2025-12-162025-12-162025-10-30https://repositorio.ifal.edu.br/handle/123456789/1360This work presents a narrative reflection on my formative and professional trajectory as a Portuguese Language teacher, revisiting both my initial training and my lived experiences in the classroom. The narrative seeks to understand the challenges and learnings of teaching from a human, critical, and hopeful perspective, inspired by the ideas of Paulo Freire, Jorge Larrosa, Mikhail Bakhtin, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, and Maurice Tardif. Adopting a qualitative approach grounded in self-writing, I articulate my personal experiences with a documentary analysis of the Pedagogical Project of the Portuguese Language Program at IFAL (2014) and with a bibliographic review on teacher education and educational practice. The study highlights that being a teacher goes beyond exercising a profession; it is a way of existing marked by dialogue, affection, and resistance. My experiences at the Federal Institute of Alagoas (IFAL) and in everyday teaching practice reveal the many challenges faced—ranging from professional devaluation and fatigue to structural barriers—but they also illuminate the classroom’s potential as a space of encounter, care, and transformation. The research underscores the importance of dialogue, active listening, and pedagogical planning as essential tools for building meaningful and liberating learning processes. In the final considerations, I conclude that teaching is a continuous journey of self- knowledge and reinvention, sustained by ethical commitment and hope. Teaching, in this sense, is a political act that enables both teacher and students to grow together, transforming the world through words and lived experience. Thus, “being a teacher” means resisting, hoping, and reaffirming every day a profound faith in the transformative power of education.ptAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 BrazilLetras - PortuguêsLíngua Portuguesa – Formação de professoresDocênciaEducação transformadoraTransformative educationTeachingTeacher educationTrabalho de Conclusão de CursoLINGUISTICA, LETRAS E ARTES::LETRAS