Parents of students criticize Dante for neutral language – 03/23/2023 – Panel

A group formed by parents of students from Dante Alighieri College, one of the most traditional in the city of São Paulo, wrote a letter in which they criticize the way the institution dealt with the fact that a teacher had shown a video in the classroom that uses the so-called neutral language.

As the Panel showed, parents and guardians asked Dante Alighieri’s directors for explanations about the class, who responded with a statement in which he regretted the teacher’s choice and said that “the editorial treatment of language” does not correspond to the “standard of use of language institutionally adopted by the college.”

The so-called neutral language emerged with the intention of representing non-binary people, who do not identify with either the male or the female gender. Its use gained space in environments such as social networks. In this language, the word “todos”, for example, can be replaced by “todos”.

The use of neutral language in the video in question is restricted to the title “EVOLUTION FOR ALL” to talk about archeology and the study of the past. It was produced by the Laboratory of Archeology and Environmental and Evolutionary Anthropology of the University of São Paulo (USP) (see below).

A member of the parent group, called Dante Antidiscriminatório, privately told the Panel that they came together in 2022 with the aim of sharing anxieties and debating good ways to take the discussion on the racial agenda into the institution.

The idea, he says, has always been to create a good dialogue with the school and jointly think about ways to discuss civilizing issues in the classrooms.

On the issue of neutral language, these parents say they see the school’s recent position very critically.

“The group understood, first of all, that the great opportunity was lost, from the debate on neutral language, to discuss with the students the central issues of trans and non-binary people who have their basic rights and constitutional rights denied daily in all spheres of Brazilian society”, states the letter, which was also delivered to the institution.

Secondly, he says that there is concern about the public exposure of the teacher, who conveyed “material of an informative nature to the students”.

“Mothers, fathers and caregivers have chosen Dante College for more than a century precisely because of its academic excellence and critical training, which only exists with teachers who are confident in exercising their freedom of teaching in the classroom, choosing with autonomy the materials they they deem appropriate for exposure, in order to ensure students’ freedom of learning”, he adds.

The letter also states that the institutions should not “bend to prejudiced and discriminatory claims”, as “divergent opinions exist, and precisely this is the reason why the school can offer space for the exchange of ideas”.

The group concludes by stating that it sees as objectionable the “school’s resistance to promoting a deeper debate between students and teachers” and that there can be no prohibited topics in an educational institution that values ​​its tradition and history of teaching quality.”

In a note to the column, the college said it was “a democratic space for harmonious and friendly coexistence among all, respecting the plurality that exists in society and welcoming all diversity”.

About what happened, he stated that “language is a vast and fluid terrain, which adapts, over time, to sociocultural changes that dictate new configurations” and that he understands that, at present, there are manifestations that use neutral language.

“We defend, however, that any type of modification and update should be discussed by specialists, without being imposed. As with the journalistic textual standard —of which the Sheet is an important symbol—, Dante, based on the pedagogy guidelines currently in force in the country, uses the standard norm of the Portuguese language in his classes”, he concludes.

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