Thinking about “civil rights” within the context of a pandemic has been as fundamental as it is challenging. After all, civil law is focused on the collective, on unity and equality, and it is a search that is made as a community, for a more harmonious life for all people.

The “Civil Rights” project has been part of the Year 5 base curriculum for quite a while and, in present times, it has taken on new shapes and colors, responding to our new reality of being, for the most part, apart. This is explained by Professor Flávia Belletati, teacher of the Year 5 bilingual curriculum.

“Sometimes, it is difficult to remember that we are a collective when we are isolated in our homes. This work reminds us about the importance of understanding what role the individual plays within the current social context. Even though it was a great challenge, it was also very welcome because it expanded and diversified a debate that is already being conducted with the Year 5 classes. The discussion about the vaccine, this idea of ​​establishing a social pact for the benefit of society as a whole, that if we all get the vaccine we will help protect the more vulnerable population, is an example of ideas that show the same concept that has been discussed about civil rights in recent years but in a different way.”

The teacher says that since this study belongs to the international curriculum, there is a focus on the history of the United States, while this agenda is also being studied in the Portuguese language curriculum, considering Brazilian contexts. “It is interesting for the children to be able to see contexts beyond Brazil, because they understand that historically there are no universal laws as there are in the natural sciences. They will develop an understanding that all historical examples will not happen in the same way, that each case is unique, with different political, historical, cultural and geographical contexts.  At the same time, the children realize that there are some concepts introduced by human sciences that allow us to verify these different examples under the same light, attempting to understand comparisons and similarities between these processes. In the case of the Y5 curriculum, we are studying how civil rights were established in the North American context and, within that context, the importance of African American groups that play an essential role in this struggle for rights and that specifically contributed to the way laws were established within the USA. The idea is to use the observation of the U.S. example to begin to develop analysis tools for any other democratic context that is within this Western parameter. They are conceptual tools that the child develops.”

In order for this to be meaningful learning, the work takes place in the least abstract way possible and as close as possible to the child’s field of experience. “As we present the examples from the USA, we also consider how this is established within the school and the classroom. ‘Do children have rights? What are these rights? What rights and responsibilities does each individual have within that classroom? Are we exercising our role as good students? How can the actions of each child influence the learning of another child?’. All of these questions come together to foster the child’s understanding of the individual responsibility to establish collective harmony and just as there was this struggle and resistance by African American groups in the U.S. context to question and modify laws that were unjust, we can consider the context in which we live. ‘How do you handle differences within the context of our classroom? What are the differences here?’ Questions like these guide a reflection so that we can draw parallels based on the history of the USA, then perform an analysis within our own context with greater vigor in the second quarter.”

The teacher says that in the second quarter, Year 5 has another project to build a class Constitution, giving the children a chance to apply all these theoretical tools to think about the context in which they live. “They understand that they are active in democracy, that they are citizens, that there is an objective to being in school, they question this reason, understand what is fair and unfair, and begin to scrutinize it. We are planting seeds so that they can have autonomy to reflect on the roles at school, on what they intend to do and question, and they can be agents of conscious transformation, that is, not just changing for the sake of change, but seeking changes with responsibility to the collective.” 

This type of project is highly valued at be.Living because it drives the children to gain greater understanding of how they can affect each other, increasing empathy and understanding that we are all here with the same goals and working, each in their own way, to achieve these objectives, as Flávia concludes. “Some children are more mature, others are less, respecting each others’ nature and pace. But I feel that for all of them, thinking about civil rights has a profound impact on how to handle knowledge, with the school and with responsibility for colleagues within the educational context. This project took on another dimension during the quarantine: to remind us that there is a unity that transcends physical spaces and that even though we are physically apart, we are united by these same goals, values ​​and the same pursuits.”