A spiritual boost for Brazil's educational environment

BY ALESSANDRA P. COLOMBINI

Thanks To Its Huge rain forest and its vast supply of water, Brazil is an important partner in the fight to save Earth's natural resources. Most campaigns try to rouse public awarness of ecological matters by asking, in one way or another, what kind of world are we leaving to our children? This is a good point, indeed. However, something else also deserves our attention: What kind of children are we leaving to the world?

Almost every civilization has four basic institutions: a family structure, organized religious beliefs and practices, some kind of government structures, and a system for imparting culture and values to the next generation—that is, a formal or informal educational system. This last institution is facing great problems in almost every country, regardless of its economic status.

In Brazil, we are facing pretty much all these same problems. Even in the best-run schools teachers complain of low pay and bad working conditions, while pupils complain that the subjects they are studying are so far removed from practical life as to be irrelevant.

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