Taking care of the manager/educator/caregiver

Abstract

It’s an era of great turbulences. Market competitiveness, violence, fear of the unknown, all of it makes people away, mute words, stagnate movements. There’s a general feeling of impotence fostered by some lack of care to the simple things in life. Behind the school walls a lot of people get sick, living with so much indifference. But... if education is a possibility of caring, of human encounters, why do we attach ourselves to non-encounters, to conflicts, to power disputes? Why are education professionals getting sick? What is aching? These questions started to surround us... and through some years of experiences, observations and studies some hunches appeared. The educators/managers/caregivers, through years, has been dedicating much time of their lives to care about each other, and as time passes they feel directly how painful is not taking care of of themselves. They also feel the indifference of the public policies to education and its professionals. Unsatisfied with all this frame of suffering, and knowing that sometimes we heal our pains taking care of each other, we created the project School management under the principle of caring. We wished the educators/managers/caregivers could recognize in themselves humans who need care; that they allow themselves to live the experience of taking care of themselves personally first to then take care of the others. Moved by circle dances, dialogic experiences, sensitized hearing, through intense encounters taking care of the caregiver, we could meet some surprises... and that’s what we want to share in this text.