Understanding the issue of teachers’ health the Public Hall of São Paulo

Abstract

This study seeks to understand the question of the health of teachers. For this, 34 teachers were interviewed from the municipality of São Paulo. The analysis was organized along four aspects of teachers’ professional life: student teaching, beginning of the career, the middle years, and the end of the career. Three detrimental symptoms categories emerged: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminution in professional accomplishment. The results indicate that the teaching profession demands knowledge beyond that which is acquired during training. The results also indicate that the health-disease process is constructed on the job, making this a realm to construct an individual’s history and social identity. Moreover, the findings suggest that public policy should consider the health of the teacher as fundamental to educational quality.