Experts defend spaces for expressing feelings in schools

The culture of dialogue that strengthens democratic values ​​in schools is one of the ways pointed out by educators to curb the increase in attacks on schools in the country. Before unusual, the crimes have demanded attention from the authorities and raised alarm among families and students. Catarina de Almeida, professor and researcher at the Faculty of Education at the University of Brasília (UnB), sees educational institutions as more vulnerable for reasons that are not linked to the lack of security instruments. “Schools have been persecuted when dealing with issues such as sex education, gender issues, racism, misogyny. We even have many parliamentarians who expose the figure of the teacher. And this is a very serious issue for the mental health of these teachers. They still pass on to society the idea that anyone can enter a school and say what they should or shouldn’t do”, he evaluates. According to Catarina, the reduction of curricular components of applied human and social sciences – history, philosophy, sociology and geography – in high school makes it difficult for students to understand notions of justice, solidarity, respect for human rights and the fight against prejudice of any kind. nature. At the same time, Catarina defends the creation of public policies to enable school and family communities to identify behavioral changes in young people and observe the digital content consumed by children and adolescents. For educator Telma Vinha, coordinator of research carried out by Unicamp on cases of attacks in schools by students or former students, it is necessary to develop, through public policies, a culture of dialogue in schools that strengthen democratic values. She defends the creation of spaces for the expression of feelings, aimed at fostering a positive climate in coexistence, and also spaces for conflict mediation that can involve collective assemblies and private meetings where students learn to use dialogue instead of violence. “Today, education professionals work as firefighters. They only act after conflicts between students are already taking place at school. It is necessary to create a positive climate of coexistence capable of preventing them from arising. But it is only possible led by the Ministry of Education, by state departments of education. It is not possible to hold each school individually responsible”. Still according to her, when these episodes occur, many of the solutions presented are based only on security measures. “In the United States, the excess of security apparatus in schools does not solve. metal, 3D cameras, and the cases continue to occur”, he warned. In parallel with the projects involving the school, the expansion of intelligence work is considered fundamental. Last week, messages containing threats of attack on a school in Rio de Janeiro were found by the Ministry of Justice and Public Security during internet monitoring. The content was forwarded to the Civil Police, who apprehended a 12-year-old teenager, motherless and, according to investigations, with relationship problems at the educational institution, where she would be a victim of bullying. According to the police, she admitted to being the author of the messages. In 2021, a 16-year-old was also apprehended in Goiânia after identifying conversations where he announced he admitted to being a fan of Nazism and claimed to be ready to commit an attack at school, as it would be easier to access war material. Telma observes that today there is no centralized reporting platform, where students can go when they see something on the internet or in private groups. “Sometimes they tell the director, who doesn’t know what to do and makes a report at the neighborhood police station”, she reports. seriously and be investigated with intelligence. Firearms Not all episodes of violence in the school environment are related to firearms. Even so, according to a survey by the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), firearms were used in more than half of the cases: 12 of the 22 attacks. In six episodes, the young man had access to weapons at home. The document produced by the group mobilized by a professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of São Paulo (USP), Daniel Cara, compiled data of the Brazilian Yearbook of Public Security to point out the effects of the policies of easing the rules for the purchase of weapons adopted during the government of Jair Bolsonaro, between 2018 and 2022. almost sextupled reaching the mark of 673,818. “These data are fundamental for deconstructing the narrative that blames this violence on schools, which point to easy solutions, which generally blame school institutions”, point out the researchers. They demand regulatory and legal changes that reverse this situation. Changes in legislation In the document, educators defend updates to the Penal Code to typify conduct related to the co-option and recruitment of children and adolescents by right-wing extremist groups and ideologies. They also advocate for the typification of the manufacture, commercialization, distribution and dissemination of symbols, emblems, badges or propaganda of supremacist content that do or do not use the swastika cross. Another fundamental change from the perspective of the researchers is the adoption of a new regulatory framework for the internet that is capable of offering mechanisms against the circulation of hate speech and disinformation promoted not only by neo-Nazi groups, but also by political and social public leaders who gained visibility in different parts of the world where the extreme right has grown in recent years. Virtual forums, chats, social networks and applications such as Telegram, Whatsapp and Discord have become spaces for disseminating this content. Holding platforms accountable for users’ publications requires changes to the Marco Civil da Internet and is a controversial issue that has been generating institutional debates. The issue was on the agenda last month at a public hearing held by the Federal Supreme Court (STF). Telma Vinha observes that forums of neo-Nazi groups were previously located on the so-called Deep Web, which is not indexed in search engines and has more restricted access, requiring specific browsers. “In recent years, they’ve come to the surface of the internet. It’s easy to access through social media,” she says. Unicamp researchers have prints of threatening messages found on social networks. One of these posts, in which the author claims he already has weapons, clothes and a partner at school who agreed to carry out his plan, had 43 likes. The publication was on Twitter for about a month. The way in which social media algorithms work is also of concern: when liking a message of this nature or watching a video containing hate speech, other profiles and similar publications are recommended. And in addition to facilitating access to this content, many of them are monetized through advertising targeted by the platform itself. Journalistic approach Care that the media should take when reporting an attack was discussed in a webinar promoted by Jeduca, an association formed by journalists who cover education. Researchers consider that certain types of coverage can influence new episodes. According to Catarina, a journalistic approach is necessary that avoids giving notoriety to the author of the attack, since this is exactly its objective and media attention is perceived as a reward. She considers it inappropriate to show images of the action and give relevance to the author’s life story. “Exposure increases the social status of the attacker, generating notoriety that is desired by others,” she notes. In her view, detailing the author’s life story ends up individualizing the case and may, for example, convey the mistaken idea that it is solely related to a condition of depression. She reiterates that this is a more complex phenomenon. “Keeping saying that the perpetrator was taking revenge for having been bullied and talking about the origins of the shooter can make other young people identify”, adds the researcher. In addition, the extensive coverage with the detailed report, which reveals the step-by-step plan of attack, can provide dissemination of unwanted information. “The authors seek to observe what others have already done. Since they don’t know each other, where do they seek to obtain this information? In the media. So the media can influence the proliferation of these attacks carried out by young people in schools”, evaluates Catarina. The researcher claims that there are bills pending in Congress inspired by measures adopted in New Zealand, where it is forbidden to report information about the author of the attack and the procedures used. She also notes that guidelines already developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) for coverage of suicide cases may also be valid for reporting on occurrences of attacks in schools. The entity recommends avoiding sensationalism, not showing videos and photographs of the action, not providing a step-by-step description of the methods. For Catarina, it is necessary to reduce the media coverage of the attacks. On the other hand, he believes that the press can contribute to confronting the situation if it focuses on punishments, if it portrays the action as something shameful and if, after the heat of the moment has passed, it monitors and demands the implementation of proposals.

Agência Brasil