Government teaching material is shallow and unreliable – 08/04/2023 – Education

The digital teaching materials produced by the government of São Paulo and used in schools in the state “are shallow, superficial and unreliable”, according to a report produced by the Brazilian Association of Authors of Educational Books (Abrale) and sent exclusively to Sheet.

In general, according to them, the material brings activities that do not present conceptual and editorial rigor, in addition to ignoring the requirements of the BNCC (Base Nacional Comum Curricular), a document that determines the guidelines of education in the country and points out the learning to be developed at each level. school.

Specifically, among the problems pointed out, there is a Portuguese language activity that asks the student to produce a report with fictitious data, which “is terrible, because it undermines the teaching of the journalistic genre”, as the writers stated. In another activity, also in Portuguese, Pero Vaz de Caminha’s letter is treated as a “Brazilian birth certificate”, which, according to the report, “induces the exclusion of native peoples as legitimate inhabitants of our territory”.

The report forwarded these and other criticisms of the report to the Department of Education, which responded that they “are out of context, are partial and do not consider that the classes are related to content that will be developed in future classes, including in an interdisciplinary way, in accordance with established planning practices school”.

On Wednesday (2), a group of writers specializing in textbooks met to evaluate digital content offered to students in state schools through the São Paulo Education Media Center, the platform used for classes.

The group of authors was coordinated by Maria Cecilia G. Condeixa, president of Abrale, former teacher in public and private schools, author of educational materials for more than four decades and representative of Brazil in the International Student Assessment Program (PISA) of 2000 to 2006.

The authors’ initiative was a reaction to the decision of the Tarcísio de Freitas administration (Republicans) to start using only digital didactic material produced by the government in state schools. As of 2024, printed books and digital teaching material produced by publishers and traditionally purchased for schools through the PNLD (National Textbook Program) will be abandoned, with funds from the National Fund for the Development of Education, of the MEC.

The authors of Abrale, who, like the entire educational content publishing market, will be directly affected by the change, also mobilized due to the criticism made of the PNLD textbooks by the Secretary of Education of São Paulo, Renato Feder.

In an interview with SheetFeder stated that he and technicians from the Secretariat evaluated the books and concluded that “they have lost content, quality and are superficial”.

About this, Abrale stated that “the books of the PNLD spend, on average, three years in the process of authorial and editorial construction, until they are submitted to a rigorous evaluation process by a panel composed of members of Brazilian universities and teachers of basic education” . He also demanded that the secretary point out exactly why, in his opinion, textbooks “lost quality”.

“Did they lose quality? Content? What? Books are required to strictly comply with the BNCC [Base Nacional Comum Curricular]the Curriculum Guidelines and the LDB [Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional] and follow MEC public notices built from constitutional normative parameters”, says the note.

The materials presented by the Secretary of Education of SP in its Media Center “do not have this conceptual, normative and editorial rigor”, stated the authors in the report sent to the Sheet. At the end of the text, they tease: “Proposal: Put them side by side [os livros didáticos do PNLD e os produzidos pelo governo de SP] at any panel of scholars and ask for their opinion”.

The report evaluates, among other contents produced by the São Paulo Department of Education, a Portuguese language activity for the 7th grade that proposes to the student the production of a report with a fictional theme. This theme is a new letter by Pero Vaz de Caminha, which would have been found and which would become part of an exhibition called Brazil and Its History Telled by Objects – all fictitious.

In times of fake news, points out the report, the activity guides the student to invent the entire report, fantasizing about every detail: “Where was the letter discovered, by whom and how?; When was it written?; What is the subject?; How much How long was it under review? Were those responsible for the analysis Portuguese, Brazilian or both historians?”

The objective of the activity would be, among others, the planning of a report. But nothing that was proposed, as the report points out, matches “with the making of a report, much less with its planning”. “A journalistic report is based on reports and analysis of data from elements of the real world.”

Furthermore, the activity does not give examples of reports, does not teach how to plan them, nor does it explain rules of this discursive genre. “It’s basically farcical activity.”

The material is also criticized for being used as content for Life Project classes, without providing subsidy for this. “There is, simply, an association of the term ‘life project’ with ‘planning’. And that’s it”, wrote the didactic authors in the report.

In another 7th grade Portuguese language activity analyzed by the authors, Pero Vaz de Caminha’s letter is also the subject and is entitled “Letter: historical document”. The objective would be to work on the letter text genre. But, according to the writers’ analysis, instead, the material confuses the student, implying that “letter: historical document” would be a discursive genre. “It is not.”

The concepts become even more confusing, according to them, when the material points out that Caminha’s letter would be “the birth certificate of Brazil”, which “ratifies the notion of ‘discovery’, adopting the perspective of Portuguese colonial logic”.

He also states that the material does not cover the development of skills provided for in the BNCC, such as “analyzing the way in which request and complaint letters are organized” and “linguistic marks related to argumentation, explanation or reporting of facts”.

The report also points to problems in a 6th grade history material on the Hebrews. The slides focus on religious aspects, informing that “these people were the first to adopt monotheism, they believed in only one God”, that “their stories are known in Brazil due to the diffusion of the Bible through Christianity”, etc.

For the authors, the class “restricts itself to presenting the Hebrews from a biblical point of view” and is “superficial and generalist in relation to the political structure and economic base”.

A geography video lesson is also questioned for using maps without bibliographic reference and presenting too much content for a short class time — this material, according to the São Paulo Department of Education, is old and is not being used.

See the full response from the SP government

“The analyzes pointed out by the report are out of context, are partial and disregard that the classes are related to content that will be developed in future classes, including in an interdisciplinary way, according to established practices of school planning. Both the geography content and the Portuguese language content are initial materials that will be deepened throughout the school year on the topics proposed in each class.

The development of digital classes is anchored in the Paulista Curriculum and all its aspects. The materials used in the classroom support the teacher in conducting classes and explaining concepts to students. Thus, the material is adaptable precisely to allow each teacher to customize the didactic content according to the reality and needs of each class.”