References to the 1967 song and movie To Sir with Love highlight the importance of teachers in schools. The film follows a Black English teacher who faces racial prejudice and disciplinary challenges at a poor school in London. Through dialogue, mutual respect, and firmness, he transforms the rebellious students into conscientious young people who are prepared for the world.
Teaching is one of the oldest, most significant, and most complex professions. Whether in schooling or higher education, teaching contributes par excellence to a society’s scientific, technological, economic, environmental, social, cultural, political, and, above all, human development. Teaching is intrinsically linked to the role(s) played by the teacher, which have been (re)constructed through various socio-historical movements.
In Ancient Greece, teachers served as guides or mentors, custodians of knowledge and transmitters of truth. In the Middle Ages, teachers played a central role in transmitting theological knowledge, whereas during the Renaissance, with the emergence of humanism, the teacher’s role shifted toward fostering more critical and reflective individuals (Libâneo, 2011).
During the Industrial Revolution, the teacher’s role was that of a technician training the workforce for factories. Later, in the 1960s and 1970s, teachers carried out their teaching activities centered on the traditional liberal paradigm, through exhaustively lecture-based classes and the stagnant passivity of students.
Beginning in the 1980s, with the advent of technological innovations driven by the computerization revolution and the spread of electronic and digital audiovisual media, teachers had to develop new competencies and skills to operate within a lean educational system and train versatile professionals.
Nowadays, the presence of new information technologies, which have entered schools and permeated the lives of teachers and students, turning theoretical understandings of how to teach and learn upside down, and overturning traditionally established teaching practices (Pimenta, 2023). In support of this, Cossetin (2026) argues that we are experiencing the phenomenon of “platform-based teaching,” in which the pedagogical marginalization of teachers makes it impossible for them to engage in teaching as it is traditionally conceived and socially understood.
Thus, in platform-based teaching, teacher mediation is still essential to preserving education’s formative nature, since teachers must establish connections among digital resources, academic knowledge, students’ experiences, and the concrete conditions of social reality. From this perspective, technology can be an important pedagogical resource, but it does not replace the autonomy, intentionality, dialogue, and human dimension that characterize the historical work of teachers.
Those school girl days
Of telling tales
And biting nails are gone
But in my mind
I know they will still live on and on
But how do you thank someone
Who has taken you from crayons to perfume
It isn’t easy, but I’ll try
If you wanted the sky I’d write across the sky in letters
That would soar a thousand feet high
To Sir, with love
The time has come
For closing books
And long last looks must end
And as I leave
I know that I am leaving my best friend
A friend who taught me right from wrong
And weak from strong
That’s a lot to learn
What, what can I give you in return?
If you wanted the moon I’d try to make a star
But I would rather you let me give my heart
To Sir, with love
To Sir With Love (1967)
By Lulu
References:
COSSETIN, M. A gestão educacional e os mecanismos de privatização e plataformização: indicativos sobre a gestão escolar no estado do Paraná. In: Encontro estadual da Associação Nacional de Política e Administração da Educação: a gestão educacional e escolar no estado do Paraná: projetos em disputa. 2026, Maringá. Mesa-redonda: A gestão educacional e os mecanismos de privatização e plataformização: indicativos sobre a gestão escolar o estado do Paraná. Maringá, Universidade Estadual de Maringá, 2026.
LIBÂNEO, J. C. Adeus professor, adeus professora?: novas exigências educacionais e profissão docente. 13. ed. São Paulo: Cortez, 2011. (Coleção questões da nossa época; v. 2)
PIMENTA, S. G. As ondas críticas da Didática em movimento: resistências ao tecnicismo/neotecnicismo neoliberal (excertos do original publicado em 2019). In: PIMENTA, S. G. et al. (orgs.) Didática crítica no Brasil. 1. ed. São Paulo: Cortez, 2023.
TO SIR WITH LOVE. Performed by Lulu, 1967. It is available at: https://www.letras.mus.br/lulu/23764/
