{"id":67563,"date":"2021-10-11T11:13:36","date_gmt":"2021-10-11T14:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=67563"},"modified":"2021-10-13T09:38:23","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T12:38:23","slug":"in-brazil-law-requiring-african-history-in-schools-turns-18-how-has-it-been-implemented-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=67563","title":{"rendered":"In Brazil, Law Requiring African History in Schools Turns 18\u2014How Has it Been Implemented?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

This article is the latest contribution to our year-long reporting project, \u201c<\/i>Rooting Anti-Racism in the Favelas<\/i><\/a>: Deconstructing Social Narratives About Racism in Rio de Janeiro.\u201d\u00a0<\/i>It is also part of\u00a0a series<\/a>\u00a0created in partnership with the\u00a0Center for Critical Studies in Language, Education, and Society (NECLES)<\/a>, at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), to produce articles to be used as teaching materials in Niter\u00f3i public schools.\u00a0Follow our\u00a0<\/i>Rooting Anti-Racism in the Favelas series here<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This year, Law 10,639\/03<\/a>, which establishes requirements for the teaching of Afro-Brazilian history and culture in schools, turns 18. According to the legal text, every school in Brazil should teach “the History of Africa and Africans, the struggle of black people in Brazil, Afro-Brazilian culture, and the contributions of black people in forming national society, including social, economic, and political areas relevant to the History of Brazil.” These topics should all, according to the law, be present in school curricula, “in a multidisciplinary and intersectional way.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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The law was an achievement of the Black Movement<\/a> and of other anti-racist movements in Brazil. It seeks to recognize and value the contributions of African culture and Afro-Brazilians in building the country. The educational system is one of the main re-producers of structural inequities<\/a> and racism in society, but it could instead be instrumental in improving popular perspectives on race. It is in this sense that the law seeks to bring about change.<\/span><\/p>\n

But as it comes of age, how has this law matured? Is it possible to say that it has been well implemented, especially in schools in Rio de Janeiro\u2019s favelas, where the majority of the population is black? In talking with researchers and teachers who work day-to-day in Rio\u2019s municipal school system, we see a long road ahead to better institutionalize the teaching of Afro-Brazilian history and culture.<\/span><\/p>\n

Individual Initiative vs. a Formalized Teaching Plan<\/b><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>Alessandra Pio is a professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN<\/a>), but for a long time worked in elementary education in Rio de Janeiro. She points out that one of the first obstacles in ensuring the effectiveness of Law 10,639\/03 is the difficulty of measuring implementation. In other words: monitoring whether the law is being upheld. “The law is the law; you either apply it or you don’t. When we read between the lines, to ‘apply the law’ has [simply] meant having a black teacher organize a Black Awareness Month<\/a> event in November at their school… But that’s not applying the law,” says Professor Pio.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ensuring that educational institutions are engaging with Afro-Brazilian culture ends up the responsibility of black teachers themselves, who find themselves in the position of having to urge their peers to implement the law. “It seems that the law is only intended to be carried out by black people. The responsibility of white people<\/a> is optional. So, at the school level, they demand that we solve the implementation of Law 10,639,” adds Pio.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Silvia Barros is coordinator of the Center for Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous Studies in Rio de Janeiro (NEABI-RJ)<\/a>. She gives specialized teacher training in ethnic-racial studies, working with people from different parts of Rio. Barros also notes the solitary struggle of teachers who try to apply the law in their schools, but without any support. “This feeling of doing it alone or of being the reference in the school: ‘talk to so-and-so because he’s the one who knows about these issues,’ creates a lot of responsibility for just one person,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

The individual actions of black teachers trying to implement Law 10,639<\/a> reveal how many schools do not embrace the teaching of Afro-Brazilian history and culture in their teaching plans<\/a> as they should. “Many times, the teaching plan is a ‘big brick’ [a very big book] that just sits on the coordination room shelf. Nobody touches it, nobody sees it. It\u2019s something that people aren\u2019t involved in creating. Schools are hierarchical, they like hierarchical structures,\u201d says Pio.<\/span><\/p>\n

Barros mentions the need for more actions that are broadly and deeply rooted in ethnic-racial studies. “There are many elements preventing effective, anti-racist change to expand and take root in all areas of a school, both in the formal curriculum and in <\/span>everything that exists inside the school. Even if it is not explicitly [part of the curriculum, we need to consider] the organization of classrooms, posters that hang on walls, conversations and speeches given, the school lunch, what is eaten, who the students are that receive that food, who are the people who produce that food. All these elements that make up a school community are still very far from real change,” she concludes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Ros\u00e1ria Diniz has worked in municipal public education for 26 years, both as a teacher and a coordinator in five schools. Having taught in all of them, and worked as a pedagogical coordinator in one, Diniz currently teaches in a public school in Taquara<\/a>, in the West Zone<\/a> of Rio. With her vast experience, she sees that there are insufficient institutionalized actions, which depend less on the individuals making up the school staff, but that are instead implicit in the intersectional and multidisciplinary way curricular subjects should be taught, as is required by law. Further institutionalized actions are needed to actually implement the teaching of African and Afro-Brazilian history in Rio\u2019s public schools. “What I have come to realize from my own path is that, of all the five schools I’ve worked at, the only one that has incorporated this issue into its formal teaching plan is the one I\u2019m at now. The issue normally has a lot more to do with a teacher’s point of view than with an institutionalized standard,” she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Teacher Training<\/b><\/h3>\n

In partnership with UNESCO<\/a>, the Ministry of Education<\/a> conducted a survey<\/a> in 2012 that revealed the main barriers in advancing Law 10,639\/03. One of the factors indicated is a lot of misinformation or ignorance about the change in the Law of Directives and Bases of National Education (LDB)<\/a>, along with other documents that affect this change. One of the institutions involved in conducting this research was NEABI. Silvia Ramos explains where this ignorance stems from: “Today I understand that curricular changes should be made in undergraduate courses. What I see is that some topics are included as extensions, just to say that certain information is covered. In the School of Modern Languages, we’ve been fighting for all majors to have enough content on African literature. And I see this happening in other academic areas as well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Alessandra Pio has also diagnosed a need to change university curricula. “There is a common racist pushback claiming that: ‘including more Africa<\/a> will undermine the curriculum.\u2019 We are just so colonized! This argument of not giving Law 10,639 an institutional status is because racism rejects [African History] as knowledge worth being institutionalized,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Religious Racism in Public Education<\/b><\/h3>\n

The growth of the evangelical movement in Brazilian society, especially the neo-Pentecostal sector, can be observed in several spheres, including schools. This has been one of the main challenges in enforcing the teaching of Afro-Brazilian history and culture: resistance from parents, teachers, or school boards that reject the faith, culture, and history of black people as demonic.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Religious racism<\/a> is a very strong force, especially in Greater Rio’s Baixada Fluminense<\/a>, in the peripheries. The neo-Pentecostal movement has invaded schools in an irreversible way, I think… If we start to enforce the law such that people who do not implement it suffer the necessary sanctions, then we can start to have a more equitable dialogue,” says Alessandra Pio.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Repressed and criminalized<\/a>, black and favela culture have always been seen as an issue for the police. Even today, there is fear of black culture<\/a> and of black religiosity<\/a>. According to Barros, in schools, this manifests itself mainly through evangelical parents: “but obviously it has to be talked about because there is no way to disconnect one thing from the other. Many times, there is religious racism coming from the school itself, where there is rejection, and from guardians, who are inclined towards other religious denominations and don’t want their children to have contact [with African cultures and religions].”<\/span><\/p>\n