The Ayrton Senna Institute and about 30 representatives of municipal and state education departments participated in a workshop last Tuesday (21) in São Paulo, for a collective effort to strengthen the Network of Managers and planning for the actions of the next year. Created in 2015 by the Institute, the Network of Managers brings together Secretaries of Education with the aim of promoting collaboration for the joint construction of a robust repertoire of good educational management practices. Currently, the Network of Managers comprises 14 municipal and one state networks.

Institute managers

According to the Executive Manager of Learning Policy Management at the Ayrton Senna Institute, and one of the founders of the Network of Managers, Inês Miskalo, from the exchange of experiences and development of common plans in the fight against the main educational challenges, which are discussed in the network , each member realizes the ideas according to their reality, their starting point and the objectives of their municipality or State.

“To think of a network is to think of a team work, a circuit in which each one can advance from what the other has already advanced, because everyone shares their knowledge and wisdom, they transmit to their teams and also to other secretariats, it is a collective thing and that spreads, “said Inês. “The Institute seeks to contribute with the contribution of evidence on how we can move faster to overcome the challenges that we have in Education,” he added.

The event began with a presentation by the chief economist of the Ayrton Senna Institute and professor of Insper, Ricardo Paes de Barros, on the development of children between 6 and 12 years of age. “At this stage, the child’s brain is developing at an accelerated pace, and if it has the right environment to learn, it can develop a range of skills, but you have to offer good opportunities for it,” said Paes de Barros. According to him, children in this age group are becoming increasingly aware of themselves and others, expand their capacity for abstract thinking and critical thinking, develop new feelings and new habits, form new types of relationships with adults and with colleagues , are in search of autonomy.

“It is extremely possible to develop these children fully, looking at both the cognitive and the social-emotional. At that moment, the worst thing a teacher can do is treat all students as equals, the school has to prepare to welcome and contribute to this window of development opportunities, “said the economist, who also presented evidence on the The importance of having structured and explicit programs for the social-emotional development of students in schools, and also examples of how curricular proposals can contemplate these aspects.

Following, the members of the Network of Managers were invited to the workshop of participatory construction of the macro actions of the group. In addition to sharing data on network performance in 2017 – a year in which 60% of network members claimed to have used some shared practice in their group – participants also made a qualitative analysis of the importance of integrating the network. Most pointed to the transformation of practices and habits and the strengthening of the management team of the Secretariats of Education as main benefits.

“The Ayrton Senna Institute subsidized us with materials and knowledge about integral education, which allowed a collective planning and we managed to give more understanding about this concept to our educators through continuing education initiatives that took to the tip the information and the motivation professional, “shared Leony Cananea, program coordinator for the Rio Grande do Sul state network.

For 2018, demands were raised such as support for the implementation of the National Curricular Common Base (currently under review by the National Education Council and which should have the latest version approved for application from next year), sharing of new teaching methodologies , training possibilities on socio-emotional competences and integral education for teachers of the educational networks, the improvement of follow-up practices on student learning, among others.

Seeking to improve networking next year, participants also discussed possibilities for implementing a joint planning logic and new actions for the network’s own functioning, strategies for sharing with the educators the learning of the whole group and ways of raising awareness of the network. importance of educational policies. One of the Institute’s contributions in this regard will be to send newsletters to each secretariat, with readings, interpretations and suggestions for action based on the main education indicators of each local reality, in order to foster more efficient planning actions and interventions.

Ayrton Senna Institute