Teachers under evaluation: the imaginaries of power and fear in Colombian education (Spanish version)

Teachers Under Evaluation: The Imaginaries of Power and Fear in Colombian Education is a work that delves, with theoretical depth and testimonial voice, into the symbolic fabric that sustains teaching life in the country. Through writing that combines academic reflection with pedagogical narrative, the author explores how power, evaluation, and fear are intertwined in the daily experience of Colombian teachers. From a critical and humanistic perspective, the author analyzes the evolution of the national education system based on statutes 2277 and 1278, showing how evaluation policies, under the language of 'quality' and 'merit,' reconfigured the imaginaries of the teaching profession. In these pages, teachers appear not as passive victims of reform, but as historical subjects who resist, create, and reimagine their practice with hope. The text articulates theory and experience with academic precision, drawing on references such as Foucault, Bourdieu, Freire, Castoriadis, Dubet, Bauman, Popkewitz, and Covarrubias, among others. Through these dialogues, the author proposes a reading of teaching as a field of forces where symbolic capital, ethical meanings, and political horizons are contested. Each chapter constitutes a different—and complementary—approach to the imaginaries that shape teaching: merit, vocation, control, dignity, and resistance. With clear and poetic language, the author reveals that pedagogy not only teaches content, but also ways of being and existing in the world. In its pages, hope is presented not as consolation, but as political practice; evaluation, not as punishment, but as a possibility for dialogue. Teachers Under Evaluation is an invitation to rethink school as a space of meaning, not obedience; as a territory of care, not surveillance. An essential work for those who believe that education continues to be an act of faith and justice.