Thomazia Montoro: ‘It was a hostile environment’, says psychologist – 03/29/2023 – Cotidiano

The state school Thomazia Montoro, where a 13-year-old student stabbed a teacher to death and injured five other people on Monday (27), was already in 2018 a hostile environment, with a lot of aggression and shouting, according to psychologist Thiago Nistal. At that time, he worked on a project with students, teachers and staff at the Vila Sônia school, in the west zone of São Paulo, which aimed to reduce conflicts.

“We worked with students who had learning difficulties and more aggressive behavior”, he narrates to Sheet the psychologist, who will now participate in a support group for parents of students at the post-tragedy school. “There was violence in the relationship between students and between them and teachers and staff, who did not receive training and tools to deal with the complexity of conflicts.”

This environment that Nistal says he found at Thomazia Montoro was unfortunately not, according to him, an exception in public education. “What we saw there was a portrait of an unhealthy education system, without structure, which does not offer tools for teachers, managers and other employees to act for a healthy coexistence”, he says, who has continued, since then, doing volunteer work in public schools.

Thomazia Montoro was the first school attended by the Instituto Mosaico de Desenvolvimento Integral, an NGO of which Nistal, 45, was a member. At the time, he was finishing a psychology course, his second graduation – his first was communication, and he had already specialized in music therapy, using musical instruments in conversation circles with students, educators and school staff.

The work at Thomazia Montoro was voluntary, authorized, according to Nistal, by the teaching board. At school, according to him, the NGO came across episodes of bullying and racism among students in 2018. Five years later, the attack on the school would be preceded by a fight in which the aggressor called a colleague a “monkey”. The boys fought on Friday (24), three days before the attack, and were separated by teacher Elisabeth Tenreiro, 71, the first to be fatally attacked by the student.

Nistal reports having observed a lot of difficulty in the relationship between professors and students at the time. “Children and teenagers said they were even called stupid by teachers, who, in turn, complained about the lack of respect from students.”

Nistal ponders that “the fault, obviously, was not one or the other, but a system that respects neither teachers nor students”.

He says he came across educators genuinely interested in improving coexistence with students, and one of them was Jane Gasperini Apergis, a Portuguese teacher, who was injured by the 13-year-old student in the attack on Monday.

“She was very dedicated and aware of the need to develop a healthy relationship with the students”, says Nistal. “Very moved, she gave us a statement talking about the difficulty she had in creating bonds with the students and that she would really like to receive tools for this, because she knew that this was the only way learning could happen”, recalls the psychologist.

WITHOUT PSYCHOLOGISTS

In the midst of an environment of violence that has worsened with the pandemic, state schools in São Paulo are without psychologists, although, since 2019, a federal law obliges the public power to ensure psychological care in public education networks.

On February 25 of this year, the Government of São Paulo terminated the contract with an online therapy service aimed at schools. According to the new management of the Department of Education, the program had been created during the pandemic and was ineffective, especially after the return of face-to-face classes. According to the advice of the secretariat, the services will be resumed, in person, from May.

The secretariat of management Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans) stated that “all schools in the state network rely on conflict mediation that can be carried out by the coexistence guiding teacher or by the school organization coordinator”. “The Program for the Improvement of Coexistence and School Protection, Conviva, was created with the proposal that every school should be a supportive, collaborative, welcoming and safe learning environment, in the pursuit of learning improvement”, said the folder, through note.

Conviva SP was launched after the Suzano massacre at Raul Brasil state school in 2019, in which two former students killed eight people. According to the secretariat, there are currently 500 school organization coordinators, who receive training in conflict mediation from the program, a number that the new administration promises to increase to 5,000.

In addition, according to the department, in urgent cases, schools have received support from partnerships with public and private universities. The agency said it could not specifically comment on the work developed by the Instituto Mosaico de Desenvolvimento Integral at Thomazia Montoro in 2018 because these projects are defined by the teaching boards, which have autonomy to seek partners for voluntary projects like this one.

Violence in the school environment exploded after the pandemic and the prolonged closure of schools in the country. A survey by researchers from Unicamp and Unesp counts, since 2002, 22 attacks on schools in Brazil planned by students and former students, with a total of 36 deaths. Of that number, nine occurred as of August last year, with seven dead. This means that the average of just over one attack on schools, which used to be every two years, has become monthly.