Social distancing effects on the teaching systems and teacher education programmes in Brazil: reinventing without distorting teaching

• Published in: Journal of education for teaching : JET Vol. 46; no. 4; pp. 554 - 564
• Main Authors: Prata- Linhares, Martha Maria, Cardoso, Thiago da Silva Gusmão, Lopes-Jr, Derson S., Zukowsky-Tavares, Cristina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 07-08-2020; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Access to Computers; Access to Education; Broadband communication systems; COVID-19; crisis; Decision making; digital technologies; Disease Control; Distance Education; Distance learning; Educational systems; Educational Technology; Electronic Learning; Equal Education; Foreign Countries; Government Role; Higher Education; Internet; Internet access; Learning; Learning Processes; Online Courses; Pandemics; Politics; School Closing; school closure; Social distancing; social isolation; Teacher education; Teacher Education Programs; Teacher Improvement; Teachers; Teaching; Teaching Methods; Brazil
• ISSN: 0260-7476; 1360-0540
• DOI: 10.1080/02607476.2020.1800406

Brazil is a country with marked social asymmetries, which have an impact on the impoverishment of basic educational proficiencies. We present a snapshot in a cross-sectional documentary study that registered the risk of distorting educational processes even more intensely, due to the easing of political and pedagogical decision-making. Planning and thinking about how to keep our teachers and students learning during the isolation and the post-pandemic period, implies the redesigning of education scenarios, searching for balance in teaching and in the use of technologies and resources. Until now, we have noticed an enlarged reproduction of pre-existing educational asymmetries. People who live in a situation of social vulnerability and digital exclusion are facing many more difficulties in the isolation period, as well as in managing to keep learning, than those in better financial conditions and with broadband internet access. It is a time that requires collective reinvention, bringing together policies and practices in a resolutive and equitable way.