“My backyard is bigger than the world...”: the play experienced by Early Childhood Education teachers

Uncovering the playing memories of Early Childhood Education teachers, to learn about the ways of seeing and experiencing the playing of Early Childhood Education teachers is the motivation for this research. To this end, qualitative and exploratory research was carried out with Early Childhood Education teachers, linked to the public education network in Rio Real, Bahia. The privileged instruments for producing the narratives were: Notebook of Playful Memories and Narrative Interview. The chosen methodological procedure followed the planned phases of comprehensive interpretative content analysis. The narratives made it possible to emerge meanings and characteristics that highlighted the teachers' ways of seeing and experiencing play. The reflections helped us to know and understand the ways of being a teacher in Early Childhood Education, related to the repertoire of games transmitted throughout life, to playing at school, to playing outside of school as freedom and creativity, to the challenges of adult perception of playing and its influence on teaching practice. Furthermore, we could summarize that reviving each teacher's play is a challenge to be faced, when it is understood that this is a specificity of this profession and must be present from the beginning to the end of their career.