OS DESAFIOS DA ESCOLA-PÚBLICA CONTEMPORÂNEA

This article is about the way teacher's formation is conducted as it has to take into account the challenges facing state schools in contemporary Brazilian society. Its starting point is the understanding that teacher's formation only makes sense when it is connected with the school as a whole and aims at improving students' learning. In order to do so, it analyses the historical context that produced the belated process that ensured schooling for all. It discusses school role in a society that ensures jobs for only a few and the problems it poses for the liberal concept which maintains that schooling guarantees social climbing and it points out school contribution to coping with human diversity. It defends a type of school that guarantees knowledge amid a society that gives priority to information. It concludes with the understanding that school is where rational and reflexive thinking is undertaken and thus teacher's formation processes must be in accordance with the concept of education that give support to that rationale.