Teachers' malaise and the pandemic: a space for listening in the face of death at school

Abstract

Pandemic times forced the school on the encounter with death. Scenes told or staged invited educators to confront the developments of this disruptive encounter. It was up to teachers to deal with the deadly effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the face of death, silence is usually a way out and, for educators, not knowing what to do with it in school produces discomfort, since educating presupposes a position of knowing to be sustained. Based on fragments of the speeches of early childhood educators, from the interview with the headmaster and coordinator of a public school in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro, we wondered whether the intensification of the malaise experienced during the pandemic period could impact on the ways of knowing how to deal with the mortal that was presented in the encounter with the children. The listening spaces occurred in the return of the face-to-face classes, at the beginning of the year 2022, in conversational circles in a research-intervention study. The possibility of putting in words what was lived in school made it possible for educators to reserve a place for death, rather than suppressing it, offering space for not knowing and doubt.