Diary of a Critical Friendship: Anthropoetic Implications of Self-Study in the Teacher Education of a Physical Education Teacher-Researcher

ABSTRACT This article uses an existing poem, Árvore (Tree in Portuguese), coupled with our diary entries, as a methodological innovation in poetic self-study. The self-study aimed to understand the aesthetic link in the development of being a teacher-researcher. This was a departure from positivist rationality and affirmation of an anthropoforming paradigm that connects research, action, and formation via a transdisciplinary systemic epistemology. The context of this self-study is a relationship between teacher-researchers from one high school and two higher education institutions in the Brazilian northeast. Using a reflective anthropoetic (an opening for ethical and aesthetic creation, critical possibilities and pedagogical reinvention) diary, two physical education teacher-researchers developed a critical friendship in a collaborative self-study process on the complexities of beginning teaching for one of them. We share our learning in a diary with excerpts organized in three lines of thought, or what we call reflective flyovers, regarding: life history, teacher education, and pedagogical practice of being initiated into the teacher-researcher profession. Thematic categories were represented by excerpts from the Árvore poem. The three reflective flyovers explored included the teaching knowledge of the teacher-researchers, which in turn converge and diverge, impacting the other, the methodology, and the context of practice. Our critical friendship contributed to the self-study process of initiating into the teacher-researcher profession through interactive and creative communication. This poetic self-study points to different paths of learning and professional growth, increasing the value and impact of using poetry to make sense of research findings.