Anti-racist education loses space in schools 2 decades after law requiring teaching of Afro-Brazilian history

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This Monday (20), Black Awareness Day, an unprecedented survey obtained by g1 shows the situation by state in relation to initiatives to debate prejudice. Conversation circles, exhibitions and other activities to discuss racism are part of the routine at a municipal school in Camaçari (BA), but this is not the case throughout the country. The carrying out of extracurricular anti-racist activities is declining in schools in Brazil. An unprecedented survey obtained by g1 that details the situation in the states shows that the scenario is more critical in Piauí, Roraima, Amazonas, Maranhão and Amapá. The numbers that show the setback are released precisely in the year in which the law that requires the teaching of African and Afro-Brazilian history and culture turns 20. The retreat does not mean that books and teachers are ignoring the topic, as there are no instruments or research that evaluate compliance with the curricular base in the classroom. But, on the other hand, the warning about the lack of anti-racist projects comes precisely in responses collected by the federal government directly from those responsible for managing schools in Brazil and becomes even more evident this Monday (20), Black Awareness Day . The relevance of this type of initiative has at its heart the fight against prejudice – including within the school environment itself, which is at the top of the list of places where Brazilians say they suffer racial violence. In São Paulo alone, for example, reports of discrimination in state schools registered this year alone exceeded 3,000 and include reports of children being called “slave”, “monkey” and “vulture”. Students at the Maria Quitéria Educational Center display posters of black personalities. Vitalina Silva/Personal archive What the data shows The data was analyzed by the entity Todos Pela Educação and shows that, in at least 15 states, not even half of public schools offered their own initiatives to debate racism. Furthermore, anti-racist actions in schools decreased in all states and in the Federal District between 2011 and 2021. In this period, the national average of projects on the subject was 66.7% and reached 75.6%, but fell to 50.1%. The survey was carried out based on the National Basic Assessment System (Saeb) questionnaire applied to school directors between 2011 and 2021. For Jackson Almeida, diversity, equity and inclusion analyst at Todos Pela Educação, the panorama across the country shows the need for enhance anti-racist practices in the school environment. We need strong continuing training policies for teachers, intentionality in proposing projects and prioritization by the Ministry of Education with regard to this issue. For Ana Paula Brandão, manager of the Transformative and Anti-Racist Educational System Project (Seta), schools should make use of their diversity to be more effective in building a fairer future. “Racism is everyone’s problem. It affects each person differently, some suffer more, others barely suffer, but everyone is affected by it”, he ponders. Good practices exist. If the general numbers show a drop in anti-racist actions, a project developed at the Maria Quitéria Educational Center, in the region metropolitan area of ​​Salvador, goes against this. It was born from the concern of Portuguese language teacher Vitalina Silva, who wanted to make students aware of the racist structure of society and also teach them about the power of black personalities. Students of the Center Educacional Maria Quitéria participate in a conversation about ethnic-racial themes. Vitalina Silva/Personal archive It was in 2019, when Vitalina started teaching at Centro Educacional Maria Quitéria, that things started to take shape. There, she found a receptive environment and willing teachers working on the theme. Vitalina introduced the book “Olhos D’água”, by Conceição Evaristo, into her classes to discuss racial, gender and subalternization issues — always based on some element of the subject’s curriculum, such as grammar or linguistic analysis . When she taught textual genres and biography, she took the opportunity to ask students to produce their own versions of biographies of black personalities. Students from the Maria Quitéria Educational Center present their work at an ethnic-racial fair. Vitalina Silva/Personal Archive In parallel, other teachers, in turn, were already working on racial issues in their classes, but it was with the support of the school management and coordination that individual actions ended up unified. A pedagogical day was then organized with a racial literacy workshop for the teaching staff, which then resulted in an exhibition of the work produced by the students for the school community. Students from the Maria Quitéria Educational Center display teachings from black personalities at an ethnic-racial fair at the school. Vitalina Silva/Personal archive “By now, the students had already internalized that knowledge. They were the owners of the information and they themselves presented their projects, their research. And it was beautiful to see that they had lost the shame of talking and took ownership of it”, recalls Vitalina. The project, which emerged in an unpretentious way, managed to achieve greater purposes than the teacher expected, and it didn’t stop there. Today, one of the objectives of this project is to give a new meaning to history and bring the protagonism of the Afro-Brazilian and African people so that our students can recognize themselves as heirs of people of cultural, historical and intellectual value, who contributed to the world. External recognition was not long in coming. This year, teacher Vitalina was one of the winners of the LED Award, in the educator category, and received R$200,000. “It was great to receive this award. But the best part was seeing the project being born and the students learning, getting to know each other and recognizing themselves in the process. That was the great prize”, she says. Students from the Maria Quitéria Educational Center display a biographical panel on Luís Gama. Vitalina Silva/Personal archive 20 years of the law on teaching Afro-Brazilian history For 20 years, law 10,639 has been in force in Brazil, which requires the teaching of Afro-Brazilian and African history and culture in the country. Although there is no mapping of its application, educators say it is far from being a reality and demand it. “A 20-year-old law that is not applied needs supervision and intention”, says Jackson Almeida, an analyst at Todos Pela Educação. For Ana Paula Brandão, manager of the Seta project, there is a certain complacency among educational managers in addressing racial issues only at specific moments in the school calendar. Until this changes, she warns, the legislation will not get off the ground. The law concerns transforming the way of teaching. It’s not about arriving in November, Black Consciousness Month, and doing an activity with the students for the school community. This should happen all year round, and November 20th should be the culmination, the date for celebration. For the law to be effective, the specialist highlights the need to offer tools to educators so that they can understand when to act and give new meaning to the future of students. The legislation specifies that both public and private schools must cover the following topics in the classroom: History of Africa and Africans; The struggle of black people in Brazil; Brazilian black culture; and The black man in the formation of national society. These contents must be provided throughout the school curriculum, but, in particular, in the areas of Artistic Education and Brazilian Literature and History. What the MEC says Facade of the Ministry of Education (MEC) Senado Agency/ Disclosure To g1, the Ministry of Education (MEC) stated that, according to legislation, it is up to states and municipalities to monitor the implementation of curricular guidelines. The ministry also says that many educational policies were discontinued in recent governments, such as promoting teacher training. However, it lists some measures adopted since the beginning of the Lula government, including the re-creation of a commission to ensure social participation in the MEC’s ​​policy on education for ethnic-racial relations; the creation of a continuing training program for quilombola education; and the launch of postgraduate programs. What the states say When contacted, the National Council of Education Secretaries (Consed), which brings together state secretaries from across the country, highlighted individual actions by some states: Sergipe: launch of a seal with the aim of rewarding inclusive pedagogical practices in schools ; Espírito Santo: structured education program for ethnic-racial relations; Bahia: specific award to recognize school projects that value African, Afro-Brazilian and indigenous history and culture; São Paulo: distribution of works by black and indigenous authors, with one school standing out for creating an entire anti-racist library. g1 also sought out the five state education departments with the worst rankings in the survey on anti-racist projects (Piauí, Roraima, Amazonas, Maranhão and Amapá), but only Roraima and Maranhão responded. Roraima: The Department of Education reported that ethnic-racial themes are addressed in the school curriculum at all stages. Maranhão: The Department of Education stated that it follows the requirements of legislation on the teaching of African history and that it supports municipal networks with pedagogical guidance, the provision of teaching material and monitoring of school practices.

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