I went to school from 1968 to 1980, the entire span of military dictatorship and the so-called educational reform. The government had a socialist project from the “people-armed force binomial” where democracy was deeply despised. The reform was defended by placing in the school the narrative generated by supposedly demanding parameters of a glorious past that only militarism could honor.
Here’s a summary, just from the history course. They taught me the 14 Incas, as European dynasties that ruled a pastoral locus amoenus called an empire where everyone was good. “Professor, were there human sacrifices before the Spanish conquest?” “Never”, was the answer, “that was what the savage Aztecs, Mayas and Chibchas did, but not the Incas”. I was taught that Tupac Amaru he was a very, very poor Indian who organized a revolution (like that of the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces) against the damned Spanish conquerors. From the war with Chile I learned that the Bolivians were idle, cowards and traitors. But with the Chileans it was worse. They told us that they were land thieves, pillagers, and people without honor who combed through the wounded on the battlefields.
YOU CAN SEE: Congress approved an opinion that damages the approach to gender and sexual education in educational centers
Can children be ideologized? Of course you can be taught to hate. The military left in 1980 and little by little the contents had research, context, nuances and much less stereotypes. Today history is taught much better because it is not a political instrument to impose an ideology.
So, how to teach without ideologizing? With the truth, always. Without distorting, without decontextualizing, with nuances. Developing abstract and critical thinking requires a long and sustained process of physical and emotional maturation. That process doesn’t just happen at home, it happens at school. Therefore, values and morals (distinguishing between good and evil) are also part of what a child receives in all the environments in which he is.
YOU CAN SEE: Miloslavich will ask the Executive to observe the law that threatens education with a gender perspective
The Peruvian society in which we live today has 10,000 prisoners for rape: the second cause of national crime. And those are just the cases that are reported. There are many more. Most rapes occur in the family context. Child and adolescent pregnancy does not fall below 13%, which is a scandal. Femicide, physical, psychological and sexual violence against women and girls number in the thousands every month. It cannot be more punitive than life imprisonment, which already exists. To do? Educate. If you don’t educate the child, what do you expect from the man and the woman?
Where are Peruvian children and adolescents being sexually educated? In Internet. Pornography of all caliber that objectifies women, promotes violence and creates all kinds of stereotypes and sexual stimuli without any value or moral that guides them. In two years of the pandemic, without physical interaction in the classroom, children have not been trained in sex education. What have they consumed? Tons of porn. Neither a parental patrol nor the best type of software prevents your child from being passed porn material on WhatsApp.
YOU CAN SEE: Conservative groups can now veto textbooks
The tragedy is that when comprehensive sexual education is most urgent, a group with a denialist ideology opposes it. There is no such thing as “gender ideology” in school that can “homosexualize” your children. That is false. The real thing is the brutal violence. Those who declare themselves “pro-life” and “pro-family” have much more denial and sexist ideology than all the curriculum and educational materials in public schools. They are the real danger and they are the majority in Congress. 88 voted to grant the right of censorship to third parties on educational materials. A ridiculous action, like all vetoes, because they cannot censor the internet.
Let us work for an education that welcomes in love and respect each of the children who will be adults. No stereotypes, no disqualifications, including everyone. Comprehensive sexual education is urgently needed at school. Who does not believe it, visit a police station or a prison and see the consequences of not doing so.
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We wish to say thanks to the author of this short article for this outstanding material
