Clocks, calendars and cell phones: An ethnography on time in a high school

Abstract Considering that time is an important dimension in anthropological discourse and a key element of the "hidden curriculum" of school, this paper presents the results of an ethnography on time in a high school in João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil. We discuss how teaching/learning processes are organized and experienced in time, paying close attention to the limitations and possibilities revealed by interactions between teachers and students. We first identify the pedagogical temporal units that compose the dimension of structural time at the school, and then identify aspects of time in practice (experiences and strategies). We argue that school time is both a constraint and an opportunity, unfolding in a series of metaphors ("save time," "waste time," "kill time", "fill time", "pass the time"), which enable ways of thinking about the conflicts present in daily school life.