By Artur Victoria
Children are different when they come to school, and schools should not try to make them all alike. When pupils leave school they should do so with their individuality and personality intact and with a developed capacity for respecting the individuality of others.
School inputs must be planned and demands made in relation to the current aptitudes of each child. It is the duty of schools to take good ear of all pupils and to support and encourage each and every one of them in the development of his or her abilities and interests.
Schools owe a special duty towards pupils in difficulty and towards children and young persons from various minorities. It follows that schools cannot give the same amount of assistance to everybody. They must give special assistance, in collaboration with others, to those pupils who, for one reason or another, are laboring under special difficulties.
Pupils with home languages other than Portuguese are entitled to education equivalent to that received by others. Schools must actively harness the cultural heritage of these pupils while strengthening their linguistic development.
The content of international schooling has been decided by the final target - to obtain the Cambridge Advanced International Certificate of Education. Fields of knowledge have been selected with reference to present and future society and according to the civilization to which we belong.
Pupils also acquire knowledge and skills outside school. They already possess knowledge and experiences when they start school, but in addition they are endowed with a spirit of inquiry and a thirst for knowledge. Schools must utilize these factors. It is the task of schools, from this starting point, to channel the pupils' search for knowledge into important fields and gradually, in the course of twelve years, to broaden their perspectives and deepen their understanding. Pupils must therefore acquire an appreciation of vital concepts and contexts which can provide the foundations of their cognitive development.
The acquisition of knowledge is an active and creative progress involving hard work in pursuit of a definite objective. Compulsory school instruction which mechanically pilots the children through subject matter and problems without their acquiring a command of fundamental concepts and understanding general contexts can be a negative influence on their self-confidence and motivation and therefore on the whole of their working and living situation.
Society endeavors, by means of a compulsory course of studies comprising the same subjects and the same fields of subject matter in all schools, to provide all citizens with a common frame of references and equivalent basic education. In addition, schools must provide pupils with knowledge based on their personal interests and educational preferences.
Schools do not provide any instruction focusing on particular preoccupations. The fields of knowledge which are to be dealt with must be fundamentally important to everybody, irrespective of their future activities. This means, for example, that schools must familiarize their pupils with questions of belief, with major issues concerning human relations and survival, with international affairs, with science and technology, with resource conservation, with environmental questions, with economic question, with questions concerning working life and labor market, with cultural questions, with family questions, with sexual matters, with immigrant affairs, with law and justice, with questions concerning road traffic, and with the hazards involved by alcohol, drugs and tobacco. All pupils must acquire a knowledge of at least one foreign language. A prominent place must be given to knowledge with an important bearing on everyday life.
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