, occupying different positions, including professor at ENEFD and director of DEF for 12 years; subsequently, in the early 1960s he was appointed general delegate of FIEP. In São Paulo Boaventura was committed to developing actions in favor of Physical Education in the state. Having first graduated as a teacher in 1931, Boaventura completed the Physical Education course in 1938. That same year, he was admitted to the position of inspector at DEFE-SP and the following year he joined the group of teachers at ESEF-SP as an assistant Chair of Pedagogy and Physical Education Methodology. Furthermore, Boaventura was an active member of APEF-SP (^{LOURDES, 2007}; ^{CUNHA, 2017}). From the interior of Minas Gerais, Sylvio Raso migrated to Rio de Janeiro to study at the Escola de Educação Física do Exército (EsEFEx) in 1939. Upon returning to his state, he continued his professional career in the city of Belo Horizonte, working first in private clubs. In 1952 he became a professor at the Escola de Educação Física de Minas Gerais (EEF-MG) and, four years later, technical director of the Diretoria de Esportes (DEMG), a position held until 1961 (^{LIMA, 2023}). Jacintho Targa was a professor at the Escola de Educação Física do Rio Grande do Sul since the beginning of the 1940s, being director of the institution from 1945 to 1953¹⁷. Linked to this School and in constant dialogue with other entities, Targa promoted many actions aimed at expanding, disseminating and recognizing Physical Education in the state and country.

The responsibilities attributed to them, due to the positions they held, as well as the bonds established among these teachers can also be understood as conditions of possibility for some of these strategies to be successful and become important practices for teacher training in that period. In this way, these subjects can be thought of as “catalysts of ideas”¹⁸, who through strategies and objects, fostered the encounter among cultures and mediated appropriations.

Despite having been part of the Brazilian delegation at the II Lingíada of 1949 and his extensive professional work at DEF and ENEFD, there is no evidence of any involvement by Inezil Penna Marinho¹⁹ in carrying out the improvement courses highlighted in this article.

Between continuities and discontinuities: some details of this training strategy

In the analytical exercise undertaken in this research, it was possible to identify what we call “historical series”, as can be seen in CHART 1. Some information about the creation of this instrument is necessary to understand the analyzes that unfold from it. In CHART 1, different colors were chosen to delimit editions that belong to the same series and the ordinal numbers emphasize the sequence of editions in each series, highlighting the year of their occurrence.²⁰

The arrangement of the different initiatives located in this research in series allows us to state that, in the period from 1951 to 1977, in a spaced and discontinued manner, at least one initiative of this nature was organized in 14 Brazilian cities. It also makes it possible to realize that the Santos course had 17 editions carried out between 1951 and 1976, in addition to being a pioneer, the longest running. In Rio de Janeiro, three “series” of courses were located: the first, from 1957 to 1961, included five consecutive editions of the International Physical Education Internship; the second included seven discontinued editions of the set of courses, which added the term "Recreation" to the previous name; and between 1973 and 1977, the “International Physical Education Internship for 1st grade” was held six times; It is curious that there were three editions in 1973. In Curitiba, these actions took place in two periods, with an interval of eight years between them: the first series had three editions of the International Physical Education Course, held consecutively, between 1958 to 1960; the second, with seven events, maintained the name and was held between 1969 and 1976. From 1974 onwards, the second series of courses in Curitiba was extended to the city of Florianópolis, with rotations among the teachers responsible for giving lectures and classes. In other cities, the initiative was much more spaced out and punctual.

From 1957 onwards, the courses spread across the Southeast, South and Northeast regions of Brazil; however, a greater number of editions occurred in some cities in the Southeast. At times, they were even more concentrated in Santos and Rio de Janeiro. In these cities, even with discontinuity, its achievement was perpetuated. In 1957, in addition to the 5th Technical and Pedagogical Improvement Course in Santos, the 1st International Physical Education Internship was promoted in Rio de Janeiro, and the 1st Physical Education Studies Journey in Belo Horizonte.

It is possible to state that from 1957 onwards this strategy spread to other Brazilian cities and that they were articulated with each other. The Boletim de Educação Física, a DEF newsletter in December of that year, published in the “Noticiário da Divisão de Educação Física” a description of several courses offered to “non-graduated” teachers in the states of Mato Grosso, Goiás, Maranhão, Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Norte. And “in the specialized sector exclusively for graduated teachers”, the 1st International Physical Education Internship, held in the then national capital, the V Technical and Pedagogical Improvement Course, held in Santos and the I Journey of Physical Education Studies, held in Belo Horizonte. Such initiatives were presented as responsibilities of the Seção de Estudos e Aperfeiçoameto of DEF. Some of the institutions that would help in carrying them out were also highlighted.²¹

The coordination of DEF, in conjunction with other entities, made it possible for a set of themes and subjects to circulate through different Brazilian cities. In this sense, it is important to highlight that foreign professors such as Gerhard Schmidt (Austrian) and Auguste Listello²² (French) participated in the three events held in 1957. This strategy, of “taking advantage” of foreign guests, was repeated in 1958 and 1959. Alfredo Colombo, when talking about these internships and improvement courses, stated that DEF had hired “a good mobile teaching staff”, who visited the event venues²³. To enable these teachers to circulate throughout some cities, the courses were organized in a kind of sequence (CHART 2).

This organization allowed and required a considerable stay of foreign teachers in Brazil. Let's look at the example of the Yugoslav professor Ivan Varga, who arrived in Brazil on June 22nd²⁵ and who, at the end of August, was still in Brazilian territory. In addition to requiring extensive availability from guests, it is sensible to assume that it resulted in a high expenditure of financial resources from DEF and other entities that participated in its organization.

It is also worth highlighting a greater volume of these training strategies in 1958, when events were organized in 13 Brazilian cities: Santos, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Maceió, Aracaju, São Luís, Recife, Teresina, João Pessoa, Vitória and Florianópolis. No less important is to clarify that international improvement courses also took place in other locations such as: Januária (MG); Cornélio Procópio, Siqueira Campos, Arapongas and Paranaguá (PR), all in 1958; and also in Sorocaba (SP) (no date information). In these courses, the participation of Brazilian teachers in coordinating classes and lectures was greater, with publicity and repercussion in the newspapers being more timid. This year, with the greatest profusion of these courses, coincides with the establishment of the Campanha Nacional de Educação Física (CNEF), which was coordinated by Alfredo Colombo, superintendent of DEF²⁶. Decree No. 43,177, of 1958, established, in its 2nd article, that the CNEF was responsible for “promoting the necessary measures for the development of Physical Education, its dissemination, the improvement of specialists, as well as the installation of Physical Education Centers”. In article 3, seven CNEF obligations were set out, among which I highlight the holding of intensive and refresher courses, internships, seminars, symposiums, exchanges and other strategies aimed at “the training and guidance of Physical Education teachers” and the promotion of “exchange of national and foreign schools and educators specialized in Physical Education” (BRASIL, 1958)²⁷. Such obligations establish a close relation with what was intended to be achieved through technical and pedagogical improvement courses. Therefore, it is possible to suggest that the financial resources of this Campaign boosted the implementation of these strategies in some Brazilian cities.

Despite the events being held in different contexts, we found similar arguments to justify public investments in strategies of this nature. Among them, we have the need to “raise the teachers’ technical and pedagogical level”, “update, expand and improve technical, pedagogical and scientific knowledge”, “introduce new methods among teachers”, seek the “development of our physical education ” ²⁸. However, when analyzing the different series, we identified some significant changes in the purposes and in other points related to the number of course participants, certification, the topics covered, the dissemination of the knowledge presented, etc. Such nuances allow us to emphasize two different periods in which these pedagogical initiatives were carried out: the first encompasses the years from 1951 to 1965; and the second, from 1966 to 1977.

In the series of courses that took place between 1951 and 1965, participation was conditional on prior registration and payment of a fee; the value differed for members and non-members of teachers’ associations. In some editions, free accommodation was made available to course participants who came from outside the host cities. Despite requiring prior registration, access to the course was available to all teachers and students who were interested, and there was an effort for broad participation. During this period, mainly in courses in Rio de Janeiro, Santos and Belo Horizonte, attendance included around 200 to 600 students.²⁹

In the newspapers advertisements and regulations, in addition to information about registration and the program, it was common to request the use of appropriate clothing. In 1960, in Rio de Janeiro, white shirts were made and put on sale with the identification “IV International Physical Education Internship”³⁰. It was also common to produce handouts with texts compiled from lectures and classes taught during the courses. Such devices were found as reference material for students and teachers in higher education courses³¹.

That same year, scholarships were offered by some institutions in the cities of Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro and Santos. Financial aid was directed to students who wished to participate in courses in other states, and even to students coming from other countries in South America³². DEMG offered six scholarships, which gave the right to accommodation and food, for Physical Education teachers from the state of Pernambuco to participate in the IV International Conference on Physical Education, held in Belo Horizonte, in 1960³³.

In the same year, the IV Internship in Rio de Janeiro received “30 South American scholarships.” The decision to offer these scholarships was the result of a “meeting of directors of the Physical Education Departments of the Ministries of Education of several countries in Latin America”, also held in 1960, in Buenos Aires. On that occasion, Alfredo Colombo presented the IV Stage as a “suitable field for experimenting with new processes and methods”³⁴. On another occasion, Colombo reinforced that there was interest from South American professors, mainly from Argentina and Peru, to specialize in Brazil, sometimes highlighting that our country would be a reference for its neighbors³⁵. It is important to highlight that this is a feeling attributed by a Brazilian professor, therefore permeated with intentions; however, travel and sharing among teachers in South America was quite pronounced in the 1950s and 1960s (^{LIMA, 2021}).

Certification of participation in courses was considered important for a teacher's career, and was even advertised as a “valuable certificate”, especially for competing in public competitions³⁶. Two types of verification were established. One that, in addition to frequency, indicated achievement, assessed through a written test, for which a minimum grade to be achieved was stipulated, generally 5 points. The other considered only presence in a given percentage of the activities offered, which ranged from 75% to 85%, including active participation in classes considered practical.³⁷

In relation to the knowledge in circulation, in the period from 1951 to 1965, the contents were varied, covering dances, games, sports and, mainly, gymnastics and its derivations.³⁸ It also included themes about sociology, psychology, physiology and recreation. There was a concern among those conducting the lectures and classes with sports specialization and an effort to awaken the interest, pleasure and joy of children and young people through physical education. Anchored in these assumptions, games and sports gradually gained more space. The technical aspects of the movement were also addressed, aiming for comprehensive education. Much of the time in these courses was devoted to practical classes and demonstrations.

In this first period (from 1951 to 1965), the practice of preparing summaries of the topics presented was common, organizing them into teaching materials, which received names such as polygraphs, handouts and Annals. In this movement, much of this diversity of knowledge was also published in some specialized journals, such as the Revista da Associação de Professores de Educação Física de São Paulo, in the Arquivos da Escola de Educação Física e Desportos and in Revista Esporte e Educação.

In these publications, the content was frequently published alongside photographs from different moments of the courses. They also displayed illustrations of the exercises and activities announced by the different subjects invited to present their knowledge. The commitment of the organizing teachers to transform what they heard and saw into texts encourages reflection, promoting a wider circulation of the different content taught. When considering the different origins of the invited subjects, it becomes clear that this exercise was quite complex, as it also involved the need to translate what was announced. By having contact with forms, meanings and rites that they were unfamiliar with, it is possible to imagine that Brazilian teachers were also touched by strangeness. Translation is understood here as a mediation process; in this way, it can be inferred that the announced contents, both at the time of their announcement and in subsequent productions, underwent modifications in the exercise of translating, that is, they bear marks of “production” by those who were involved in synthesizing what they saw and heard.³⁹

In addition to the physical spaces of Physical Education schools belonging to the public administration, facilities from sports clubs and associations were also used to promote the courses. In the 1950s and 1960s, recreational activities and social interaction also took place at these events. Various practices were reported, such as tributes, visits to other cities, social evenings, dances, “fogóns”⁴⁰, “shows” (cultural presentations by students) and the organization of Recreational Streets, Days or Beaches at the end of course work⁴¹. The latter were moments considered suitable for students to put into practice what they had learned.

Even in this first period identified in the study, the compatibility among the precepts of the Catholic religion and sports practice was recognized in some of the courses offered. We highlight two inaugural lectures given by religious representatives who relied on similar arguments to defend physical education as a means of educating and bringing man closer to God. The first took place at the II International Physical Education Internship, in Rio de Janeiro, on June 25, 1958, and was given by Dom Helder Câmara and the other taught by auxiliary bishop Dom Serafim Fernandes de Araújo, inaugurating the III International Day of Education Physics, in Belo Horizonte. At these moments, the link between religion and Physical Education was vehemently emphasized, supported mainly by the speeches of Pope Pius XII. Allied to these precepts, they defended comprehensive education with the articulation of different spheres, such as political, social, aesthetic and economic. From this perspective, sport was presented as a means and not as an end. If seen as a means, according to the considerations of these religious people, the Catholic church could not be indifferent or an enemy of it, but rather appropriate it as a “powerful source of educational force”⁴².

The Journeys stand out, in this practice, for the presence of many nuns and priests as students. The president of the Minas Section of the Conference of Religious of Brazil, identified only as Father Parreira, urged that “priests and nuns who teach Physical Education” attend the III International Day of Physical Education, in Belo Horizonte⁴³. In this edition of the course, the presence of priests and nuns was very significant, actively participating in practical parts. This attendance drew attention and the magazine “O Cruzeiro” published a report full of photographs of nuns and priests carrying out some of the courses activities.

Knowing the constituent elements of these training strategies reinforces the understanding that “teaching qualification was also marked by the belief that a repertoire of knowledge, methods and practices exchanged and considered modern, would promote a greater contribution of Physical Education to the social, cultural and economic development of the country” (^{LINHALES; SILVA; SANTOS, 2021}, p. 13), an intention so pursued in the 1950s and 1960s in Brazil.

In a second period, between 1966 and 1977, other elements and approaches began to circulate in the improvement courses analyzed here. If in the events of the 1950s and 1960s access to the course was available to all teachers and students who were interested, in the 1970s participants were selected by specialized bodies in the states. This selection caused a significant reduction in the number of course participants. In 1973, the course held in Rio de Janeiro was attended by just 50 teachers; however, in 1975, it served an even smaller number, being attended by only 36 people⁴⁴. Registration control reduced the reach of these courses, as well as the subsequent dissemination of the content taught. In contrast to the effort, in the first period, to profuse “new” proposals for Physical Education, focusing on wide dissemination and the participation of a large number of course participants, teachers began to be selected and made responsible for the dissemination of knowledge acquired, thus forming a kind of “multipliers”.

At the beginning of the 1960s, it was already possible to identify a certain spacing among the series and editions of these training initiatives. In such a way that the improvement courses carried out were concentrated in the cities of Santos and Rio de Janeiro. In Belo Horizonte, the International Days were not held in 1961. The financial difficulties of EEF-MG and DEMG, as well as the decrease in support from the Minas Gerais state government, were cited as reasons for not holding the course that year and for having organized a “homemade version” in 1962 (^{LIMA, 2012}). Although it is not possible to say that the same thing happened in other cities, it is possible to suggest that it did, both due to the reduction in reports and publicity announcements and the lack of details when they were released. Another indication is the more active participation of APEF’s and Physical Education Schools; in some events, DEF was not even mentioned as one of the promoting institutions. It is worth mentioning that the beginning of the 1960s was marked by a lot of political tension and a serious economic crisis in the national context; It was also touched by many hostilities between state rulers and the federal government (^{GOMES, 2013}a). It is possible to affirm that these training strategies gained “new impetus” from 1969 onwards, occurring again in the city of Curitiba and also extending to Florianópolis.

In the period from 1971 to 1977, the arguments made to justify investments in teacher training revealed a certain desire to erase the actions carried out in previous years. The initiatives were then represented as new to that administration, reinforcing their unprecedented and scientific nature. In 1973, Benedito Coutinho published an article in the magazine “O Cruzeiro” in which, in addition to emphasizing the actions carried out by the new body (Departamento de Educação Física e Desportos do Ministério da Educação e Cultura - DED/MEC), he praised, above all, the collection of financial resources through the Loteria Esportiva⁴⁵, investment in teacher training and what he considered to be the beginning of research in the area⁴⁶. This report included many photographs of courts and gymnasiums under construction, reinforcing the idea of ​​an active body concerned with the sports sector, created to correct the precarious situation in which, according to its directors, Brazilian Physical Education found itself. From Benedito Coutinho's perspective, DEF's actions, which were in force from the 1940s to the 1960s, that is, prior to the authoritarian regime, were isolated, without planning and without scientific input. In this same movement, it seems important to highlight that, in that context, the development of other references strictly linked to the “emerging Sports Sciences”, which were more linked to aspects of performance, body training and sports, asserted themselves as promoting of a renewal of Physical Education (^{SANTOS, 2017}).

Thus, since the end of the 1960s, it is clear that sports and the signs of the sports institution, strongly linked to physical performance, have gradually become more frequent in courses, being justified as important initiatives to achieve, what they called, the formation of a “sports mentality”⁴⁷. DEF was replaced by DED-MEC, in 1971. Colonel Osny Vasconcelos, director of that body, when announcing the V International Physical Education Internship for 1st Grade, in 1975, at Rio de Janeiro said:

Our idea now is to carry out priority work in primary education. So, our architects designed four modules. They are precisely for primary school children and with this we will try to reach the age range of 7 to 14 years old, so we intend and hope to carry out this primary school provision, already within the philosophy sports massification, which is one of the programs main aspects of sports restructuring.⁴⁸

As director of DED-MEC, Vasconcelos reinforced precepts already in vogue since the end of the 1960s, which were expressed in the Diagnosis of Physical Education and Sports, published in 1971. The development of physical education and sports in Brazil was sports pyramid the delineation of its priorities - at the base mass sport, at the top elite sport. To achieve its goals, the school was defended as a “sports haven” (^{TABORDA DE OLIVEIRA, 2001}). The logic of performance and competition should be instilled in children from an early age.

Unlike the more restricted events held in Rio de Janeiro, in the meantime, the XVII Technical and Pedagogical Improvement Course in Santos, under the coordination of APEF-SP, from July 16 to 23, 1975, offered 400 places and was attended by of professors from Germany and Argentina conducting lectures and courses.⁴⁹

Final considerations

Adopted as an important strategy for disseminating Physical Education, as well as a way of increasing and intensifying the specific training of teachers, technical and pedagogical improvement courses enabled the circulation of different subjects and knowledge in Brazil, between 1951 and 1977, mobilizing teachers, instructors, students and “lay curious people” to seek to improve their pedagogical practice. Coming from the host cities themselves, from other states and even from other countries in South America, the course participants established contact with different subjects and knowledge, expanding their repertoire about topics and teaching methods. Much of what they accessed had repercussions on their training and pedagogical practices, as announced by Fernando Campos Furtado from the School of Physical Education of Minas Gerais (EEF-MG) (^{LIMA, 2012}) and Germano Bayer from Colégio Estadual do Paraná (^{BAYER, 2010}). The teachers invited to conduct classes, lectures and demonstrations came from different countries such as Germany, France, Austria, Sweden, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.

The individuals who were in charge of these initiatives received financial support from different institutions such as DEF, APEF's, state departments and higher education schools in Physical Education. The Brazilian context, especially in the 1950s, was conducive to actions aimed at teacher training. Aware of the possibilities, faced with a small number of teachers with specialized training and a growing demand for these professionals, individuals who were in charge of the different bodies worked together to promote these courses and other initiatives aimed at expanding Physical Education throughout the national territory.

The city of Santos was the first to receive initiatives within the specifications defined in this study: improvement courses demarcated as international and carried out by professional entities and/or institutions belonging to the State. The year 1958 can be highlighted as the year with the greatest profusion of these courses, coinciding with the year in which the National Physical Education Campaign was created, which had among its objectives the promotion of training and updating practices for Brazilian teachers.

In the research undertaken, it was possible to identify some changes in the conduct of short-term courses throughout the period studied, which included the number of participating teachers, the knowledge and content covered, as well as the dynamics of evaluation and certification. The wide participation, the diversity of knowledge and origins of the guests, are some of the hallmarks of the initiatives carried out in the period from 1951 to 1965. The recurrence of arguments in favor of sports training more focused on performance and the restriction of access for teachers and students to organized courses, are some marks expressed in what we delimit as the second period (1966 to 1977). Despite these different emphases, it can be said that the provision of improvement courses was adopted as an important strategy for improving, disseminating and dispersing Physical Education in Brazil, in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

It is important to highlight that no traces of the organization of these projects in the 1980s by public administration bodies were found⁵⁰. Different reasons contributed to the end of these initiatives. In this sense, it is important to consider the changes in different areas of higher education in Physical Education in Brazil, mainly from the second half of the 1970s. Such as the expansion in the number of higher education schools, the increase in specialized teachers, the integration of some of these schools into universities, and the consequent adoption of other rites in the organization, in the format of courses and training and improvement strategies⁵¹. Rearrangements that allow us to think, as highlighted by Fernanda ^{Santos (2017}, p. 28), that new references and arrangements emerged as necessary and the actions that sought to highlight and affirm Physical Education followed “new directions, mainly in an attempt to give greater academic prominence- scientific” to institutions. It is also worth highlighting that in the private sphere, specific entities were created to organize academic events that, gradually, were established as producers of meetings, symposiums, lectures, congresses and the like.