In October 2017, Unicamp's Faculty of Education will promote a very important seminar: “Public School – Difficult Times, But Not Impossible”. Let's keep an eye on the schedule.
One of the participants, David Berliner, I have known for some time, having read unmissable books such as: Myths and Lies That Threaten America's Public Schools: The Real Crisis in Education (Teachers College Press, 2014) and The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, And The Attack On America's Public Schools (Basic Books, 1996).
But I also recommend studying it, immediately accessible, on the web: Our Impoverished View of Educational Reform (Teachers College Record, August 2006- http://www.tcrecord.org/content.asp?contentid=12106]
The reference came in handy when I read, now, articles that have appeared in our press, about something banal and routine, but not always properly noticed and calibrated.
Perhaps few people know, but every two months, the MEC carries out an assessment of the school attendance of students who benefit from Bolsa Família, a concern that certainly keeps many people who don't need any scholarship awake. For some time now, these poor children and young people have been having very positive results, to the surprise (and perhaps disbelief or despair) of a reasonable contingent of non-poor people.
In the most recent survey (June 2017), 87,16% of students benefiting from the program attended classes regularly. The number must be compared with the national average, which is 85%.
Sound like good news? No, it doesn't seem like it. She is good news. But the funny (or tragic) thing is the comment I heard or read from some supposedly educated – or at least very educated – people. One of them, amazingly, told me that “going to school should be an obligation, no one should be paid for it”. Soon, as if it were in another planetary environment, I saw the same person “negotiating” the allowance for one of her children. I'm not sure why he receives the money, since his father pays all his expenses, including, of course, school. Ah, yes, when “the new year passed”, the child received a trip as a gift. A good example of moral alchemy. “Nobody should get paid for this.” Unless... The pink kid, yes, he needs to get paid to study. Oh yes, Dad has income tax deductions in his son's name: first, for the boy's very existence, second, for education expenses, third, for the health plan. In tax exemption, he is receiving much more than a family allowance. But of course that “doesn’t count”. It's part of it, as the kids say. It is part of the social landscape in which we live and which we take as “natural”. Moral alchemy transforms all of this into “law”.
Another leader said that “they go to school, but they keep skipping classes, leaving and entering the classroom, listening to music with headphones”. This notable scholar must have carried out careful participant observation. Apparently, from the comment it can be deduced that the Bolsa-Família children also had access to some type of Ipod and MP3 bag, to use equipment like those that the commentator makes available to his studious and well-behaved children.
In fact, the elementary thing we are seeing is that Bolsa-Família is simply making access to school possible. Simple, banal.
We still have to study a lot to improve access to quality education, but I invite those interested to read David Berliner's article. The situation of the poor – from the mother's womb to the first years of life – brings enough harm to damage their conditions for academic success. The damage is heavy, almost structural. It can be fixed later, but it takes a long time and is expensive. In short: either we have a policy to support these children during this period or we are left with a heavy deficit to manage. With consequences of all kinds. Some analysts, such as Nobel laureate James Heckman, made the calculation, strictly pragmatic: this negligence will cost dearly in lost productivity, in healthcare costs and... incarceration.
Berliner briefly summarizes medical studies that show how much this environment harms children's structures of perception and formation of feelings. However, the most shocking thing is the list of banal evils that affect what is called academic success. Simple things, like low or inadequate nutrition, myopia, otitis, bronchitis, asthma...
I remember the time I enlisted in the military, presenting myself for the medical examination. I was nearsighted and was almost released for that reason. But it was mild myopia. Some of my “troop” colleagues only discovered there, at the age of 17, that they had enormous myopia, they were “blind” as we used to say. Well, a large number of poor children become “unteachable” or “distracted” due to illnesses like these, which are preventable or remediable: myopia or malnutrition. When they fail to see something essential in the classroom, they give up and switch off. After about ten minutes of attention, if their “battery is low”, that is, if they are malnourished, they also switch off. I think almost every child has otitis, measles, chickenpox, mumps. The middle class cures such things easily. But for the poor, this can drag on and become permanent damage, with serious impacts on learning and the ability to “pay attention”. In another study, Berliner recalls that in New York City – the navel of the empire – many children from poor districts miss days and days of school due to respiratory illnesses – asthma, bronchitis, for example. Proximate or additional cause: poor heating, difficulty paying for the energy that heats homes and schools in poor districts.
For reasons like these, here, in this part of the south of the world, Bolsa-Família is a kind of balm, small for the public budget, but with a huge impact on the children who benefit from it. To understand this happy paradox, perhaps it would be wise to abandon our vision of poverty, a vision that is itself very poor... However, the comments on the MEC's assessment show that well-fed citizens do not always make good use of their synapses. Once again, one of the best phrases I've heard on this subject: Owners of purebred dogs often end up with brains similar to those of their dogs.
About the seminar: www.fe.unicamp.br
