Being a teacher is taking care of student learning

Abstract

This article discusses the contemporary condition of teaching, based on the thesis that being a teacher is, above all, taking care of student learning and their authorship, rather than merely transmitting content. Drawing on international data (TALIS, PISA, IDB) and national data (School Census, Brazilian Yearbook of Basic Education, PNAD), the article analyzes the crisis of attractiveness, the precarization of contracts, and the “tsunamization” of private Distance Education in initial training, linking this scenario to the emergence of artificial intelligence as a tool for the radicalization of instructionism. On the empirical level, in addition to statistical data, the paper focuses on the School of Professional Development for Education Workers (EAPE), responsible for the continuing education of the public school network in Brasília, Brazil’s capital, examining the supply quantities, participation and dropout rates, as well as narratives from teachers and trainers. From this dual theoretical-empirical movement, the article argues that teacher training, both initial and ongoing, only becomes politically relevant when it embraces Education in and for Human Rights and Critical Knowledge as a horizon, confronting inequalities of race, gender, class, territory, and the effects of neoliberal educational policies. The article concludes that policies like EAPE can serve as public laboratories for teacher authorship and transformation, as long as they contest the centrality of critical learning against the massified and commercialized logic of training.