Homeschooling has returned to be a trending subject in Brazil after a draft bill was made and approved by the lower house, now being forwarded to the Federal Senate for discussion. The teaching method is not prohibited by the law, but there wasn’t any lawful backing until now.
About the project
Homeschooling is an education method that defends home teaching with parents’ supervision, instead of traditional scholarly teaching.
From homeschooling adepts’ point of view, the method is a way to teach in a particular way, trying to match the students’ unique needs and ways of learning.
Beyond that, a lot of parents do not “trust” schools, teaching at home for their kids’ safety: for them not to be corrupted, bullied, or violated in any way. There can be the complaint that traditional scholar teaching is not strong enough.
The almost endorsed project states that one of the parents must be graduated from a higher-level institution to be able to teach. Also, the student must be enrolled in an educational institution, that will monitor the student’s performance.
Teacher’s devaluation
Christiany Ferreira, 54, who graduated in neuro-psychopedagogy and director of Instituto Educacional Jaime Kratz, was interviewed by Her Campus and spoke about homeschooling. “For me, it’s clear that the homeschooling bill reflects on the teaching professionals’ devaluation, along with the school environment’s disregard. Our society does not value people who teach, thinking it’s an easy thing to do.”
In a research made by Instituto Peninsula, 77% of Brazilian teachers believe that the profession is not respected or valued in their country – and the homeschooling project proves that education formation is not seen as a necessary qualification for teaching.
Harmful change in environment
Another concerning issue with homeschooling is the future of those children from a social prism. Christiany states that “even with specialized parents, the environment kids have at home is different than the scholar one, that has formidable richness. The greatest difference between both teaching methods is the interaction with others’ opinions, choices, and personality.”
The interviewee also said that “the scholar environment favors the children’s maturing. When raised with parents alone, they lose important experience in their lives.”
When situated in only one ambiance, with a singular “version of the world” taught by their own parents, those children tend to be raised not knowing how to deal with other points of view beyond theirs. “Children raised by homeschooling will be grown-ups that troubled with accepting other’s opinion.” Christiany declares.
Loss of school’s guardian role
When children go to school they are far from their parents, under a teacher’s supervision. That way, they can speak out on child abuse, or any kind of violence at home – not so much like the homeschooling method, in which students don’t have that kind of opportunity for care.
Christiany says that schools play a guardian role for children, being able to identify if they’re going under any abusive situation. She also declares that it becomes easier to identify any type of learning disorder very soon, making the recovery treatment less painful or hard.
The director concludes with the thought that “school isn’t just learning about subjects. It’s way more than that: it’s socializing, looking at things differently, to live with different people that think differently from you. The scholarly environment helps children to grow, to become mature. It’s a required step for people to become citizens.”
The project, although has been rejected and refuted by thousand of professionals of education, is still under discussion and has the chance to become an actual bill.
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The article above was edited by Camila Nascimento.
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