The intensification of work, the pressure for results, the loss of autonomy, and the normalization of violence in the school and university environment have made the debate on teachers' health increasingly urgent. In dialogue with the theme of March at the Faculty of Education of Unicamp, the FE will hold, on March 25th, the 1st Meeting of the Observatory of Teacher Work 2026, an initiative that aims to establish itself as a permanent and open space for articulation between universities, educational systems, unions, and professional associations regarding teachers' work relationships.
With the theme “(Mis)Management Paths: from neoliberal rationality to the (im)possibility of human formation”, the meeting starts from a finding that has been reiterated by studies in the area: recent transformations in the management of public education are not limited to the administrative level, but directly affect the concrete lives of teachers, with effects on the body, mental health, subjectivity and the meaning of work.
One of the main references for this debate is the article “National Education Plan, controlled autonomy and teacher illness,” by Evaldo Piolli, Eduardo Pinto e Silva, and José Roberto M. Heloani. In the text, the authors analyze educational reforms, the adoption of managerial practices and policies centered on goals and indicators, and their effects on the daily lives of public schools and universities. The central argument maintains that the incorporation, by educational institutions, of concepts from the private sector—such as productivity, quality, goals, and performance—has contributed to the production of conflicts, frustrations, suffering, stress, and illness among teachers.
According to this article, managerial rationality introduces quantitative criteria, indicators, rankings, and evaluation mechanisms that reorganize educational work. Teachers are required to have greater involvement and commitment, but around heteronomous objectives, defined outside the collective of workers and frequently dissociated from the real conditions of teaching. In this logic, professional autonomy is maintained only superficially, while mechanisms of accountability, control, and blame are strengthened.
The authors further observe that this model tends to deepen individualism, competition, rivalry, anxiety, frustration, and resentment in the workplace. At the same time, the intensification and self-intensification of work weaken the teaching collective and undermine the political dimension of education. The problem, therefore, is not simply an excess of tasks: it involves a broader reorganization of pedagogical work, in which the logic of efficiency and measurement begins to override the public and formative purpose of education.
Another important text for understanding this scenario is the article “The Social Precarization of Work and Moral Harassment in the Brazilian Public Service: What Happens to the Health of Workers?”, by Janine Kieling Monteiro, Adriana Machado Pooli, Elisete Soares Traesel, Andréia Garcia dos Santos, José Roberto Montes Heloani, and Flavia Traldi de Lima. The study shows how the social precarization of work creates a fertile organizational environment for the emergence of moral harassment in different segments of the public service, with damaging implications for health. Among the elements highlighted are pressure for productivity, unattainable goals, and the control and monitoring of work.
According to this article, the consequences of workplace harassment include fear of failure or punishment, demotivation, loss of meaning in work, absenteeism, sick leave, and even disability retirement. The study also highlights that the effects of these practices not only affect the direct targets of the violence but extend to witnesses, families, and the whole of social life. Instead of being treated merely as an individual deviation, harassment appears linked to contemporary forms of management and the expansion of an increasingly precarious work model.
This reading converges with another relevant reference, the text “Management or Humiliation? A contemporary reflection on harassment at work”, by José Roberto Heloani, published in the “Journal of the Regional Labor Court of the 15th Region”. Even in the title itself, the author formulates a crucial interpretative key for the debate: violence at work cannot be thought of merely as exceptional conduct, but also as an expression of management models that operate through coercion, fear, exposure, and disqualification.
Along the same lines, the book "Attention to the mental health of workers: suffering and psychological disorders related to work," organized by Álvaro Roberto Crespo Merlo, Carla Garcia Bottega, and Karine Vanessa Perez, reinforces that health services have been receiving a growing number of workers with psychological manifestations related to work, often without this relationship being immediately recognized. The book's introduction insists that this discussion can no longer be treated as a side issue: it is a concrete urgency that demands new forms of listening, diagnosis, and care.
Within that same book, the chapter "Moral Harassment as a Management Tool," by Margarida Barreto and Roberto Heloani, helps to clarify the link between violence and management. This formulation is particularly relevant to the educational field because it suggests that humiliation, embarrassment, and continuous pressure are not merely side effects of disorganized environments, but can be integral to technologies of command and workplace discipline.
It is in this context that the Observatory of Teaching Work gains relevance. More than just hosting a one-off event, the proposal is to consolidate a space dedicated to debate, the exchange of experiences, political education, and the dissemination of information about teaching work relationships. The target audience of the meeting includes teachers from basic and higher education, undergraduate and graduate students, and representatives of trade union entities, in a deliberate attempt to articulate academic reflection, professional experience, and collective organization.
The program will feature the participation of Prof. Dr. Hermeson Claudio Mendonça Menezes, a researcher in the area of educational policies, accountability, work, democracy, and neoliberalism. The meeting's syllabus directly addresses the issue at hand: what kind of education is possible when management becomes more important than training? By challenging neoliberal managerialism, its connections to conservatism, and the precariousness of teaching work, the debate points to a more crucial question: not only related to teachers' working conditions, but also to the very public meaning of education and the possibility of sustaining a humanistic education that is not subordinated to the logic of efficiency and control.
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The 2026 Meeting of the Observatory of Teaching Work will be held on March 25th, with registration open until the day of the event. It is organized by the Work, Health and Subjectivity (NETSS) study group.
