 The School Board welcomes Anne-Marie as a volunteer
|  What are we going to do today? |  Informal discussions on problems of vital interest |  On the way to the woods |  How can we overcome so many obstacles? |  The way into one of the slums where some of the young people live. |  | After seeing TV programs about my activities in Educational Guidance and reading the corresponding article in the newspaper Folha Dirigida, someone has given this kind of work the title of an education which liberates.
I was delighted with the definition, because it corresponds exactly to what I am trying to achieve as an educator, whether with young slum dwellers, or with private lessons to children and adolescents from upper-class Brazilian families. To me, all of them, without any discrimination, are human beings hungry for love and understanding, worthy of personal attention to develop the wealth and poverty within each one.
Neither children nor adults like to be ordered around, because such orders generally have more to do with the mentality of the person who gives them than with the understanding and convictions of those on the receiving end, especially in the case of adolescents.
To educate means to help people discover their own defects in order to correct or eliminate them. It means stressing the value of the talents they possess, which can be developed and made the foundations of their future lives. To educate means that slum dwellers, who are often rejected and despised, become conscious of their own worth, and so shake off whatever hinders them from facing life with hope, because they have learned to have confidence in themselves, to respect themselves as persons worthy of being respected by society.
To educate implies creating links of trust and friendship with students, giving them what we hope they will pass on to others.
To educate means to transmit life, love and respect for the potential value all human beings carry within themselves.
Theoretical knowledge is indispensable, but it is not the most important factor in education. What is essential is a profound knowledge of human nature, the awakening of latent feelings, treating students as unique beings. They are individuals capable of evolving and working in ways suited to them, and of showing others how to carry on that work, of being in solidarity with those in need, and irradiating happiness, because they have discovered that the essential dimension of life is love that is experienced and shared. This is how God loves all humankind.
Wouldn’t such an education be one of the best means, or perhaps the very best, to free the world from its present suffering: violence, terrorism, selfishness, thirst for power and wealth?
Anne-Marie Paternot rscj
Province of Brazil A remarkable instance of leadership and change The education of young slum dwellers.
The study deals with leadership in a changing culture, focused on the education of young dwellers in “favelas”, shanty towns of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Based on a theoretical model developed by the Canadian Professor Michael Fullan, the aim of the study is to analyze an educational experience developed by Anne-Marie Paternot, Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The purpose of this experience is to help young people from the “favelas” who attend classes in a municipal school to become aware of the need to change behaviour and values that hinder their full development.
In the introduction, the study presents the arguments to be discussed and tested in the following sections. A second part gives a brief vision of the “Fullan Model” and its five dimensions: moral purpose, understanding of changes, creation of relationships, development and sharing of knowledge and, ensuring consistency. According to Fullan, leadership based on these dimensions furthers hope, energy and enthusiasm, essential conditions for a success of the envisaged changes. In the third section, the study presents a review of some distinctive aspects of Brazilian culture, followed in the fourth section by an analysis of the experience developed by Anne-Marie Paternot.
This analysis represents an attempt to re-interpret in a scientific manner, according to the Fullan model, the leadership developed by the education of young slum dwellers. In its conclusion, the study concentrates on the results of the experience of leadership and change experienced by Anne-Marie and her students. Lastly, and not less important, the study recommends that this educational experience, analyzed in a scientific manner, be replicated so that it becomes credible and capable of inspiring educational policies for young dwellers of “favelas” and city outskirts in other regions of Brazil, as well as in other countries. Ignez Martins Tollini Ph.D. If you would like to receive the complete text, contact Dr. Ignez Martins Tollini:
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The text will be sent in Portuguese or in English, according to the request. |
