From normal to a new normal, where does the education need to be?

Abstract

The period of social isolation, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, brought up the outcry, in scholar context, of an expectation and necessity of going back to “normal”, in view of the current scenario of suspension of classes, meeting coronavirus prevention guidelines. Some authors demonstrate that we are not going back to “normal”, that we will have a “new normal”. Then comes the question related to education. What would be normal? Why this necessity of a normal? To understand better this entire context, we present a study about the term “normal”, in the history of education, from the advent of the Normal School in the world, Brazil and Rio Grande do Sul, bringing it to the actuality, in a process of action and reflection about the pedagogical practice, leaning on Paulo Freire (2015, 2016), in a dynamic of the acting and thinking, and in Michel Foucault (2018), that debates the relations of control and power. Other authors who will intertwine with the proposed dynamics, as well as the understanding of the Brazilian legislation for teacher training, will be present in the discussion, which brings the power relations that are presented in different social institutions and are manifested through devices that act in a quite subtle way, but very well planned.