On the one hand, excessive workload; on the other, lack of concentration: the relationship between teachers and students from private and public school in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Emergency remote teaching observed from 2020 to 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, reverberates questions beyond this extraordinary time frame when seen from the perspective of students and educators of a state school and a private school in Porto Alegre/RS, and additional situated knowledge. The ethnographic research, conducted in two main stages – interviews with teaching teams and participant observations of synchronous classes – identified factors that until the pandemic were not at the center of reflections on educational inequality (technological, family, emotional, and domestic infrastructure), together with different behaviors, personalities, languages, and cultural references depending on the student’s social class and gender. From the point of view of educational professionals, the harsh reality of educators in public institutions (accumulation of subjects, extensive workload, and triple shifts) was compounded by discoveries concerning the teacher-student relationship and online methodological choices.