RIEMENSCHNEIDER, F.; AIELLO-VAISBERG, T. M. J. The fear of failure: students’ imaginary about the work of the pedagogue. Proceedings of the 16th Apoiar Conference: Adolescence and Emotional Suffering Today, p. 370–377. São Paulo: Institute of Psychology, University of São Paulo, 2018.
Abstract: This study aims to investigate the collective imaginary of first-year pedagogy students regarding the work of the pedagogue, with the purpose of generating comprehensive knowledge about the training of pedagogy students. It is justified by shedding light on the students’ views of the profession they have chosen and the field of education, producing knowledge that may contribute to rethinking pedagogy training in light of the current demands of our society. The study is characterized as qualitative research and is methodologically organized according to investigative procedures that operationalize the use of the psychoanalytic method from the perspective of concrete psychoanalytic psychology. In the present case, we used the Thematic Drawing-and-Story Procedure [D-E (T)] with 31 beginning pedagogy students, based on the following prompt: “Draw a pedagogue at work”. The preliminary consideration of the productions obtained, through the cultivation of free-floating attention and free association, allowed the interpretative creation of the affective-emotional meaning field: “Lesson Giver”, defined as a lived world organized around the belief that the pedagogue carries out their tasks in a mechanized and unhappy manner. This field expresses an imaginary attentive to the possibility of failure and the emotional suffering of the teacher in the face of precarious working conditions, which lead to the adoption of defensive behaviors. Such imaginative productions invite reflection on the pedagogue’s training process, which may foster the development of critical capacities in the face of social reality, as well as protection against the effects of arduous work.