“We live in a notably obscurantist era”
The source of the above quote will follow soon. Suffice to say for now that it comes from the context of a twitter feud between former soccer star and now federal senator Romário and Brazilian Minister of Education Milton Ribeiro. It all started in mid-August when Ribeiro, who is no stranger to controversy, said that “children with disabilities ‘quote unquote impair’ the learning of other students without the same condition, since the ‘teacher didn’t have a team, didn’t have special knowledge to give that child special attention.”
(The word the minister used for “impair” was atrapalhar, which has a sense of getting in the way, tripping up, blocking, disrupting.)
The senator from Rio, who has a child with Down Syndrome, responded on Twitter:
“Only a person deprived of intelligence, those that we call imbeciles, could release a sentence like this. There are tons of then, but we don’t expect that they will occupy the position of Minister of Education of a country.”
That was only the beginning of the Senator’s thread, which continued:
A atividade de educar salva vidas, transforma pessoas e nações, impulsiona a economia, elimina barreiras e transforma o mundo em um lugar melhor. Pessoas que ocupam posições de gestão pública devem trabalhar incansavelmente para que essa magia que a educação gera possa acontecer.
The activity of educating saves lives, transforms people and nations, propels the economy, eliminates barriers, and transforms the world into a better place. People who occupy positions of public administration should work tirelessly so that that magic which education generates can happen.
Para isso, eles não devem poupar recursos para derrubar barreiras permitindo que TODOS tenham acesso e possam participar plenamente da sociedade, sendo EDUCADOS, de maneira plena, sem sofrer preconceitos por suas diferenças.
For this, they must not spare any resource in order to tear down barriers, enabling it so that EVERYONE has access and can participate fully in society, being EDUCATED, fully, without suffering prejudice for their differences.
A diversidade em sala de aula não atrapalha, porque ninguém que busque o conhecimento atrapalha. Pessoas com deficiência em sala de aula estão, com a sua presença, também contribuindo para uma importante lição, a de que somos diversos e que não podemos deixar ninguém pra trás.
Diversity in the classroom does not impair, because nobody who is seeking knowledge impairs it. People with disabilities in the classroom are, with their presence, also contributing to an important lesson, the one that we are diverse and that we can’t leave anyone behind.
O ministro da Educação faltou a muitas aulas, deixando a imbecilidade tomar o lugar da inteligência e da humanidade.
The Minister of Education missed a lot of classes, allowing imbecility to take the place of intelligence and of humanity.
To be continued…