A STUDY ON TEACHING PRACTICES AND THE MEDICALIZATION OF LEARNING

ABSTRACT

After observing the movements of teachers of a municipal school system in relation to children with learning difficulties, we present a map drawn in this research with the cartography method, developed by means of teachers’ narratives that tell about the tensions and the attempts that undertake in the teaching process. The categorization of others in diagnoses reduces the possibilities of existence and labels interfere with the way relationships are established. We discuss the uniqueness and the patterns that mark, reduce and subjectify life. As a line of escape from the medicalization of school education, we obtained as a result an outline of the forms of perception and creation made possible by the exercise of teaching as a close presence, which increases the possibilities of teaching and learning by perceiving individuals without interpreting them by means of standardized references, but understanding their uniqueness to create circumstances for successful learning.

Keywords:
medicalization; learning; teaching

RESUMO

Com o objetivo de acompanhar os movimentos de professores de uma rede de ensino municipal em relação às crianças consideradas com dificuldades de escolarização, apresentamos o mapa traçado nesta pesquisa com o método da cartografia, desenvolvida através de narrativas docentes que dizem dos tensionamentos e das tentativas que empreendem no processo de ensino. A categorização do outro em diagnósticos provoca a diminuição das possibilidades da existência e os rótulos interferem na forma como os relacionamentos se estabelecem, discutimos sobre a singularidade e os padrões que marcam, reduzem e subjetivam a vida. Como linha de fuga à subjetivação medicalizante nas escolas, obtivemos como resultado o traçado de formas de percepção e criação de outros possíveis por meio do exercício da docência como presença próxima, que amplia a possibilidade de ensino e aprendizagem ao perceber o outro sem interpretá-lo a partir de referenciais padronizados, mas compreendendo sua singularidade para, a partir daí, criar circunstâncias para o aprendizado.

Palavras-chave:
medicalização; aprendizagem; Ensino

RESUMEN

Con el objetivo de acompañar los movimientos de profesores de una red de enseñanza municipal en relación a los niños consideradas con dificultades de escolarización, presentamos el mapa trazado en esta investigación el método de la cartografía, desarrollada por intermedio de narrativas docentes que hablan de los tensionamientos y de las tentativas que emprenden en el proceso de enseñanza. La categorización del otro en diagnósticos provoca la disminución de las posibilidades da existencia y los rótulos interfieren en la forma como los relacionamientos se establecen, discutimos sobre la singularidad y los patrones que marcan, reducen y subjetivan la vida. Como línea de evasión a la subjetivación de uso de medicamentos en las escuelas, obtuvimos como resultado el trazado de formas de percepción y creación de otros posibles por intermedio del ejercicio de la docencia como presencia próxima, que profundiza la posibilidad de enseñanza y aprendizaje al percibir el otro sin interpretarlo a partir de referenciales normalizados, por lo comprendiendo su singularidad para, a partir de eso, crear circunstancias para el aprendizaje.

Palabras clave:
Medicalización; aprendizaje; enseñanza

INTRODUCTION

This article presents a research on teaching practices within the school environment, with their tries and tensions, in addition to a discussion on singularity. Realizing that many common learning situations have been considered pathological, we emphasize the urgent necessity to construct escape lines from the processes of subjectivation that bring normality as an imperative reference. Such processes label and exclude those that somehow stray way from the norm.

When social, political, and collective issues, which are outside the medical field, are defined in individual terms, with biological origin and addressed as medical problems, excluding from responsibility the instances of power, we are facing a process of medicalization of life (Foucault, 1977; Moysés & Collares, 2014; Rodrigues & Amarante, 2018). Medicalization is not necessarily associated with the creation of pathologies. Pathologization is one of the faces, among many, of medicalization. When characteristics such as sadness, childish restlessness, shyness, adolescent rebelliousness, which are inherently human characteristics, become a pathology, we are facing with a process of pathologization of life (Angelucci, 2014).

What we seek with this research is to reopen discussions, instead of shutting people out of debate, in order to sharpen critical thinking concerning the medicalization practices instituted in the school universe and in the development of children, producing instituting movements of other forms of teaching and learning by different lines that escape mass subjectivation. We do not bring a recipe, a “way of doing” to solve the problems of education, but we seek to highlight unique teaching practices that promote the learning experience for each student.

We have approached the work of Fernand Deligny (2015), a French poet and pedagogue, who developed a work focused on the singularities and powers of each person, and we were inspired by his ideas on how we should interact with each other and his thoughts over the sensitive nature of teaching. Deligny worked with children and adolescents who were classified as socially unfit or considered “apart from society”. In the 1960s, he settled in the Cèvennes region of France, and worked with a group of autistic people collectively building a network of reception and research spaces, performing a new line of research and finding new paths, mapping out the everyday movements of autistic people. His cartographic research on “autistic experience”, recognized as an unprecedented pedagogical practice, leads us to consider the singular forms of existence and, therefore, of learning.

By inventing ways to inhabit space according to each person and each situation, this author shared daily life with children and together weaved a network of compositions. Thus, we have embraced this way of interaction with others as a close presence, open to the encounter and creation of circumstances that enhance existence. By means of his interaction with the autistic people he supported, Deligny was able to design a field of resonances for a cartography of teaching that has produced useful clues to think of the best position to face the challenges of the teaching practice.

Calling into question the expert discourses inserted in education, we understand that the teaching practice requires close presence and proximity. Teachers must approach students in a way that will expand the possibilities for teaching and learning. All participants in the process will be able to see each other without the lens of standardized references, which will lead to a new understanding of singularity. Mapping out the construction of other possibilities for the school environment, we found teaching actions that emerged as means to overcome labeling and diagnostic limitations. Thus, micropolitical practices that subvert the logic of medicalization in the classroom bring back the hope that other forms of teaching and learning will be created.

METHOD: CARTOGRAPHIC RESEARCH AND THE PLACE OF PSYCHOLOGY

Cartography is a geography term that refers to drawing maps, where spaces are observed and reproduced. Fernand Deligny was a precursor of this intervention practice, as presented by Passos (2018), because he drew paths in space in which he outlined the network of natural occurrences and his interventions in the lives of others. Deligny mapped out his support for the autistic children that he supported and integrated these maps, producing a network of relationships that made him think about the daily lives of these people while taking notice of their erratic paths of vulnerability and power. According to Azevedo (2013), this work by Deligny served as inspiration to Deleuze and Guattari who began to use cartography as a research method, drawing lines of gestures and perceptions, customary and erratic, intersecting and producing points for analysis and intervention.

Deleuze and Guattari (1995) present cartography as one of the principles of the rhizome, which are the multiple branches of the same situation or of several that intersect and generate power lines, go in various directions, start from various points, and connect again. “A Rhizome has no beginning nor end, it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1995, p. 4). Thus, we understand that a map is something constructed, not something that reproduces a self-centered unconscious, so it contributes to the connection of fields and to the opening of its dimensions on a plane of consistency.

The emphasis of the cartographer in research is on the movements that result from his presence in the field, without looking for something specific, but attentive to what is being said between the lines, the paths that are composed and the experiences that are being produced during the process. One of the clues that Deligny (2015) brings to the cartographer is that the everything that happens on the way matters. There is no way of getting things wrong because nothing is going to work anyway.

Considering the presence of the cartographer in the territory in a non-naïve manner implies having access to the purpose that psychology servesat school. Our intention is to outline the new paths being created in the work with teachers, while promoting a reflection on the processes instituted in this field, considering the forces that disempower the actors of education - teachers and students - in order to bring strong pedagogical approaches into the scene.

In order to promote the construction of spaces for reflection on the practices of both teaching and psychology, and disseminate the debate on how to counteract the pathologization of education in other territories, the education network of the municipality of Itaocara, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, was selected as the research field. With a population of approximately 23,000 inhabitants, Itaocara is a small town in northwest region of the state and sits on a total area of 431.3 km² (TCERJ, 2014). The criterion used for the selection of this field is due to the fact that it is the place of residence of one of the research authors.

Our proposal was to promote the development of collective efforts in order to tackle issues concerning the teaching practice. In other words, the learning difficulties faced by some students and the teachers’ challenge to help these children learn some of the most complex topics. Fifteen (15) teachers from the municipal school system participated in the study. The selection criteria was that all participants were supposed to be taking part in the meetings promoted by the municipal education department of Itaocara, which will be further explained later. We were able to discuss issues concerning the teaching practice and the increasing medicalization of learning by means of 12 meetings and 4 interviews conducted over a period of one year (from November 2016 to November 2017). In these meetings, we proposed an examination of the strong parts of teaching practices, promoting discussions on the issue of medicalization of learning and the depathologization of teaching, while producing a cartographic record of the processes by means of listening to the narratives of teachers and their sharing of experiences during the conversations.

The Municipal Department of Education of Itaocara suggested that the activities for the research take place during the meetings that were already happening with the network of teachers of the municipality. Thus, the researchers’ insertion in the field took place during the meetings of the PNAIC - Pacto Nacional pela Alfabetização na Idade Certa or National Alliance for Literacy at The Right Age, where teachers from the 1st to 3rd year of elementary school met. The teachers agreed to help create the devices for research.

To promote meetings for teachers to discuss an unusual theme is to create a device that allows tensioning the lines that make up the field of action, such as the “machines to make see and make talk” that Deleuze speaks of (1990, p.155). This form of research-intervention occurs without the researcher acting as someone superior within the field and those researched as individuals that will be observed and judged by the former. Rather, it brings the possibility of teamwork in order to draw this common plan and producing routes to escape the instituted forces.

Interviews and conversations were the devices used to create the common plan and approach for teachers and the cartographer in the field of public schools. Information regarding the mapping of the situations that permeate teaching were recorded in a field diary. As a group device, the conversations promoted the sharing and collectivization of knowledge and experiences, as well as the openness to discussion and creation of new knowledge and paths. The conversations were part of the Paideia method. According to Campos, Figueiredo, Pereira Júnior, and Castro (2014), this method leads to the expansion of people’s ability to deal with information and interpret it, understanding themselves, others, and context. Therefore, with the creation of this common plan we contribute to the exchange of experiences and to the development of ways to deal with difficult issues, expanding the possibility of action by people on their established relationships.

The interviews, with their cartographic approach, aimed not only at recording past information, but also at providing access to experiences and their form and strength, in addition to the content already presented. “The focus of the interview is not on speech over experience, but on experience before speech” (Tedesco, Sade, & Caliman, 2014, p. 100), and its modes of expression and content. Rather than merely obtain data and reports, we seek to proliferate issues that draw the lines and the mapped flows.

As a research-intervention method, cartography allows the use of triggering questions and observations in order to create new perspectives for the group. The common plan created with teachers from 1st to 3rd grade of elementary school via PNAIC remained present, but with the closure of PNAIC activities, our meetings began to take place at another time, along with planning meetings, which took place monthly. In these meetings, the first step was to provide orientations and suggestions in collaboration with Pedagogical Advisor of the municipality, who conducted the activities developed with the students, so that all the schools in the municipality worked - as much as possible - the same contents, and then we continued to discuss about teaching and the theme of research by means of the triggering questions and observations.

The records of the teachers’ narratives were kept in a field diary, as well as the implications of the researchers and discussions in a research group that arose from what was collected in the field. With the help of these important records, it was possible to perform the composition and analysis of the narrated facts.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

By means of the tensioning flows perceived in this researched field, we have constructed a map of the ways of perceiving and teaching children with learning difficulties. This map displays ways of doing that do not become models, not because they are good or bad examples, but because they are built within the trepidations of experience. They are practices related to the singularities involved in each situation. We take these movements as processes of singularization, of a micropolitics, by the “force of what happened in the politics of desire, subjectivity, and relationships” (Guattari & Rolnik, 2013, p. 09).

During our observations, throughout the school year, of the procedural nature of teaching practices and their narratives, we were able to cartograph actions that expanded and actions that reduced limits and possibilities. By keeping track of these movements, we were able to record and discuss the tensions that permeate the field, as well as to enhance the creation of routes to escape the apparent inevitability of deep-rooted traditional practices.

We used the narratives that emerged in the meetings with the teachers in interviews and conversations to make up this path. We understand with Benjamin (1994) that the narrative has a utilitarian dimension as “that narrators take what they tell from experience: their own experience or the ones reported by others. Then, they incorporate the things narrated into the experience of their listeners” (p. 201). Thus, the narrated experiences determine the course of the research, with a writing situated in time, space, and daily encounters.

In one of the first meetings the conversation took place with three teachers. We started by talking about the difficulty of students at school and Teacher L said: “In my office there’s a boy who doesn’t learn anything. I’ve tried everything and he can’t make any progress.”

The other two teachers seemed to share their feelings towards this child and one of them, Teacher A, said: “I also had a student like that last year, it was so hard to get him to learn things. It was a real challenge!”

This conversation took place in the first meeting and was recorded in the diary. However, along the research, we came across similar accounts about children “who would not learn anything”. Several reports brought this type of complaint. We could also realize that these statements usually came loaded with feelings of distress and anguish because teachers did not know what to do. There was also the idea that these children have some health problem, as Teacher Z said when talking about the difficulties of a child in the interview: “If he can’t learn, he’s got a problem!”

In another conversation session, we reflected on the following triggering question: “What does it mean to you to have children with some learning difficultyin the classroom?” and Teacher U said: “Teaching these children means a challenge to be overcome, because it makes us feel a lot of anguish and frustration. Some students have a diagnosis. But we notice students who do not have a diagnosis and still do not fit into the learning process.”

These narratives have brought us the perception that teachers sometimes consider that these problems are not their responsibility and that children who have some learning disorder or deficit need medical support, whether from a specialist physician, a psychologist, or a speech therapist, someone outside the school environment who can intervene, recognize the origin of the problem, which is behavior or learning that does not follow the expected normal standard, and solve this lack with specific techniques and/or the prescription of medication.

These professionals get trapped by a medicalizing logic that leads them to believe that they do not have the means to reach out to those who have learning difficulties and actually teach them things unless they receive medical support and intervention, or that they can only access a child from the perspective of the diagnosis attached to their report. By inadvertently reinforcing a pathologization process, perhaps imperceptibly, by subscribing to the so-called medicalizing culture, teachers forget that they are definitely the ones with the most resources to create learning possibilities because they are the ones who interact with the children on a daily basis. Thus, all school possibilities fall flat when teachers prematurely give up on children with learning difficulties and resort to medical intervention.

Supporting differences and understanding singularities are movements made possible by close presence that produce one of the escape routes from the institutionalization of learning pathologies. Concerning these lines of expansion of the teaching process, we saw an interesting example being mentioned Teacher R., who said in a conversation: “There is a girl in my room who does not look into anyone’s eyes. She has huge difficulty in communication, hardly ever speaks, and when she does manage to say something, it is in a very low voice. So, she ends up not doing the activities most of the time.”

After a few days, in another conversation session, Teacher R, with an air of wonder and contentment, shared the following experience with the group:”Guys, remember that girl I told you about? The one who wouldn’t talk in the classroom? I realized that she was probably embarrassed because of the way she spoke - she talks like a baby - so I decided to invite her to come outside and read something with me. That’s when I found out she can actually read! She still speaks a rather childish manner, but despite her shyness, she recognizes very well the letters and the formation of syllables. And now everyone in the class wants to go outside and read with me too!”

By means of a closer observation of this child, the teacher realized that the origin of all that shyness could be because the child spoke the words in the wrong way - as if she were still a younger child - and the class was made up of students with different degrees of literacy, in a rural zone, and there were students of different ages. Taking all these factors into consideration, the teacher was able to understand that this could be what was hindering the girl’s performance in class. When she decided to take the girl outside the classroom to give her a chance to show what she could do without the fear of embarrassing herself in front of her classmates, the teacher had a pleasant surprise. The girl did not speak correctly, but she was able to understand the graphic symbology and the combinations of syllables forming the words that were read. From then on, these reading sessions were repeated and the child felt more and more confident to read things out loud and interact with classmates. In addition, it ended up creating a new habit for this class, because all the children in the class wanted to spend some time reading alone with the teacher outside the class. The teacher took advantage of the circumstances and began to do this activity with every single student once a week.

As the construction of narratives opens space for the exchange and production of knowledge based on one’s own experiences, accompanying narratives is an action that strengthens the circulation of ideas and the potentiation of other practices. Although there is a game of forces that strain educational practice and make it seem more difficult than one imagines, we find in the narratives actions that promoted powerful encounters between teacher and student and, consequently, produced good results for teaching.

Thus, listening to the accounts of the experiences lived by teachers, we find that the teaching exercise as a close presence can be a point of expansion of the teaching and learning process. Being a close presence leads to sensitivity and patience, a more conscientious way of teaching and learning in order to deal with the fast pace of modern times.

What matters is the capacity to experience life beyond the school context, to create and cultivate spaces for free expression and formation, while developing new ways of learning and, consequently, of teaching.

Passos (2018) makes an interesting point in this regard when, in line with Deligny’s ideas, he raises the issue of what to do with the ones considered unfit. Here the unfit ones would be the children with difficulties to adapt to the school model, children with various issues in their lives that affect their way of acting and learning, and finally, children who end up being seen as problems to be faced in some way by teachers. In order to answer that question, the author suggests that teachers never take the first explanations at face value. It is necessary to leave behind institute notions and seek for other possibilities before labeling a student as unfit.

We have been thinking about the way medical interventions by health professionals have happened, often in a patronizing way, by bringing ready-to-use answers, diagnosing and labeling children who are still in the process of development, defining general and specific ways to act according to a certain profile of disorder and, sometimes, prescribing strong medication for containment or stimulation of the movements of children. However, it is worth remembering that each person has a unique way of being and a label cannot represent all behaviors - a child with Down syndrome, for example, is not exactly like another one with the same syndrome, each one has distinct tastes and preferences that make them unique. The idea of building a network of action at school is based on the intention to promote dialogue and sharing among the actors of the scenario (teachers, managers, specialists, parents, and students). All participants must think about the way things happen and collectively produce other forms of attention and teaching for each student.

As described above, the conversation sessions and interviews with the teachers took place at the same time as the planning meetings, where all the teachers of the network aligned their lesson plans and received suggestions and guidance from the Pedagogical Advisor. At those moments, the curricular activities that should be performed within a certain time were announced. However, the importance of not going too fast with the content was always emphasized so teacher would be able to make sure the children were taking in the course material. The procedure was to first verify that the students were following the content presented in the classroom, and then proceed with the scheduled subjects for each class.

Creating a network of teachers is an enriching experience for practice if it leads to discussions and exchanges, without determinism. In these planning meetings, tips were shared concerning the use of game-based resources to be produced by the children themselves, such as games and panels, to facilitate the assimilation of content. It was highlighted that several of the suggested activities would help mainly those who had more difficulties in learning school content, because games made it much easier for these children to learn. Some teachers demonstrated this concern to create varied resources to present content in other ways to students, in a playful and more pleasurable way. But others found it more complicated to apply these more diverse and stimulating activities, preferring to use the worksheets in order to present the programmed content and then, if there was time left, to do the less traditional tasks.

In Teacher S’s interview, she said: - Children love to make murals. They love doing something different. Unfortunately, I cannot always do fun things with them because I need time to teach all the content of the curriculum. The time is always short. There are some students who have difficulty and take longer, then it is not always that I can diversify activities (Verbal account, Teacher S, Field Diary, 2017).

It was interesting to observe that the other possibilities of promoting learning were disregarded, in this case in the name of controlling content determined to be fulfilled within a deadline and teachers still left “behind” those students who for some reason “could not keep up with the other students in the classroom”(Verbal account, Teacher Z, Field Diary, 2017).

The interaction between teacher and student almost always happens in a hierarchical way, based on the search for what is lacking, that is, by what learners lack before they can be labeled as normal. When students are assessed with the lens of lack or “disability”, their unique characteristics are disempowered. A negative look at difference is produced, blocking the perspective of diversity. This idea of lack is linked to interpretations and classifications that are the fruit of our imagination and our way of understanding affection. Therefore many actions are considered abnormal and negative when they do not occur within the terms of mandatory patterns.

One day, during a conversation session, Teacher R. was talking about problems detected in students when she produced the following statement: - In my classroom, all students have a problem. It is either a family or a learning thing. Only one of them seems to be normal.

We observe, by means of this statement by the teacher, how the patterns instituted in the school universe have produced the notion of abnormality, which limits the teachers’ ability to deal with singularities and promotes a view of existence based only on moral and ideal norms.

Labels and diagnoses tend to fit people into one model that generally escapes singular reality. We fail to see Maria, the student, for example, to think about the autistic student - we stereotype others without considering their uniqueness, not every autistic person abhors touching and hugging, not every deaf person uses sign language to communicate. When people are not open to singularity, limitations arise, and assessment is based on previous information. Thus, medicalizing processes are introduced and result in a diagnosis that interrupts or limits the search for creative solutions.

Deligny’s main emphasis was on the importance of connection. Not just any connection, but the connection with the unexpected, which happens in radical diversity. Deligny (2015) says that respecting the autistic being (but could be anyone) “is not respecting the being that he could become” (p. 109), but doing what is necessary to create a context in which autistic individuals are free to be themselves. That is why he was careful in order to not judge people by means of similarity. In other words, he was careful not to try to make everyone equal. It is necessary to abandon pre-established patterns and references as to what is considered a suitable way of life when interacting with people. It is time to support difference and produce together other possibilities, without trying to reduce people to standardized models.

Life does not fit into a label and cannot be determined by a diagnosis - an autistic person is not equal to all other autistic people, a student who has difficulty learning some school content, is not a failure - so it is necessary, with the help of Deligny, to find solutions for the construction of other processes that lead to learning and development. What this author helps us think about is how we can effect education processes without reducing them to adaptations that incur the production of standardized ways of life.

Thus, in this cartography we intend to get to know how the school field is filled, which are the most usual and crystallized paths, and which deviation lines are interesting, promote ruptures and allow us to think of inventions in the teaching and learning process that deviate from the norm.

Deligny’s attitude as a “close presence” for the children he accompanied was our inspiration to think about the production of other lines in the education of children with learning difficulties due to their behaviors and (possible) diagnoses, who are seen as problems in the educational space. By means of connections, the sharing of experiences, openness to circumstances and intersections, and attention to important details we can make life a powerful experience for everyone. As Azevedo (2015, p. 90) points out, “we can help people find their own strength by means of an ethical posture in education.”

Deligny formulated his research and guided his actions by means of the attempts and networks that became possible in different circumstances where the fate (previously determined under stigmas and negativity) of children took a different direction. “The challenges and the very precariousness of this approach constitute the conditions for possibility of what Deligny calls precisely an ‘attempt’” (Miguel, 2015, p. 34). According to Rodrigues (2017), what he calls an attempt is not a project, an institution, a program, a doctrine or a utopia, but simply and one fragile, persistent attempt, or several. As Deligny himself stated (2015, p. 154): “an attempt is something very precarious, like a mushroom in the plant world”, it consists of possible movements according to the context, the environment, and the people involved.

Living the experience of close presence in teaching reverberates this notion of being a creator of circumstances, of producing attempts - as many as necessary, without giving up, always believing in the potential of the individual we teach. The attempt emerges as something unprecedented. As Deligny (2015, p. 153) says, “an attempt is closer to a work of art than anything else. For those who want to create, it is really indispensable to move away from “how-to” recipes. We must also move away from labels that limit the expansion of life.

Franco (2016) points out that it is important to be willing to reinvent new ways of being together when the ones we have seem to fail. When resistance and tensions happen, it is time to rethink practice and the ways in which we intervene and the stand we take before each other.

In the studied field, we found teaching practices with a commitment to others and their singularities, the pedagogical power to create circumstances and possibilities, and together with the students create other possibilities. There is no pre-established answer, a correct way of acting, but clues and proposals that support a healthy relationship between teacher and student in the teaching and learning process. In this sense, the close presence emerges as a clue in the path of this school cartography, a possibility to enhance the uniqueness of each student, and of each teacher as well.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

In an ethical perception that we all have the power to affect and be affected, we seek to learn and understand the powerful expressions of life by means of the exchanges and experiences made possible by the research. Throughout the process, we observed behaviors that enriched the discussions on the pathologization and normalization of learning. We could also observe several teaching actions and possible interactions for the classroom - some considered more powerful and that widened the possibilities of learning, and others rooted in the pre-determined notions concerning the school education. The proposal was to collectively discuss situations that, until then, had been concentrated only on the organic functioning of the students, and then to think about our responsibilities and capacities in the teaching process.

Many of the discourses have demonstrated how much the paradigm of medicalization has already influenced and dominated space and school practices and that there are “individuals who do not fit” (Deligny, 2015, p. 101). When we believe that only a specialized health professional (from outside the school context) can have a solution to obstacles, we expect that there must be a diagnosis that justifies the emergence of the child’s difficulties, and that only after such diagnosis we have a real contact with that child. Based on diagnostic manuals and prescriptions of how to act with each disorder or deficit, we forget the power of good teaching practices. Frustration and tiredness make us end up succumbing to the instituted idea that to be with students and teach them something we must know their abilities in advance. We give up on our efforts to break boundaries, break barriers, and develop in any direction we wish. We think we can determine the future and forget that teachers are actually the ones who can reach out to students and get to know who they really are, without labels or prejudice, and create together possible alternatives for learning.

Teaching as a close presence is not the solution for all school issues. It is a way of disruption from serialization, an escape from medicalization, and the hope for expansion of the possibilities of teaching. When in face with the difficulties of teaching students with their diversity of behaviors, teachers must be open their uniqueness. Thus, some lines of expansion are produced, for both learning and teaching processes, in the construction of other possibilities in education.

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• This research was supported master’s scholarship by the CAPES (Coordination for the Training of Higher Education Personnel).
• This paper was translated from Portuguese by Régis Lima.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  30 Nov 2020
• Date of issue
  2020

History

• Received
  22 Dec 2018
• Accepted
  30 Nov 2019