Opinion – Helio Beltrão: Approval of home education is welcome

In 2008, I learned from the newspapers that a simple family in Timóteo, Minas Gerais, was being persecuted by the state for failing to enroll their children in public school. Cleber Nunes and his wife, Bernadeth, opted for homeschooling their children, Jônatas and David, from 10 and 11 years old, respectively. They thought that public education until then had been deficient and inadequate.

I was impressed with the resilience of those parents who faced the system that threatened to take away custody of their children for an alleged intellectual abandonment that never existed.

I read that report and, immediately, started hunting for Cleber’s contact. I told him I would like to go to Timothy that week to meet him and shake his hands. A beautiful friendship was born from this sudden meeting in Minas Gerais.

The civil and criminal battle against the Guardianship Council, the Public Ministry and the government would still take years. The pressure was extraordinary. Preserved as far as possible from the terror of the situation, the boys shone: they passed the entrance exam two years before the traditional age. While litigating in the Court of Justice, tests with very short notice were imposed on the boys.

The Nunes family won all the battles, and the war. Justice withdrew from taking custody, and Jonathan and David came of age under homeschooling. By virtue of his principles, Cleber refused to pay the fines decreed in the civil and criminal spheres.

Like Cleber and Bernadeth, there are thousands of families in Brazil that face the legal uncertainty of homeschooling. There is no prohibition in our legal system, but in practice the risk of persecution is enormous.

It is therefore auspicious that the Chamber of Deputies has approved home education (ED). There are several safeguards in place, such as periodic assessments and child protection. The bill goes to the Senate and presidential sanction.

DE does not constitute a proposal for a public education policy. It mainly represents the decriminalization of a teaching method that can be adapted to the specific situation of hundreds of thousands of families.

Typical cases are parents-teachers, parents who prefer tutors over closed schools, religious centers and parents who reject the curriculum canned by the State (with premature sexual education, questionable versions of Brazilian history or other inappropriate pasteurizations for very diverse families. in customs and traditions in the vast national territory).

Studies invariably show that parents who commit to DE on average provide an academic environment with excellent results, especially compared to public education (“Academic Achievement…”, Brian Ray, 2010). Socialization also presents equal or better results (“…The Question of Socialization, Medlin, 2013).

Despite the extensive literature, the cry against ED is great and comes from the same well of so many other ills in Brazil: the statist mentality, the addiction to paternalism. They claim that the state is better in your child’s interest than you are.

A central part of the concept of “education” is what is learned at home: habits, values, ethics. The school can touch on these topics, but above all, quality “education” and intellectual training are expected.

Unfortunately, our deficient public education is a perpetuating machine of inequality of opportunity. The simplest, like the Nunes family, want something better. It cannot be ruled out that competition and experimentation arising from DE will gradually encourage the improvement of future public education.