2025 has arrived, and with it come new challenges. In addition to new classes and new students, we need to start the school year with a new professional mindset—one driven by a vision for a new future, rather than a rigidly fixed past.

For this reason, we need to adopt a new mindset and make a truly positive impact on the process of shaping the next generation of citizens, who must be prepared for the world.

To begin with, my invitation to you, as an educator—whether you are a teacher or an administrator—is to reflect on two words that are fundamental to building the new classroom model: tradition and innovation.

To bring our Pedagogical Policy to life at our institution, we must have a clear understanding of our “Values, Principles, and Mission.” This reflects our “Tradition,” while also ensuring it remains relevant. It is the responsibility of every administrator to explicitly review this document at the beginning of each school year so that everyone—including new school staff—is aware of it, enabling everyone to bring it to life.

In this way, we can ensure that the institution’s purpose—the very reason for its existence—becomes a guiding principle for teaching and a reality in everyday school life. In this context, we reaffirm all the principles that define our school to ensure that everything that has been positive and relevant in shaping the institution’s history is preserved and also adapted to the changing times.

Therefore, it is also essential that there be room for reflection on “innovation,” which is necessary in the school setting. We must understand the current context so that, from there, we can provide new responses to new challenges based on the consistency of concepts and skills that, as we understand it, should be developed in the day-to-day classroom setting.

To do this, we need to adopt new perspectives and develop new practices that address these challenges. But what are some of the challenges we will face? Of course, every school will have its own, but I’ll mention a few here that I believe are common to many different institutions:

• Implementation of the BNCC: it is already underway, but this process still needs to be refined so that our focus is on the development of skills and competencies;
• New High School: requires a reorganization of the curriculum and clear objectives to truly prepare students for life;
• Systematization of the use of active methodologies and new technologies, with an emphasis on Artificial Intelligence, which must be viewed as strategies and resources that add value to the educational process and holistic development;
• Personalized education: in order to increasingly address diversity and ensure the inclusion of everyone in a high-quality educational process, with due equity;
• Development of social-emotional skills: so that we can go beyond “hard skills” and ensure that “soft skills” foster the development of abilities and competencies that contribute to the mental health of today’s generations;
• Raising awareness of the practice of formative assessment that ensures the student’s holistic and process-oriented development, with a focus on learning objectives;
• Providing ongoing professional development opportunities for teachers: thereby fostering a process of lifelong learning that enhances educators’ performance while addressing the challenges of educating future generations;
• Development of 21st-century skills, particularly the ability to learn continuously, creativity, and critical thinking.

There are so many challenges, aren't there?!

And to truly bring about a transformation in the classroom, we need to consider the role of the teacher, who must take a leading role in the process of personal and collective development.

To kick off their lesson planning, teachers must understand the context of their class, adapt methods and content to accommodate different learning styles, and propose strategies that foster critical thinking and creativity.

Just as they should use digital technologies in a balanced way to personalize instruction, challenge their students to commit to learning, recognize their strengths and weaknesses so they can strive to improve themselves, and cultivate a growth mindset in which they realize that learning doesn’t just happen to them—it also comes from their own initiative.

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And what is the principal’s role? In this context, it is the principal’s responsibility to create an environment at the school where calculated risks are accepted and where, within that environment, exchange and collaboration serve as motivating forces for change.

It is also important for the administrator to provide opportunities for constructive performance evaluations, where teachers can self-assess to recognize their successes or challenges and thus adjust their approaches during meetings with their coordinators. Furthermore, it is the administrator’s responsibility to facilitate a forum for sharing best practices so that a learner support network can be established within the department and the school.

In addition to teachers taking the lead in developing their own up-to-date teaching profiles, it is essential to foster students who are also self-directed and able to contribute to the development of their own learning plans. The classroom must be more welcoming, engaging, motivating, and interactive in order to ensure flexibility in the use of resources, time, and space in the process of facilitating dialogue among the various participants.

This classroom for the new era must promote uninterrupted learning in the here and now through formal education, using a variety of platforms.

AI will help with data analysis to improve educational management and also to personalize teaching. We will increasingly use virtual and augmented reality, chatbots, and digital simulators as resources. Teaching materials will incorporate e-books, mobile devices… and, for this reason, we must not forget to emphasize the ethical use of digital tools, raising everyone’s awareness of this issue—which will challenge us to learn even more!

In this context of change and new challenges, we need to develop our capacity for adaptability—where innovation adds value to our practice—through reflective and well-founded decision-making that leads to assertive choices consistent with learning objectives and, consequently, to the development of pedagogical intentionality, an indispensable skill for achieving personal and institutional goals.

This school, which is undergoing a process of change, must develop a curriculum that bridges the gap between society and the school, incorporating cultural, political, and social aspects, and bringing together diverse experiences, content, and skills.

All of this will only be possible when managers embrace reflective leadership and engage their teams in this effort, fostering a sense of belonging and understanding of the PPP to ensure the project’s identity, cultivating a spirit of shared responsibility, and thereby fostering acceptance among peers and, consequently, empowerment. We must be open to continually reinventing ourselves.

Congratulations on your new classroom! Congratulations on your new school!

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