Congratulations to all working teachers!

October 15th. The date we celebrate our profession. We are remembered and valued with pompous words and emotional phrases. 

We romanticize and are romanticized as "those who work out of love for their profession."Yes, we have this gift, but we are workers. Wage earners, poorly paid, exploited by the system. Workers threatened by outrageous projects like 'School Without Political Parties'." homeschooling, high school reform, the militarization of schools, the education voucher. 

But we are resistance and we will fight for truly emancipatory education, which will form not only technically skilled students, but also questioning, critical citizens. Even if this comes at a price, an even more inflated price in reactionary times like these. 

I will cite here an example that deeply affected me, and which would be one of the first cases of persecution against our profession and attacks on academic freedom, in yet another abuse of our constitutional rights. 

It was the year 2017, on the campus of Esalq (Luiz de Queiroz Higher School of Agriculture/USP) in Piracicaba-SP. On that occasion, Professor Marcos Sorrentino, during the fourth edition of the "University Journey in Support of Agrarian Reform" (JURA), participated in a workshop on the institution's lawn with comrades from the MST (Landless Workers' Movement), who were sharing knowledge with the students in an extension activity whose objective is precisely to bring the academic community closer to society.  

And so, the reactionaries, aligned with agribusiness, have decided to open an investigation against the professor. Curiously, these same individuals say nothing when corporations and large private companies in the agrochemical and chemical fertilizer sectors occupy the same spaces to promote and conduct business with their products, and even use public facilities to develop their research. 

This was an example that illustrates a situation of ideological retaliation, going against the true role of the university as a space of freedom, emancipation, and research aimed at benefiting society. 

In primary education, it's no different. Harassment ranges from filming in classrooms and criticizing personal social media posts, to even the sticker on your car or the color of the t-shirt you wear. 

With the rise of Nazism and Fascism, which began with the 2016 coup, many educators were (and are) persecuted for practicing critical and questioning education. It's no longer possible to talk about deforestation and cuts to environmental protection funding, because even if these topics are relevant to university entrance exams and the ENEM (Brazilian National High School Exam), the reality is too much for these people. Defending science and the importance of the SUS (Brazilian Public Health System), showing the need for investment and not its cuts and dismantling, especially in times of pandemic and scientific denialism, is also unacceptable. The truth is inconvenient. 

Sexual education then? Forget about it! Even though it's fundamental for clarifying and preventing sexually transmitted infections, which are on the rise again among these young people, as are cases of rape, which can only be combated through education and empowerment. Denouncing and showing the pesticides in our water and food, illustrating them with scientific research, is too much for them. After all, facts speak for themselves, only empty rhetoric. fake news. 

That's why we bother them. That's why they want to intimidate us and even criminalize our actions. But we resist, we fight, and we hope! We are essential to society, even more so in times of denialism and shallow, biased knowledge. We are those who help in the formation of a conscious, anti-racist, just, egalitarian, and truly inclusive society. 

So, don't come wishing us happiness if your actions don't match the pretty words you offer us once a year. We don't need your greetings if you harass us and try to silence us with your absurd and stupid theories on other days. We don't need your empty compliments if you insist on defending corrupt, genocidal, racist, prejudiced, and treasonous governments. We're fed up with hypocritical people! 

It's all so unbelievable, even more so when I remember the famous phrase, said in the last century by the German poet Bertolt Brecht:What kind of times are these, when we have to defend the obvious?"More than just defending, we have the courage to defend the obvious and show much more than what is forced down our throats. That is our social function." 

They try to kill us every day, but they forget that we are seeds! Strong seeds that resist the abuses and absurdities to which we are subjected. Seeds that bear fruit and spread knowledge that destroys myths. We are teachers, yes, with pride, but aware that we must fight for society and for our rights without any fear and, above all, with unity and representation as a social class. 

To my fellow professionals, congratulations! Always fight and resist!