An inaugural gaze, doors that open and close: teaching lived with intensity

Abstract

Memorial presented to the Center for Education of the Federal University of Santa Maria, as part of the requirements for promotion to the position of full professor in the Department of Teaching Methodology. Here, I present experiences that have been a part of my world, my life before and after joining the Federal University of Santa Maria, which have been formative in understanding my journey today, experiences that reconnect to the child I once was, my values in defense of a society that guarantees the rights of all, an emancipatory education, with autonomy, freedom, and ethics inherent to this education. My journey at UFSM, a journey of teaching, research, and extension, transcending the Center for Education, as I also began working at the Ipê Amarelo Child Education Unit of UFSM. Actions in support of a different kind of education, of political formation, of public school, of public university, of childhoods and children. My resistance in writing this memorial in order to meet the established criteria for promotion every two years, problematizing the discourse of efficiency and productivity, focused on instrumentalization, technical and instrumental rationality, immediate productivity, placing us in the role of passive observers, in the realm of the given, in the realm of neoliberal productivity standards, of quick demands for scoring. A pioneering gaze, because I believe in incompleteness, in the unfinished, in another perspective, where everything can be different, in another possible world, another education. A story lived intensely, where doors opened and closed in many places, roles in management, teaching at both the basic and higher education levels; interactions, political education, studies, research, extensions, relationships established with undergraduate and graduate students, with pedagogy graduates, with the internal and external community, with networks and systems, with social movements, with researchers; a lived experience that now places me in a different realm of knowledge, allowing me to open other doors and reveal other possibilities. A connection with my life and with respect for the diverse forms of life on the planet. A gaze beyond, to inhabit other spaces, to share and partake, a pioneering gaze in which I encounter myself.