Every child can learn

We are a country that has been deeply unequal since its origins and founded on violence. The colonization process was brutal, with the indigenous population practically exterminated and 300 years of slavery.”

At Every Child Can Learn, we see schools as spaces that must embrace diversity and assimilate complexities, which also includes understanding the social context in which each institution operates. In this sense, citizenship education is of utmost importance to preserve the rights of children and young people and, consequently, ensure that schools are environments that combat various types of violence, on a greater or lesser scale.

For Maria Thereza Marcílio, president of the NGO Avante – Education and Social Mobilization , the episode in Suzano and similar events cannot be analyzed from any reductionist perspective: they are violent because the society in which they are located is also violent. “We are a country that has been profoundly unequal since its origins and founded on violence. The colonization process was brutal, with the indigenous population practically exterminated and 300 years of slavery.”

In addition to its violent construction, Brazil has also perpetuated brutality in its country project: it is one of the countries that kills the most LGBT people, with high rates of femicide and violence against women, and it also has the third largest prison population in the world.

Our country has a historical tendency to not face its challenges. […] Violence is the visible facet of this difficulty, of the lack of courage to be in the world aiming for the common good first and foremost.”

Adapted text. Read the full text on the Aprendiz Portal .

This culture of violence is aligned with recent institutional discourses in the country. The solutions to violence presented at the federal level – with a president who defends arming the population and the Minister of Justice Sérgio Moro investing in an “anti-crime” package of measures, most of which are punitive and persecutory – also contribute to this narrative of violence, as stated by Vitor Blotta, a researcher at the Center for Violence Studies at USP (NEV).

“With the increase in forms of access to weapons and the propagation of an ideology of firearms as the only way to obtain security, there is the construction of worldviews more likely to accept and resort to these private and lethal forms of conflict resolution.”

Added to this are the still unresolved processes of violence by the State itself, such as the civil-military dictatorship, or the murders of political and community leaders who represent this diversity, such as councilwoman Marielle Franco, whose murder has not yet been solved: “Our country has a historical tendency to not face its challenges and this happens with extremely deep-rooted problems such as racism, sexism, LGBTphobia. Violence is the visible facet of this difficulty, of the lack of courage to be in the world aiming for the common good first and foremost”, explains Flora Daemon, professor at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and author of the book “ Under the sign of infamy: from violence in educational environments to media strategies of young homicides/suicides ”.

For education and youth experts, it is necessary to reflect on how the culture of violence impacts young people, and how it is through education for diversity that there can be a social response to prevent violence.

The Aprendiz Portal identifies comprehensive education as a powerful instrument for transforming society and understands that the city is a space full of educational opportunities capable of promoting, together with other educational spaces, the comprehensive development of individuals. The website hopes to stimulate reflection and social engagement in the construction of a plural education that transcends the walls of the school and guarantees continuous learning and the full development of individuals.

The country ranks first in the ranking of deaths by firearms, according to Global Burden Disease, an agency of the World Health Organization (WHO) that researches causes of death. And young people, especially black people, are its biggest victims. The homicides also occur in the first months of a policy of easing gun carrying restrictions initiated by decree No. 9,685, signed by President Jair Bolsonaro at the beginning of the year.

We need to discuss how the culture of violence impacts young people, without reductionist views

No Toda Criança Pode Aprender, enxergamos a escola como um espaço que deve abrigar a diversidade e assimilar complexidades, o que contempla também entender o contexto social no qual cada instituição está inserida. Nesse sentido, a educação para a cidadania é de suma importância para preservar os direitos das crianças e jovens e, por consequência, fazer com que a escola seja um ambiente de combate a diversos tipos de violência, em maior ou menor escala.