Gabriel Mario Rodrigues
Chairman of the Board of Directors of ABMES
“All learning involves risks as well as failures. This should be part of every professional’s mental model.” Geoge Hallembeck – Director of the Center for Creative Leadership
Last week, the media in bold letter headlines reported that 4.8 million Brazilians, fit for work and disillusioned, gave up looking for work. It is bombastic news that affects all of us, individuals or parents.
The reason lies in the economic crisis, no doubt, but also in the demand for new jobs that require a higher level of skills, creativity and initiative. Themes that in its Thursday edition, 16, the newspaper Valor Econômico exorbitated in quality of contents, with articles by Hugo Passarelli; Eduardo Carvalho, Stela Campos, and, finally, in Rumo Certo, of Betânia Tanure.
For those who work with education, they are basic readings that add a lot and lead us to reflection, hoping that also the consultants of the presidential candidates, and why not for themselves?, are interested in incorporating in their governmental platforms some innovations that are being discussed in the education sectors. Especially if you are already aware of the existence of the most serious problems we face.
Regarding the first article, “Schools Need to Change Their Approach and Develop Students Who Can Think, Says Expert”, by the experienced Hugo Passarelli, we highlight the issue of forming creative students. “Thinking differently is the way out of achieving better results, whether in the classroom or in corporate environments.” This is what Michael Patton, the expert on “assessments focused on usage,” says.
Patton participated in the 14th International Evaluation Seminar held by Itaú Social, the Roberto Marinho Foundation (FRM), the C&A Institute and the Group of Institutes, Foundations and Companies (Gife) in São Paulo. The speaker made precious recommendations in his exposition, such as that it is difficult to get out of a spiral of bad results without changing the approach and bringing students and parents into the discussion. Because it is not about proposing better evaluations, but different evaluations. There is no use doing something better that is not exactly useful and will not bring better results. In fact, the matter is of interest to INEP.
For Hugo Barreto, secretary general of the FRM, changing the ratings is a requirement of today’s times, because in a faster and more competitive world it is necessary to verify the effectiveness of actions. And he ends with another strong expression: “In these times in which we live, it takes much more than a desire to change, we must have the capacity to change.”
On the other issue, “Educational Excellence Should be a Priority,” Eduardo Carvalho, in his article, threw a bomb into MEC offices saying that the Basic National Education Curriculum, just approved, will be born out of date. For Carvalho, we are still not at the bottom of the barrel, but soon we will arrive at this “achievement” with the poor results of both the Ideb and Pisa, national and world indicators that confirm the precariousness of Brazilian education and its consequent loss of productivity and competitiveness for the country.
In the 2015 Ideb educational index, we reached the average of 3.7 points, a rate practically stagnant since 2005 when the indicator was 3.4, on a scale of 0-10. Also in 2015 we were in the 59th position among 66 participating countries of Pisa.
Not without reason, Carvalho almost puts an epitaph on the subject of Brazilian education when he points out that every year the World Economic Forum (WEF) compiles a report on competitiveness and in the last of 137 countries surveyed, the quality of our primary education was in the 127th position while higher education has stifled at the 125th.
And the bad news is not over yet: universities follow the low educational level, as a Times Higher Education survey (2018) points out , none of the Brazilians HEI ranked among the top 200 in the world. It should be added that these indicators have been stagnant since 2007.
Higher education is a separate chapter of discussion. It must also be inserted in the Ministry of Science and Technology because it must be treated differently from the basic and technical teachings. A top priority is to inject quality into the system and to attract the best universities in the world and create “university cities of excellence”.
Another priority is that technical education must be reinvented, urgently, because at what cost do we keep the “S” models and the federal and state technical schools?
Lately we have been insistently hearing that we must learn to learn, and other derived expressions by those who want to explain, to justify a new didactic-pedagogical vision. In this realm we can find psychologists and other professionals wanting to give solutions in the aspects of cognitions.
The subject of Stela Campos – “It is Necessary to Recognize Who is Agile When Learning” – challenges the “slow-goers” to get ahead because there is an enormous failure in recognizing who is really agile in learning. And we’re not talking about the gifted. To ignore those who “hurry” is to lose the chance to get better results when they are exposed to situations of pressure for innovation and transformation. And the evaluation of the picture is simple: not everyone is willing to learn, it is a factual choice.
This is according to consultant and psychologist George Hallenbeck, director of the Center for Creative Leadership during the talk he gave at the National Congress on People Management. For him there is a difference between the so-called “high potential”, who are apprentices strongly focused on their field of activity and who are interested in acquiring more technical expertise, and the “high professionals”, more agile and willing learners coming from all different places.
Hellenbeck believes that the best way to foster agile learning is to direct the student to situations that require the development of certain skills that will be needed to cope in a given moment. It’s a task for the school, or the teacher, anyway.
In her provocative article, “What Mobilizes You, Interest, Fear, or an Ideal?”, Betania Tanure, a doctor, teacher and consultant, opens curtains that set the tone for people’s behavior in these predicates.
According to Bethany, the interest, and in some cases the fear, is organized quickly, with strategy, with precision, with time invested. After all, the target is clear, the benefit is perceived more easily and quickly, but a high price is paid, usually in the short run, if the “operation is not performed.” At this point, well within the time of the upcoming elections, it is worth emphasizing that the interests that favor individuals, to the detriment of the majority of society, tend to aggregate people more easily than aspirations of a collective or social, or, in other words, ideals.
These reasons merit deep reflection because it is always worth remembering that, not infrequently, people throw themselves in a harmonious way to conquer their desires and, often, their interests and their fears can be faster and more daring than the ideal.
The approaches of these authors need to be analyzed at this moment in which everyone expects a greater role for the educational sector as an anchor in the discussions of the development of Brazil.
And it is within this objective that the Forum of Entities Representative of Higher Private Education is presenting a set of proposals to serve as subsidies for the elaboration of the plans of government for the educational sector, entitles: “Elections 2018 – 10 Proposals Relevant to Brazilian Higher Education”.
In the same vein, and to discuss these important issues, ABMES will hold an event on September 11 in its headquarters with the presence of representatives of the main candidates for the Presidency of the Republic.
If we take into account at the moment what is necessary for the country’s growth in higher education, it will not be enough for us to spend four more years wailing because the government does not give the necessary attention to the issue. The time for change we want is now!
