The School belongs to everyone, destroy your part!

A truncated title is a good title for clickbait , but it is a title that can distort its content. For example, the title “We have bad teachers!” or “The Portuguese don’t want to work!” may contain pertinent information and properly contextualize the respective themes and points of view, but if we stick to the title alone, the idea formed must surely be wrong. The meaning of the title of this article is, obviously, figurative and the appeal that is intended to be made is to destroy the barriers that are being erected in schools and in society. It is a title that refers to the construction of the bridges necessary for a pluralistic school, but that simultaneously respects the individuality of each person and where we are all the other .

School is a laboratory of democracy. It is at school, in a collaborative effort with the family, that students are equipped with the tools to fully exercise their citizenship. Competition is fierce and fierce, and social media is an excellent vehicle for atomized messages (reliable or dubious, it doesn't matter) that are ready to be consumed. In contrast, school promotes reasoning, formulation, questioning, and, in short, critical thinking. It is supported by science (and not perception) supported by social, aesthetic, ethical and moral values, which are fundamental in society. Take, for example, the famous paradox of tolerance , formulated by Karl Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies : by being tolerant of the intolerant, we put tolerance itself and, with it, democracy, at risk. This is a crucial idea in the process of building citizenship, where deep and persistent obstacles are encountered in schools: bullying , racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and dating violence do not come out of nowhere — they are learned, reproduced, and if nothing is done, they will continue to be normalized... “Ah!, now we can't say anything!” is the usual phrase that comfortably appeals to maintaining the status quo. As Sérgio Godinho sings in As Armas do Amor , disarm prejudice, disarm intolerance. The prejudice that can live in each one of us. The intolerance that can allow and foster exclusion. Destroy your part of prejudice and intolerance.

Without immigration, our economy would be facing serious problems. Without it, we would have difficulty picking cherries or peaches, fishing, building… We have demographic problems. Therefore, closing doors to cultural and human diversity is mortgaging our own future, in a logic of extreme pride in our past and in the hollow belief in the Lusitanian race . “There is a Portuguese in every corner of the world”, is a phrase that is repeated and, usually, with satisfaction. Today, in our schools, and in our country, there is room for every corner of the world, and this should also make us proud and not fear and prejudice. Diversity enriches us, as will be seen on July 10th at the Teatro Municipal da Covilhã, at the 1st Multicultural Concert of Beira Interior, an initiative promoted by the Santa Casa da Misericórdia da Covilhã, where musicians from different cultural backgrounds will share the stage with migrant children and young people living in the municipality of Covilhã. Destroy your share of fear and prejudice.

On 18 June, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance published a report on Portugal, warning about bullying in Portuguese schools, proposing a uniform curriculum across the country, particularly in “Citizenship and Development”, in order to promote the fight against intolerance against racialized or LGBTI people. Bullying is violence that arises precisely from differences in skin tone, accent, sexual orientation, body size, disability, religion or economic status. To remain silent is to consent, to be complicit. Destroy your part of the silence.

Even in science there are no absolute truths. There are doubts, hypotheses and tests. Knowledge is not built through perceptions, but through research, questioning, experimentation and peer-to-peer confrontation. Likewise, in civic education, we should not base education on preconceived and prejudiced ideas, nor allow fears fuelled by populist discourse and lies spread on social media. The exercise of citizenship requires scrutiny, thought and empathy.

Teaching is a noble, challenging and rewarding profession, but it is also risky! This risk has to do with the raw material we work with. There is no goldsmith, jeweler or aerospace engineer who has something more precious than us, teachers. We work with the most valuable, important and simultaneously sensitive raw material. We teachers are working today on the future of our country, and even more so, on our world. Therefore, today more than ever: Destroy your part. Of prejudice. Of silence. Of indifference. Of intolerance. Of fear. And help build a school for everyone.