The construction of teaching: the Pedagogical Residency in Arts at the Federal University of Ouro Preto

When, on 15 January 2020, a group of professors from the Music and Performing Arts departments at the Federal University of Ouro Preto were asked by the Dean of Undergraduate Studies to join the team that would implement the Pedagogical Residency and PIBID programmes, funded by CAPES, Brazilian public education was facing one of the most acute crises in its history. Despite the uncertainties of that context, it was possible to make a series of decisions regarding the profile and areas of the sub-projects that made up the Pedagogical Residency Programme (PRP) at UFOP. Although the Arts sub-project was not characterised as interdisciplinary, it was decided to form a mixed group, made up of two degrees, Music and Performing Arts, with two coordinators and twenty-four resident students, distributed equally between these two degrees. At a later stage, during the selection process, we had three preceptors who had graduated from UFOP degree courses, two from Performing Arts and one from Music. In practice, we would be dealing with an interdisciplinary group, given the differences not only between the teacher training processes in these areas but also the specificities inherent in each of these two artistic languages. Contrary to the discouragement provided by the precarious situation in public education, this was a stimulating challenge that the members of the subproject would feel motivated to face. However, the vagueness of the Ministry of Education’s budget policies ended up delaying the implementation and initial actions of the PRP, which could only begin in October 2020.