THE FISSURES BETWEEN BEING AND MUST BE: SELF-REFLECTIONS FROM A PHYSICAL EDUCATION TEACHER

ABSTRACT: Since the 1980s there has been a certain fascination with the theme of the reflective/researching teacher. Little is said, however, that this discussion is part of a larger one, which criticizes positivism and rationality. Following the tradition of Critical Social Theory, some theoretical and methodological assumptions were discussed in order to then reflect on the teaching practice and the school context in which this author is inserted. Violence and indifference as inherent to the civilizing process, of which education is part, and the confrontation of the contradictions between the teacher’s being and “must be” as an antidote to the reproduction of barbarism, appear as central themes. The use of records and memories of the period of initiation to teaching and insertion in the work environment (years 2019 and 2020) was made, with attention to my doing teaching and a latent “teacher must be” in daily school life, in its interconnections with social and cultural aspects. In the elaboration work (cognitive and affective) of the experience, the little rationality prevailing in the school space was one of the key points of the analysis, revealing itself, among others: the insistence on rhetoric and educational postulates, at the expense of denying reality; the predominance of the principle of competition, especially among peers and with singularities that relate to gender issues; and the difficulty of facing violence in physical education classes. It ends with some notes on teacher self-reflection, especially the urgency that the ethical-political principle overlaps merely instrumental/performative objectives in this process.