FESE HandBook v03c 15112023 MEV- COMPLETO - Flipbook - Página 215
RODRIGO QUEIROZ E MELO / THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ETHICAL-MORAL AND SPIRITUAL DIMENSION OF THE PERSON
in 2022 showed a more nuanced picture of learning losses. These may be
found in some dimensions of literacy, but not in all. They may be found
in some dimensions of numeracy, but not in all. As a whole, students taking the national secondary education high stakes exams did better in 2022
than their counterparts in 2019. Different factors contributed to this. But
the point is that the school closures and distance learning were expected
to have devastating impacts on learning; it`s not that clear that they have.
Not underestimating the impact of learning losses, it is fair to say that
probably the correlation we all assume between days in school and learning is not as strong as we would like. Maybe, the most serious thing that
resulted from the pandemic was not learning losses but a general emotional imbalance or even disturbance that is being reported. Maybe more
than an issue of learning losses, school closures were an issue of mental
health and social emotional wellbeing.
The argument about student academic results after the pandemic not
being as bad as one would expect is to prove that it is possible to 8do school9
in a radically differently way without compromising the traditional cognitive development component. And the wellbeing problem awakens
us to the fact that students are not only (or even mainly) their heads, and
therefore it is the schools` obligation to look at pupils as a 8whole9.
What the experience of the pandemic shows us is that schools can
devote attention to all the dimensions of the person, promoting a true
integral education, without this resulting in losses to the cognitive dimension. The curricular focus does not have to be so focused on cognitive
development but should promote, with equal importance and rigor, the
corporal, affective-emotional, aesthetic-artistic, social and civic, and ethical-moral/spiritual dimensions of each person.
WAR IN EUROPE
Shortly after the pandemic ended, the unimaginable happened: war
began in Europe. Not that Europe has been free of wars since 1945,
but the magnitude and impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is
of another scale. I would like to begin by acknowledging the heroism
and resilience of educators in Ukraine. For the last year and a half,
they have been turning school basements into bomb shelters, teaching during raids, trying to install some kind of normalcy in the lives of
their students. In 2016, Ukraine was embracing an educational reform
that aimed at transitioning from a traditional fact-based education to a
more competencies and value based whole education: 8Instead of memorizing facts and deonitions, students will acquire competencies. This
is a dynamic combination of knowledge, skills, ways of thinking, opin-
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