CYCLES OF PRECARIOUSNESS: REVISITING PANDEMIC EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCES AND BEYOND

Abstract

This text resumes and reviews the debate proposed in a previous essay, published at the height of the pandemic, entitled “Education and digital technologies in the pandemic: cycles of precariousness”, in which I denounced the precarious conditions in which the Brazilian school always operates. In the serious contingency of the pandemic, this precariousness was materialized in the form of few or no infrastructure and training conditions to carry out, with some professional dignity, what was called “emergency remote teaching”. In this new essay, in addition to reviewing the previously discussed issues, I return to the still usual and fertile notion of “digital literacies”, in particular discussing a proposal from the early 2000s and another one published in Brazil in 2016. I also report some typical episodes, if they are not generalizable, about what we learned about technologies and teaching during the pandemic, however traumatic and painful the compulsory experience was. I conclude by narrating some setbacks and inconsistencies that we are experiencing in post-pandemic times and calling for a reflection on what was learned.