NEWTON BALZAN:

doctorate is not for everyone

Abstract

Teacher education, teaching quality, institutional assessment and self-assessment have always been studied in depth by Professor Newton César Balzan. Someone who knew how to combine his outstanding role in teaching and management activities with prominent participation in the history of two great universities in the State of São Paulo, has had his work recognized as a researcher and scientific disseminator in this area of knowledge in education. In order to address the process of training researchers at the doctoral level in the view of Professor Newton Cesar Balzan, we return to important elements of his trajectory through memories, letters, messages, e-mails exchanged between the recipient and the authors, and also, a transcription of his speech in the project Vivências held in 2016, in the scope of the mandatory subject “The production of knowledge in the field of Educational Sciences” of the Postgraduate Program in Education at the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas. In order to keep Professor Balzan's voice alive, this text contains personal aspects with a strong emotional bond, due to the influence exerted by the honoree on its authors.