Students are left without regular subject classes in the 3rd year – 04/16/2023 – Education

With the implementation of the new high school, students from state schools in São Paulo are without history, geography, biology, chemistry and physics classes in the last year of this teaching stage. The new curriculum also provides only two classes per week in mathematics and two in Portuguese.

The state was the first state to implement the curricular changes provided for by the new secondary education law. The then governor João Doria wanted to be the pioneer of the model and, therefore, decided to start the alterations a year before the rest of the country.

Teachers and students, however, have complained about the absence of regular subjects that have been replaced by subjects from training itineraries. In all, around 400,000 students from the state network are in their last year of high school.

In a note, the Department of Education, under the administration of Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), says that it is studying adjustments to the curriculum. The portfolio defends the offer of fewer itineraries and new approaches “in order to guarantee rights”, but does not indicate whether it intends to increase the workload of regular subjects.

The curricular matrix defined by the secretariat during Doria’s management concentrated subjects in the areas of humanities and natural sciences in the first two years of high school. Thus, when students reach the final year, they spend most of their time at school with classes from the itineraries.

With the old curriculum, students had two classes per week in each of these subjects in all three years. Now, in the third year, they no longer have chemistry, physics, biology, history, geography, philosophy and sociology classes.

The workload of mathematics and Portuguese was also reduced by 60% in the last year. Before, there were five classes a week for each of them. Today, there are two.

The reduction occurred to make room for training itineraries —part of the curriculum that, in theory, allows students to choose an area of ​​knowledge to deepen their studies. The problem is that, as shown by the Sheetin many schools students have not had the option to choose.

Students also complain that the disciplines formulated for the itineraries are detached from the traditional content that is required in Enem and entrance exams.

“I’m in the last year of high school, I should be preparing to take the Enem, taking classes on the content that will be on the test. But I get to school and I only have meaningless classes, which don’t help at all”, he complains. Laura Neris, 17, student at Dom Pedro I state school, in the east side of the capital.

The young woman says she wants to study history in college and, therefore, when she was in her first year of high school, she opted for the path of human sciences. She ended up being directed by the school to an itinerary called “Who divides, multiplies”, which, according to the menu, would bring together interdisciplinary contents of humanities and mathematics.

“Classes are confusing, teachers don’t know what content to address”, says the student.

A Sheet spoke with teachers from state schools in the capital and countryside who report feeling students are more unmotivated with their studies. For them, the changes disorganized the curriculum and emptied school content, making young people not see the sense in classes.

A geography teacher at a state school, in the north of São Paulo, says that the reduction in the workload of his discipline forced him to take on many classes on the itineraries. He has been teaching 12 different, newly created subjects, none of which address geography content.

The teacher, who asked not to be identified, says that at times he ignores the content of the new disciplines to teach geography, as he considers it unfair that his students do not learn what they should.

According to educators, the changes have required the search for new ways to motivate students and find alternatives for learning gaps.

Rebecca Cruz, 18, started taking a popular course in Guarulhos, in Greater São Paulo, on Saturdays at the suggestion of a teacher. “He saw that I was discouraged with the classes and gave me the idea of ​​looking for a course. It is what has given me hope that I will be able to pass the Enem, because at school I am not learning anything”, says the student, who intends to attend journalism.

Specialists claim that, with the reduction of regular subject classes and the itineraries not being able to cover the traditional contents, the new secondary education should further worsen the low learning rates at this stage and deepen educational inequalities.

“Private schools continue to offer all the regular subjects every year. They have not abandoned these subjects because they know they need to prepare their students for the entrance exams”, says Anna Helena Altenfelder, president of Cenpec (Center for Studies and Research in Education).

A Sheet consulted five private schools in São Paulo. All reduced the workload of regular subjects, but maintained them for the three years.

For Alexandre Schneider, a researcher at FGV and former municipal secretary of education in São Paulo, the reduction in these classes is the result of a flaw in the conception of the new high school law, which limited the offer of traditional subjects to prioritize itineraries.

“If the country was no longer able to guarantee that students learned mathematics and Portuguese with the old workload, how can we expect that there will be an improvement with the reduction of these classes? greater than what is offered to students.”

In the opinion of Rossieli Soares, who was São Paulo’s Secretary of Education at the time when a new secondary education was defined for São Paulo’s schools, “there is no emptying of training” for students.

“The state network decided not to offer the itineraries in the first year of high school and to focus more on the third year because the student is more mature and autonomous, giving him more opportunity to delve deeper into the areas of interest in this stage of study. conclusion”, says he, who is now Pará’s Secretary of Education.

“In fact, the student has the same workload of classes, with more classes on the itineraries, which deepen the knowledge of the area of ​​knowledge of his choice.”