The word “explain,” from the Latin *patior*, can be used to mean tolerating or allowing something, even though it causes personal pain or suffering. In the context of dialogue, “explain” means to clarify and teach.

We closely monitor cases of intolerance, aggression, and prejudice on social media, in messaging apps, on the streets, on buses, and in the public sphere. The thermometer indicates a feverish state resulting from an illness that has, for the most part, already been diagnosed. Treating this illness is essential and educational, because it affects children and adolescents, both inside and outside of schools, and involves the entire school community—not only students, but also teachers, coordinators, principals, school administrators, parents, friends, and those responsible for the cafeteria, cleaning, and security at schools—as well as society as a whole.

Offensive, discriminatory, xenophobic, racist, and intolerant remarks and behaviors demonstrate a lack of empathy, solidarity, inclusion, acceptance, and civic-mindedness. We believe that schools and educational institutions should adopt dialogue as one of the strategies to combat this scourge.

For meaningful dialogue, it would be urgent to make the “Listening” course a daily practice, as Rubem Alves rightly recommended. The master educator even considered offering such a course, but, discouraged, he concluded: “Everyone wants to learn to speak… No one wants to learn to listen.” Years ago, Alves observed that our inability to listen is the most constant and subtle manifestation of our arrogance and vanity. That is why, today, and under these circumstances, listening has become an indispensable educational component to be integrated into the kind of education we wish to promote for the 21st century.

The BNCC (National Common Core Curriculum) for Basic Education (starting with Early Childhood Education) proposes that children learn to face challenges, solve them, and construct meaning about themselves, others, and the social and natural world; For the new high school curriculum, the BNCC prioritizes, among other things, the development of skills, competencies, and a more engaging educational process for the generation of digital natives, including reading, interpretation, analysis, the ability to relate facts to texts, and the application of knowledge to everyday life. All of this is built over time and through extensive dialogue.

The escalation in the language, attitudes, and behaviors of a segment of the adult population has had a direct impact on our students, especially children and adolescents. As Claudia Costin so aptly observed in her article in Folha de São Paulo, “How can we educate if we don’t stop behaving like children?”, what is needed is “an education for life in society—an education for peaceful coexistence among different people, the foundation of social cohesion—to raise adults who can control their negative impulses and thus live together.”

If we look abroad, two good examples serve as inspiration. Since the 1960s, Germany’s educational system has included a pedagogical approach to the Holocaust as a mandatory part of the curriculum to promote critical reflection on the past and society and to remind us of the dangers to which we are all vulnerable and exposed—intolerance, prejudice, injustice, humiliation, and violence.

We can also draw inspiration from the Finnish education system, which many years ago incorporated critical thinking into the curriculum across various subjects and actively combatsfake news by promoting media literacy. To this end, it teaches children the skills necessary to analyze all information they encounter, whether from online or offline sources.

Dialogue as an antidote—as a vaccine against insults, discrimination, and intolerance—is essential as preparation for our students’ future. When we speak of an education for life, one that prepares students for citizenship and the job market —for existing professions and others yet to emerge—we emphasize that society and the job market are seeking individuals who are committed to empathy, from the Greek “empatheia,” which is nothing more than the psychological capacity to feel, or to put oneself in another person’s shoes if one were in the same situation they are experiencing.

Without any (pre)judgment or relativism regarding “right” and “wrong,” education for tolerance inevitably involves empathy, inclusion, acceptance, citizenship, and—above all, Educators (!), the profound mission of Listening (to oneself and to others) and Dialogue! In short, we need to cultivate the habit of listening—a prerequisite for dialogue to take place.

That’s why, at Bett Brasil, we believe in dialogue!

About the author:

Did you like it? Then share it on your social media: