The work of teaching considering the anthropological concept of exchange

Résumé

By first considering the anthropological concept of exchange defined by Marcel Mauss, this text will seek to define a concept of teaching work that is attributable to specifically school-related experiences by means of observation, reading and interpretation of the archive (in the sense used by Michel Foucault). Divided in two parts, the first section presents the concepts and symbolism with which the notion of work gained positive and dignifying forums, while leisure became vile and disdained. In the second section I will present a form of understanding the work of teaching through exchange values existing in the relationship between teacher and students inserted or not in a capitalist sociability. It concludes that today, work is not a source of values, but of information, whose strongest consequence is the idea that the school is the finality of life.