Body Awareness of Pre-School Teachers and Their Work with Disabled Children

The number of disabled children in regular pre-schools has increased but still many children do not receive appropriate care and it may be associated with the teacher´s vision about the body. The aim of this study was to unveil the body awareness of nursery school children and how it relates to their work with disabled children. This is a case study carried out in a nursery school, in one city of the State of São Paulo, Brazil, with 26 teachers that had disabled children in their regular classes. Teachers were invited to speak about body awareness issues and their work with disabled children. The interviews were done with the analytical method of French discourse analysis. We found that there was a utilitarian body concept coupled with the functionality of the body as a machine, fit for work. For example, teachers reported, `Our body is always good for something`, `I need to take care of my body more so that it has more durability, flexibility, quality and everything`, or `I understand the body like a machine that has to be working right so that we can do all our activities `. The body is thought to be productive and deficiencies disturb the state of affairs although the teachers tried to give good opportunities for the disabled children to take part in the classes and to be `accepted`. In their job with the disabled children we identified difficulties to deal with the difference, attempts to adapt as well as to hide the handicap condition. The possibilities of action and reflection based on differences and the role of the school as an agent of transformation in the sense of social equity are ignored. In conclusion, body awareness of teachers influenced their work with disabled children. Teachers tried to protect those children from discrimination by avoiding some kinds of activities instead of using the differences to create new possibilities and enrich the experience among the children. However, differences reflect beyond the characteristics of the children, their subjectivity and place in the world. Therefore, more body actions are needed with the teachers to re-think possibilities of a disabled body.