Mentoring primary school teachers and administrators: the challenge between utopia and reality

Abstract

Teacher professionalization in Mexico is a term that boasts an attitude of innovation, extensive experience, and teacher specialization. However, in a realistic analysis, it is a noun created as a practical response to the demands of the capitalist system, which, in turn, attempts to justify its supply and demand in a fluid society that sees no permanence as useful, but rather the constant transition of things, and also in an antagonistic society that values ​​culture and tradition as a means of subsistence. Teachers and elementary school principals in Mexico are two agents who act under tradition and condition; they are guided by normative guidelines, but base their practice on the needs and demands of the school communities in which they work. In this exercise, it is difficult to distinguish true professionalization from a simulation aimed at job survival. To understand this issue more precisely, we review the history of professionalization of basic education teaching in Mexico, from 1992 to 2023, analytically highlighting the eventualities arising from the various legislative proposals. We also highlight experiences from participation in the Tutoring and Technical Advisory Function Recognition Program promoted by the Ministry of Public Education, through the Teacher Career System Unit, during the period September-December 2023. We highlight the difficulties the mentored teachers faced and how they were addressed.