Starting with the existing educational framework in Brazil and keeping in mind the reality that professors live in their schools, the project represents a proposal for working throughout the school year on a democratic citizenship project with students between 13 and 18 years old.
For its implementation, participating professors completed a training process and also received a copy of the project’s pedagogical guide. This guide contains all of the necessary information to be able to roll out Citizenship and Democracy in School to the classroom.
Currently divided in two parts, the project looks to consider a series of questions with students in the classroom. Spread across five different thematic axes, the first phase provides a framework for covering a broad series of themes including: 1) identity and diversity, 2) dignity and respect, 3) human rights, 4) democracy and the right to information, and 5) citizenship, cooperation, and solidarity.
The second phase, for its part, works to stimulate the participation of students through the development of their own research projects. These projects, completed in groups, allow students to explore and develop their own particular interests and concerns. As a final product, each group produces a video to represent their work on a specific topic or theme. These videos can be presented to the community as a tool for peer-to-peer education.
In 2018, the initiative’s successful development was made possible through a pilot phase, which was rolled out in seven of the country’s public schools – two in the Federal District of Brasilia and five in Sao Paulo – in collaboration with each state’s Secretary of Education. Over the course of 2019, the Auschwitz Institute’s programming involved a total of 60 teachers and educational coordinators, 22 schools, and 2,629 students. In 2020, while impacted by the COVID 19 Pandemic, the project welcomed the participation of 211 teachers while reaching a total of 741 students from 3 different states: Sao Paulo, Brasília and Paraiba.
