13 de July de 2026
On February 23 and 24, Labedu took part in the International Meeting on Literacy, Equity and the Future, held by the Ministry of Education in Brasília. The initiative brought together government leaders and strategic organisations from Latin America with the aim of strengthening commitments and decisions that accelerate literacy with equity in the region, as well as promoting international cooperation around every child’s right to literacy at the beginning of primary school.
On the second day of the event, Nicole Paulet, Labedu’s Executive Director, joined the panel “Literacy policies in perspective: teaching practice in question”, moderated by educator Monica Silva, from the Bem Comum Association. Also taking part were Paola Uccelli, professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education; Telma Leal, professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco; Argentine researcher and educator Beatriz Diuk; and Fernando Oliveira, president of the Brazilian Literacy Association.
In her remarks, Nicole began with a challenge common to Latin American countries: ensuring that all children appropriate language as a tool for accessing knowledge and exercising citizenship. By positioning literacy as a right, she highlighted the complexity involved in formulating and implementing public policies in contexts marked by inequality and large-scale education systems. In this scenario, she underscored teacher professional development as a strategic axis, linking children’s learning to the learning of professionals and of the system itself. Drawing on evidence from the academic literature, she emphasised that there is a gap between knowing and knowing how to do. For this reason, she explained, practice should organise professional learning experiences, preserving the complexity of teaching and supporting its effective implementation in the classroom.
“When we think about professional learning processes, we are talking about providing intentional practical experiences with routines and strategies that preserve the integrity and complexity of teaching. It is not about fragmenting dimensions that will later be difficult to articulate in the classroom, but about experiencing new ways of doing that, through exchange and study, can lead to increasingly deeper understandings of how to ensure the expected learning. By going deeper into certain essential practices, the teacher expands their repertoire and gains tools and knowledge to continue learning from their own experience,” assessed Labedu’s Executive Director.
Nicole also presented the concept of professional development structured in cycles—encompassing study, planning, implementation, documentation and reflection—as a pathway to promote consistent changes in practice. In this process, the model planning developed by Labedu serves as a shared context of experience, enabling teachers to analyse, test and refine proposals with intentionality.
In dialogue with the notion of linked tasks systematised by Argentine educator and researcher Ana Teberosky, she drew a parallel between children’s learning and teachers’ professional development: just as students learn in meaningful, non-fragmented contexts, teachers also need professional learning experiences that integrate theory and practice. In closing, she warned of the risk of oversimplified solutions and the fragmentation of pedagogical action, reaffirming the need for policies that take the complexity of teaching into account and sustain professional development over time.
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