The year 2020 was an atypical year because of the pandemic that changed social habits all around the world, and schools also had to adapt. In our State, remote classes were implanted very little time after the beginning of quarantine at the end of March. While hearing to the public school teachers description, at “I Jornada de Formação do Pibid e do RP Unespar” (which I fully attended because of my participation in the Residência Pedagógica program) and at “I Conversas com Profissionais da Educação Básica Pública” (event offered by the Letras Inglês course Internship program of  Unespar campus in Apucarana), I realized this online classes format did not have their participation in the decision nor the participation of the public schools themselves. Therefore, during this whole year, the professionals of the basic public education system of Paraná State had once more to adapt and to implant a teaching format decided for them, not with them.

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To adapt and to implant remote teaching through technological tools that lots of teachers of the basic system education did not have any familiarity with, without promoting the necessary time to the capacitation of these professionals is far from searching high-quality education. At these events already mentioned, I heard more than one description that tools such as Google Classroom, adopted by Paraná State, had been the subject of one or other course the teachers attended, however nothing so thoroughly or in a satisfactory amount which prepared them for the present situation. One of the teachers that talked at “I Conversas com Profissionais da Educação Básica Pública”, mentioned before, told us that at the beginning of her synchronous classes using Google Meet she would write notes on paper sheets and point them to the camera, notes which could be done by a slide presentation, but at that point, she still did not know how to share her computer screen with her students using that platform.

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The Aulas Paraná (Paraná Classes) standardized teaching in the State’s public system in a manner that was never possible. Our preceptress in the Residência Pedagógica program, from Apucarana, told us teachers who wanted to be part of the development of Aula Paraná were invited to do so at the beginning of the remote classes. This class style, made available through Television and the internet, is a method adopted not only in our State, but we will only know how beneficial it was from a teaching-learning perspective when things go back to normal. When asked about teacher’s autonomy and creativity, the preceptress declared the only moment when this was possible this year was during synchronous classes using Google Meet, which are not very common between teachers because of the low rate or none participation of students (on the preceptress’ classes of Ensino Fundamental II observed by me the maximum number of students present were four and the minimum two).

 

Talking about English teaching particularly, at the school where I do the Residência Pedagógica program, according to our preceptress, between the English teachers only she does synchronous meetings once a week to address Aula Paraná’s contents. In her classes, I have noticed significant participation of the few students who were present, through the platform chat as well as using microphone several times. Among the lectures I heard, the one that most caught my attention was a description of an English teacher who uses the communicative approach in her in-person classes for more than 20 years. Her methodology, as it was narrated by her, is based on communication between her and her students, between the students with themselves, in a dynamic although coordinated way.

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It was mentioned here only a small piece of the reality of the basic system education throughout remote teaching. Hence, this context brought to the knowledge of many, administrators and teachers, students’ life reality beyond the walls of schools. I will end by saying that without a doubt the Paraná State’s public system professionals, just as the whole country ones, had a lot of barriers to face and deal with more working hours than usual (the teacher who uses communicative approach related some of her students called her in the middle of the night at the beginning of the pandemic until she established consultation hours would not go further than 23 p. m.). They adapted and implanted remote teaching, learning through the way how to use the technology they did not know and surviving a global pandemic with their students. Creativity and autonomy, — which plenty of teachers make use of in their classes, as the teachers here mentioned — anxiously wait for a vaccine, as much as all of us.