The first teachers of natural sciences in the secondary school of São Paulo: a historical perspective (1880-1909)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article was to approach the formation and professional performance of the first teachers of Natural Sciences in three public institutions of secondary education in São Paulo: the Gymnasio of São Paulo (Ginásio de São Paulo), the Gymnasio of Campinas (Ginásio de Campinas), and the Normal School of São Paulo (Escola Normal de São Paulo), between the years 1880 and 1909. For this, from a theoretical and methodological point of view, we resorted to micro history procedures, operating with scale games between the macro and the micro. Using sources such as minutes from teacher contest, letters from the São Paulo public administration, laws, regulations, journals, among others, it was possible to weave snippets of the experiences, individual trajectories, and networks of relationships of these subjects. As a result, this analysis allowed us to understand social logics in the constitution of the teaching staff of the three institutions, such as the recurrence in the hiring of pharmacists and doctors for expert and teachers of the chairs of physics/chemistry and natural history, in the defined period.