Profession and context: training teachers in a systemic, co-operative and auto/biographic view

In the framework of lifelong and lifewide learning, training for teachers should be aimed to foster their positive attitude towards learning and learning to learn. A systemic, constructivist and auto/biographical approach was used in a course for teachers in mathematics and physics. To propitiate lifelong and lifewide learning, they were invited to taka an active and reflexive position towards their experience at school, teacher/student relationships, and concept of learning. The general aim was to develop a reflexive attitude and explicit ideas about knowledge, learning and the subject matter. Auto/biographical participatory inquiry was used as a method to learn through research, where learners were invited to develop an individual and collective satisfying theory about their choice to become a teacher, their struggles for identity, and the challenges of a difficult social and professional situation.