Citizen Mentoring Program

Rekindling the Desire to Be a Teacher

It has long been said that Education was the natural function through which society passed on its legacy of customs, habits, abilities and aspirations.

Today, faced with the explosion of technology, or at least with this overwhelming march toward comfort and transformation, we could say that Education is the function that is directed, that follows plans, that develops by degrees, and that makes people capable of continuing that march.

Education, then, transcends time, and discussions about Education rarely bring up the "future tense." Almost always what gets discussed is its history, its principles and models, and, even then, within the field of teaching and learning. Yet there is one point where, in the school, in the person, in the family and in technology, something is always present: the Relationship, in which the person is always a participant. In this way, the bond between people and systems — and even with humanism itself — can never be broken.

In schools, in academia, in training and education centers, this relationship is present as what regulates against that break. Improving relationships in academic life is thus a way of guaranteeing the harmony and balance of society; it is a way of guaranteeing the perpetuity of humanism.

To whom should the responsibility of improving these relationships and guaranteeing that perpetuity be assigned?

It seems that the answer points to the figure of the Teacher.

Overview

Discussions about the Future Tense seem to be reserved for those who are still enthusiastic about revolutionary programs, or about programs that differ from the usual "pedagogical sameness."

We know that society is going through transformations that show up in every segment, which implies an ever-growing need to immerse ourselves in successive changes.

But times have changed!

The moment we live in is one of rapid, constant change — the old paradigms no longer exist.

If relationships, the perpetuity of humanism and behavior are conditions inherent to the practice of teaching, then investing in the teacher is investing in a better-quality education, an education of principles, and an education that addresses public policy in every sphere.

The Citizen Mentoring Program

The Citizen Mentoring Program starts from the premise that the number of teachers currently practicing in the country falls short of the real needs for fulfilling scheduled teaching hours; it also takes into account the growing drop in enrollment in teacher-training courses across every area; it further considers, and quite relevantly, that there is a need to encourage the training of new teachers for the country, and it holds that offering young people the encouragement and practice of teaching contributes to a new relationship that will minimize conflicts and draw other young people closer to studying.

The Citizen Mentoring Program can represent not only an alternative to the shortfall currently found in the teaching workforce but, above all, a permanent program for bringing young people into the world of education as real protagonists of Brazilian education.

The Citizen Mentoring Program is not simply a program that encourages young people to take on support and supplementary activities in secondary-level teaching; it is, above all, a program that trains young people for the genuine exercise of citizenship as mentors in academic life, assisting career teachers in running laboratory activities, workshops and extracurricular activities, and, fundamentally, a program that encourages young people to engage with issues that directly and indirectly involve Education in the country.

Their role leading a class of students of the same age group is highly significant for the educational process. It is an advance and a challenge; it is a bold move with positive repercussions both on the educational front and on the social front.

From the standpoint of encouraging the teaching career, the Citizen Mentoring Program is a powerful ally in reducing the shortfall currently seen in the field of teaching.

Rationale

What could have led, over the years, to a loss of interest in the teaching career?

Some might say it is the low financial appeal; others might say that the workload compared to the financial compensation is not worthwhile; still others, less concerned with financial aspects, might say that the career does not offer the common benefits seen in other professions. Well, whatever the justification or however valid it may be, the fact is that interest in the career has fallen sharply at every level.

The consequence of this decline and of the growing lack of appeal will soon lead to chaos so extraordinary that education will come to depend on appeals and the goodwill of a few.

Obviously, this will not happen — or would not happen — immediately, but it is equally obvious that this trend cannot be dismissed.

It is precisely in anticipating trends in the world of education, and especially in the world of teaching, that the creation of this Program is justified — a Program capable of encouraging, motivating and establishing a new paradigm for young people to become teachers, restoring the value of the career and multiplying that restoration.

How It Will Work

210 students will be selected from the Region where the program is to be implemented, divided into groups of 30 participants forming classes T1 through T7.

Each class will complete 48 hours of experiential activities, based on the Foto-Vivência Methodology, with monitoring through the program's own instruments and records kept in specific spreadsheets.

The technical team of the Instituto Foto-Vivência assigned to this citizen mentoring program will select, at the end of the seven classes, thirty students who will form the special class for training multipliers, with a workload of 48 hours.

The trained multipliers will lead activity cells made up of one of these multipliers and six participants from the first phase.

The composition of each cell will follow a criterion of balance between cells, and the other six members will be chosen based on the individual records held by the technical team.

The cells that are formed have basic responsibilities:

Ongoing discussion about the teaching career;

Creating activities and programs that encourage the teaching career in the communities they belong to;

Developing behavioral projects for groups of students with a social, environmental, academic and cultural focus;

Developing initiatives that encourage reading, trips for geographic and historical discovery, and that encourage the production of artistic and cultural activities.

Other initiatives at the cell's discretion.

The cells will be supervised and guided by the Instituto Foto-Vivência, which will establish a support schedule so that their responsibilities are carried out successfully.

General Objective

To develop an ongoing initiative, in an integrated plan with the region's educational segments, for the distinctive training of Citizen Mentors aimed at addressing the gaps found in the field of teaching, both at the secondary and elementary levels.

Specific Objectives

Motivate and prepare young Brazilians for the practice of Citizen Mentoring;

Design the curriculum for training the Citizen Mentor;

Promote specific Training and Capacity-Building for the training of the Citizen Mentor;

Promote experiential training, based on the Foto-Vivência Methodology, for the young people selected to practice Citizen Mentoring, covering behavioral and relational issues.

Promote ongoing initiatives that ensure motivation toward humanism and the practice of sustainable behavior;

Guarantee the young Citizen Mentor a program that encourages a career in teaching.

Goals

Develop a pilot project applying Citizen Mentoring in the region, with a view to implementing the Program on a systemic basis.

Select 210 young people from the region for the Citizen Mentor training courses;

Establish the activities and duties of the Citizen Mentors during the pilot phase;

Evaluate the results obtained in the pilot program, make the necessary adjustments and formalize the systemic program;

Continuously select and train young Citizen Mentors;

Reduce the existing shortfall in secondary-level teaching with the help of Citizen Mentors.

Action Plan

Approval of the merits of this Program;

Formation of the working group to implement the Citizen Mentoring Program

Structuring of the Behavioral Programs;

Creation of a publicity process to spread the program and enroll candidates;

Selection of candidates;

Formation of classes and delivery of the capacity-building and training;

Placement of graduates in schools to practice Citizen Mentoring;

Ongoing follow-up of graduates while active.

Technical Staff - Roles

To achieve the objectives and provide effective support in both the regular classes and the advanced phase, a technical staff from the Instituto Foto-Vivência lends its participation in the region where the program is implemented, with the following positions and roles:

Methodology

Given the Program's assumptions and objectives, the methodology will be based on the human person as protagonist — that is, it will focus on participants' capacity for reflection and professionalism so they can take their place as Distinctive Talents. Meetings, seminars, talks, role-playing and workshops will set the tone for the necessary inter- and transdisciplinary approach, always guided by sustainable behavior — that is, the development of skills, competencies and capabilities for the sustainability of one's own professional path in the (re)construction of one's values. In other words, the emphasis in the use of methodological resources will be on revitalizing professional protagonism.

General Training Coordinator – works in the covered region on the overall coordination and management of the execution of the Foto-Vivência methodology and of the Program itself.

Technical Coordination Team – made up of three members, two psychologists and one evaluation and control technician, who: work in the region and are responsible for managing the training of young people in the multiplier-training program among these students; who carry out the analysis of students' performance and behavior throughout the program, the final evaluation of results and the management of the control system; who oversee the conceptual development of the program and its application at every stage, and who liaise with the General Training Coordinator regarding program content.

Regional Coordinator – The regional coordinator, nominated by the region's segments taking part in this program, will be responsible for monitoring the operational execution of all stages and goals of the project; for providing operational technical support to local training teams; for the operational organization of training activities; and for compiling the final report on the execution of each stage/goal of training. In these activities they will be supported by a traveling interface coordinator, a team of interns, and an Administrative Technical Support professional, all from the Instituto Foto-Vivência.

Facilitators – A technical staff from the Instituto Foto-Vivência, made up of specialists in the behavioral field — Psychologists, Bioenergy Therapists, Speech Therapists, Teachers, Educators, and Masters and Doctors in Education — will lend their collaboration in carrying out the activities. This team of facilitators is responsible for running the field activities according to the established schedule. They are also responsible for applying the program's conceptual content and for monitoring the learning and application of the content acquired. They take part in alignment meetings with the other coordinators.

Administrative Technical Support – made up of two professionals from the Instituto Foto-Vivência, individually responsible for organizing the relevant documentation; arranging infrastructure together with the region's logistics coordinators; ensuring the conditions needed to carry out field activities as well as academic oversight of the entire process; and organizing and helping to run experiential workshops and other practical activities carried out during the course, at every stage.

The Instructional Programs

The curricular content of the Citizen Mentor training includes, in addition to the behavioral activities, an instructional program covering classroom teaching techniques and the fundamentals of didactics and psychology.

Training Workload

The Citizen Mentor training structure is made up of three levels of programming: Behavioral Program – 48h; Instructional Program – 48h; and Field Internship Program – 24h, totaling 120 hours of coursework/training.

The Field Internship

A young person will be considered fit to practice Citizen Mentoring once they have successfully completed the internship period in a school setting, under the guidance of a teacher assigned to provide that oversight.