The present work seeks to uncover the pedagogical face of Eros. As a starting point, there is the fact that the figure of the educator/teacher is commonly represented by someone whose occupation does not elicit desires of any kind. It is not unusual to see literary representations and televised or cinema images in which the teacher appears comically as a caricature that talks continuously and monotonically to pupils whose countenances oscillate between boredom and scorn. But what is truly frightening is that, more and more, the images that show up in the discourse of the younger generations, in an attempt to oppose the caricature just mentioned, associate the figure of the teacher to that of a presenter of a talk show: theatrical, amusing, an expert in cathartic group dynamics, with no content and equally caricatured. Seeking to steer clear of both caricatures and to reflect upon the specific genre of the pedagogical "libido" - understood as spiritual force or strength for the moral, intellectual and bodily progress - the text rescues the illustrative power of the myth, thinks about the power of the imaginary in the constitution of model parameters for education and for the exercise of teaching (to this end it proposes Socratic, sophistic and scholastic notes with emphasis on language) and points to the importance of this discussion in view of the problems that populate the contemporary educational spheres.
Eros; Education; Language