Emilia vexler
03/10/2020 - 14:48
Clarín.com
Society
Tane Da Souza Correa
never went to school
.
Never.
But that does not mean that he has not had classes: at 23 years old he received a physics degree - with a very high average - at the National University of Salta (UNSA).
Tane pioneered
homeschooling
in the country.
The first in a rural setting, the small town of Vaqueros.
The one that went the furthest, later, in traditional education.
The only one, today, in
the public function
.
He did primary and secondary school at home.
He was taught by his parents, his neighbors, and sometimes by teachers in their living rooms.
Never at school.
In times of the coronavirus pandemic, with parents who for more than six months have been in charge of part of their children's education, he feels
nostalgic for the way he learned
.
Although he marks the connectivity inequalities that he did not have -because his teaching was not virtual- and that today
homeschooling
is something "forced" by the quarantine, which must endure post-pandemic, he says, is the overcoming objective of this way of
learning without classrooms or uniforms
.
Defend public education and see in today's virtual classes
future solutions for the most forgotten interior
.
"The covid-19 came to break consensus that seemed immovable. These moments of profound crisis open up possibilities for us to consider
different educational models
. I am not saying that studying at home is the best for everyone. I am saying that we do not take for granted that the traditional model, of the schools, it is the best. This served to know that there is another alternative, "says Tane.
He was a councilor until 2019 and in June he took office as territorial delegate of the National Institute of Associativism and Social Economy (INAES) in Salta.
While in the call with
Clarín
the noise of the chickens and details of the sustainable honey of its production are filtered, he believes, then, that beyond the atrocious in health, economic and psychological terms, the more than six months of isolation " they served as testimony to modify, expand, change the way of teaching and learning ".
It is worth remembering that, during his childhood, his parents, a farmer couple who decided to educate him at home because "they disagreed with a deeply unjust social model",
paid with goat's milk, cheeses, sweets and vegetables the classes that their neighbors
.
And that at the end of each year, he and his two brothers took all free subjects.
Tane in his student days, when he was studying Physics at the National University of Salta in 2016. Photo File
"I did the homework and the subjects that my parents taught me at a desk at home. Other times in community spaces, such as a popular library or in the teachers' house, with other children, while they, who were in school, received classes in support. Never in school, "he details, about his own
homeschooling
.
Due to the diversification of those who, in front of him, took on the role of teaching, when Tane had to take high school subjects, he had studied with university professors.
What will happen to the students in Buenos Aires at the end of 2020 is uncertain.
It is only known that no one will repeat the cycle.
"I do not think that schooling is useless. I do not go through life saying 'Get your boys out of school.' No. Even, I am convinced that we must improve and strengthen the educational system, to build a more just society. The public school continues to be the main equalizing institution of knowledge. Where students can find milk or a notebook. But we must also broaden our horizons.
Open ourselves to better models
, "he says.
This young politician today still lives in the place where he grew up.
In that small town in the highlands, where he founded the Happiness Party - related to the Frente de Todos - and was even a candidate for mayor.
There he built a house with his "partner", Luciana, with whom he agreed not to call himself "husbands" -although legally they are- and he shares the upbringing of a 2 and a half year old man and a 3 month old baby.
Will the offspring of the
homeschooling
pioneer
keep the lineage of those who have the blackboard at home pure?
We will have to wait.
"They are still small, above all, with the pandemic, this anomalous situation,
we have not defined whether they are going to go to school or not
. What I am clear about is that children's schooling cannot be decoupled from the parents' way of life In my case, my parents work at home and it was possible. Today, because of my work, I spend many hours outside ... we have not decided yet. All the options are on the table, "he says.
This may not be the case for your children and you don't believe that "the magic recipe for everything is homeschooling."
But, he inherited that of standing in the ideological line of believing that "the dominant system in general -also in education-, as it is, has no future" and celebrates even the alternative pedagogies that exist within the institutions.
"Like Waldorf schools," he says.
Where there are no schedules and the common point is to respect what you want to learn.
As they did with him.
When Tane learned at home, "without subjects" but with "challenges that stimulated knowledge",
there were no online platforms
for quarantine or classes by Zoom.
They were just classes at home.
As we see it in
Yankee
movies
,
but without a desk and with Salta empanadas.
Although there are no official figures for how many families follow this methodology today, the organization Argentina Homeschooling considers that some 5,000.
There is no legislation that prohibits it and there is the interpretation of article 14 of the Constitution, "right to teach and learn", and 26, "parents have the preferential right to choose the type of education that will be given to their sons".
That is why, in the face of the exponential growth of this kind of
"involuntary"
homeschooling
, Tane focuses on
connectivity
.
A very hot point of these weeks, after the rejection of the Ministry of Education of the Nation to the protocol proposed by the Buenos Aires Government for those who had not been able to generate the virtual link with the school to attend school.
"The same educational system cannot be applied in an original town in the Chaco of Salta as in a neighborhood in Buenos Aires. Our province really has a very large debt in terms of connectivity. This week I had a video call with cooperatives and very few were able to participate. It was the same with the children in virtual classes. The screens are momentary, but many did not even have them. Allowing them to study like this could lead them to achieve roots in the future.
Let them know that to progress, they don't have to go far,
"he closes.
ACE