“NEW WAYS OF WORKING, NEW WAYS OF GETTING ILL”: PLATFORMIZATION, INTENSIFICATION OF TEACHING WORK AND PSYCHIC ILLNESS.

Abstract

This article aims to critically analyze the intensification and precariousness of teaching work in Brazilian public education, focusing on the impacts of platformization on teachers' mental health. It begins with the observation that neoliberal reforms, since the 1990s, have introduced management models inspired by the private sector, guided by the logic of efficiency, competitiveness, and individual accountability, which have had a direct impact on pedagogical practice. The COVID-19 pandemic did not create these contradictions, but accelerated their consolidation by imposing emergency remote learning, expanding the compulsory use of digital platforms, and multiplying bureaucratic demands, intensifying invisible workdays and eroding teacher autonomy. This research is characterized as qualitative and critical-analytical, grounded in historical-dialectical materialism and documentary analysis of institutional reports, official data, union surveys, and journalistic reports produced between 2020 and 2024. The results indicate that platformization, far from representing merely technological innovation, has become an instrument of control and surveillance, reinforcing the intensification of work and exacerbating mental illness. It is evident that teacher suffering does not stem from individual failures, but rather expresses structural contradictions of neoliberal capitalism, which weaken professional collectives and transform teaching into an activity increasingly stripped of its creative dimension. The conclusion is that the repoliticization of teacher suffering, combined with the defense of public schools and decent working conditions, constitutes an indispensable path to confronting illness and redefining teaching as an emancipatory social practice.