Disputas pela escola pública: contribuições históricas para pensar o trabalho docente

In this article we propose to understand the meanings of the teaching work constituted in the historicity of the clashes by a hegemonic project of public school education. We carry out epistemological searches in the philosophical currents that support the modern school, analyzing historical multideterminants that foster public school meanings, and possibilities of sense for teaching work. We conclude that traditional Christian humanism makes sense centered on church-oriented knowledge; modern humanism forms an ambivalent sense between professionalization and vocation; and neoliberal humanism engages the teacher to mediate self-learning, causing loss of sense.