Attacks: it is necessary to separate panic from violence in schools – 04/19/2023 – Daily life

For education and public safety experts interviewed by Sheetit is necessary to separate the problems of violence in the school environment and the recent attacks on schools, which are real, from the wave of panic generated by the rumors on social networks.

Joana Monteiro, coordinator of the Center for Science Applied to Public Security at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, says that the current crisis of violence in schools “puts three different problems in the same cake”.

“The first is the problem of violence within the school, the fact that we have many students with aggressive and violent behavior, with cases of aggression within the school”, points out Monteiro, who is a professor of public policy at FGV.

“This is a very common problem and one that we do not discuss in Brazil. The case of São Paulo, at the Thomazia Montoro school, reflects this aspect more, of a boy who had already presented problems with aggression, something that may have been aggravated by networks for him to reach the point of wanting to kill the teacher”, he says, about the episode that occurred on March 27 in which a 13-year-old student stabbed teacher Elisabeth Tenreiro, 71.

The second problem is that of mass attacks, says Monteiro, “which is similar to the case of Blumenau”. “It’s someone who wants to kill people at random. It was at a school, but it could have been in a supermarket, in a parking lot”, opines the researcher, corroborating the conclusion of the police.

Finally, the third problem of this crisis, says Monteiro, “is the collective social panic driven by false news, something that was a result of the first two attacks [escola de São Paulo e creche em Blumenau]”. “And there are indications that there are people deliberately promoting this panic, which put everyone having to respond to this, and students started skipping school, very scared.”

For the FGV professor, violence in schools, attacks and panic “are obviously interconnected, but it is necessary to separate them, because each of these problems requires different actions”. For her, in the case of violence within schools, the actions of placing armed police tend to be very ineffective. “Unfortunately this is more of a structural problem, and quick responses will not take care of it,” she says.

“That’s the bad part of the news. The good part is that we have a window of political opportunity to discuss this problem, which is super important for the school climate, for learning and for promoting a culture of peace.”

Claudia Costin, founder and director of the Center for Excellence and Innovation in Education Policy and visiting professor at the Harvard School of Education, says that there is a group of experts, of which she is a part, who perceive “something concerted”, orchestrated in this wave of rumors of attacks on schools.

“It’s not just a few students, as is often the case, who don’t want a test that day and spread threats to close the school.”

In the case of schools, “parents are very afraid and it is precisely at them that this organized wave of rumors about attacks on schools is directed.” She argues that it is correct to regulate digital platforms to combat fake news, as well as to hold those who disseminate this type of content responsible with a fine and even imprisonment, as provided for by the federal government.

“And charging parents of teenagers who are involved in rumors with fines is not a bad idea, because we have started to make them jointly responsible for spreading this wave of fake news.”

Daniel Cara, who is a professor of Education at USP and rapporteur for the MEC’s ​​working group on violence in schools, points out that professionals who monitor the internet observe “communities of violence and hate more mobilized than usual this month, until as a result of the attempted attack in Monte Mor and the March attacks on the school in São Paulo and the nursery in Blumenau”.

He states that “there is no evidence, so far, of national coordination [da onda de boataria]equivalent to what happened on 1/8 [quando golpistas invadiram as sedes dos Três Poderes em Brasília]”.

“The problem with rumors is that panic dominates society and harms the work to be carried out in schools”, he points out.

“We are facing a concrete problem, but we must not let panic win.”