Roots of knowledge

The pandemic reinforced the lesson that learning cannot be confined to schools. But it's not just the isolation caused by the pandemic that separates people. Countless communities already weakened by urban violence, poverty and migration face difficulties in establishing social bonds and deepening social cohesion, implying a great challenge for education in the new times: how to transform learning processes into processes of knowledge exchange, without the walls of the school or physical distance being barriers. Our solution, based on a freemium subscription app based on natural language recognition algorithms and cloud computing, seeks to raise and share the cultural intelligence of families and communities in the territories they inhabit, identifying common identities that strengthen the sense of community belonging and specificities that enable knowledge sharing.

The pandemic reinforced the lesson that learning cannot be confined to schools. With the limitations imposed by social isolation, at least 5 million children not only stopped going to school, but also studying at all in Brazil (UNICEF). But it's not just the isolation caused by the pandemic that separates people. Countless communities already weakened by urban violence, poverty and migration face difficulties in establishing social bonds and deepening social cohesion. If learning is, above all, sharing, less social cohesion represents less educational opportunities by disregarding the knowledge of families and the community. Historically, Brazilian schools have not been instrumentalized to deal with the knowledge of the communities and territories where they are located, implying a great challenge to the new times: how to transform learning processes into processes of knowledge exchange, without the walls of the school or physical distance being barriers.

We seek to raise and share cultural intelligences of families and communities in the territories they inhabit, seeking to identify common identities that strengthen the sense of community belonging and specific skills that enable knowledge sharing. The solution is structured in a user-friendly and gamified application for smartphones, not dependent on broadband or high-speed internet access, based on thematic journeys defined by school managers or community leaders (key stakeholders), who define the questions to be asked in the app, answered by people about their history in the community, their skills and desires. The natural language recognition (NLP) algorithm identifies common elements and specific elements in people's responses, providing the journey leader with insights and suggestions for participatory learning projects on these topics, in person or online, monitoring people's engagement and participation in the activities carried out .

In Brazil, citizen participation in all instances of governance can still be considered very small. In addition to the fact that there are still many centralized local governments, and that there are public policies that involve citizen participation, we observe that families, especially the most socially vulnerable, demand little rights and barely participate in the decision-making spheres of their community life. We have to recognize that our Brazilian culture is still permeated by fear, resignation and accommodation, factors inherited from the authoritarian culture since our colonization and also, more recently, from the culture that prevailed in the long years of military dictatorship. And unfortunately, in many communities, these feelings are embedded in the social paradigm and in people's minds.

Despite the broad legislation that guarantees, since the 1988 constitutional reform, the democratic participation of citizens in all decision-making instances, reality shows that most citizens restrict their participation to mandatory voting in elections. Participation is no longer a fundamental premise in communities, forming closed, submissive, supplicant, dependent, and even cynical citizens, as Putnam (1996: 191) well mentions: “On the other hand, citizens from less civic regions tend to assume the role of cynical and alienated supplicants ”. In addition to the numerous factors resulting from this little social mobilization in the areas of Economy and Health, the effects in Education are disastrous. In the last international assessment of PISA, Brazil appears stagnant in 59th place. National evaluations also show that, although we are evolving, this evolution is slow and insufficient to save generations of Brazilians with low reading skills, mathematical reasoning and low probability of social evolution, due to the marginalization that low education causes.

There are numerous initiatives by non-governmental sectors to improve Brazilian Public Education and we strongly believe that one of the most important aspects is citizen involvement in formal and informal education for new generations. Research has shown for decades that the involvement of families in student learning is small, that schools are isolated and distant from the residents of the communities in which they are located, and that formal education in the popular imagination is the School's strict responsibility. Teachers and school managers, isolated in public schools with far from ideal infrastructure and deficient continuing education programs, culminate in the low level of efficiency of the Brazilian public school, with profound repercussions on the country's development, in general. Programs such as FAST (Families and Schools Together), developed in the USA and present in over 25 countries, including successful pilots in Brazil and Learning Communities, developed in the European Union and also present in Brazil, show that when there is greater family and community involvement, there is a significant advance in student learning levels.

We developed a pilot project in the city of Tremembé, São Paulo, Brazil, for 4 years, working with the empowerment of families, increasing levels of social capital in communities and community organization in favor of Education. The results were surprising: the city in the national assessment (IDEB), carried out by the government every 2 years, showed that the municipality jumped from second to last in the region, among 42 municipalities, to reach a place in the top 5 in the last two assessments. More than 400 citizens have volunteered in schools, nearly 2,000 families have graduated from the FAST program impacting approximately 15,000 people, and 5 educational territories in the city have been constituted in the TEM - Educational Territories in Motion program.

For the sociologist Helena Singer (2015), for the territory to be considered educational it is necessary: 1. EDUCATIONAL PROJECT FOR THE TERRITORY created by those who live in it! 2. TERRITORY AS PART OF THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM in line with Tremembé's new Integral Education curriculum 3. MULTIPLYING EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR EVERYONE children, young people, teenagers, adults, everyone can learn, everyone can teach and everyone is responsible for education! 4. ARTICULATION OF DIFFERENT SECTORS Education, health, culture, social assistance, etc.

TEM was created with the objective of promoting, strengthening and multiplying, in interinstitutional partnerships with the community, educational, social, cultural and intellectual opportunities in the territories of Tremembé for the integral development of children and young people in the municipality. Its specific objectives are: 1. QUALIFY positively the places where children and young people live (family, school and neighborhood) so that they can achieve success in their life choices; 2. UNIFY social mobilization actions from different sectors in favor of education; 3. CREATE/STRENGTHEN support networks and a sense of belonging and co-responsibility bilization of citizens, public and private institutions; 4. DISSEMINATE/POLLINIZE to the general community the principles of dialogic learning.

5 Territories were created in the municipalities, involving all municipal public schools. With a general coordination formed by members of the 5 territories, each territory formed its management group in order to reflect, decide, plan and execute strategies to improve its educational territory, consequently improving and increasing opportunities for healthy growth for children, young people and the entire community educational. Each group is made up of families participating in the FAST program; Student Union; School staff - Teachers, ADIs, CPs, Principals, staff and community leaders.

One of the biggest challenges in the constitution of TEM groups is the phase of mobilization of community residents and for this the strategy of telling their stories, as a way of recognizing each and every one, proved to be very well accepted. That's exactly what we want to provide to new communities, using the APP ROOTS. We intend to develop pilot projects in 2022 in two municipalities in the interior of the State of São Paulo: Jundiaí and Campos do Jordão, working in socially fragile communities, indicated by the municipal education secretariats.

The solution is based on the concepts of community engagement, social cohesion and development of social capital, supported by literature on dialogic learning and sociology of education, understanding that physical distance and physical barriers should not be limitations for sharing of cultural knowledge and skills. The solution, therefore, is in line with the challenge by proposing forms of interaction between school managers, community leaders, parents and students based on their knowledge, basing educational practices on their sharing.

The software development and the solution's business model are still in the conception stage. The social technology that underlies it, however, is called Educational Territories in Motion and was designed and implemented as a public program by the Municipal Education Secretariat of Tremembé, Brazil, from 2018 to 2020, with support from the Cordial Institute, merging other educational programs in development in the city since 2014 with very successful engagement and learning results. The solution mechanism, therefore, can be considered in the prototype stage as a minimum viable product (MVP), and must be refined for the development of the application.

In all projects designed to mobilize citizens and build educational communities, one barrier is involving people, motivating them to participate in collective actions. Our approach is innovative because it uses a known and familiar technology, an app for collective construction. Each citizen, when using the app to tell their story, the story of their family and/or memories of the neighborhood's history, individual age at first. However, like bricks in a wall, the individual elements come together to create a meaningful, innovative whole that reflects each and every one. The solution has the potential to create an identity in the community, which allows, progressively, to turn the community into an Educational Territory, with the management of the school. It is a resource that can be used in any community, regardless of whether the manager is a school or a community leader or a project in the neighborhood, the end result - creation of a collective identity - will always have the potential of a person and facilitate the implementation of a project with shared goals and objectives. In our many years of experience in community engagement, this initial step of creating an identity is always the most difficult. Roots of Knowledge has the potential to cause a profound impact on every project and can be easily adopted anywhere.

We are currently serving around 3000 people in the Educational Territories of Tremembe, São Paulo, Brazil.

For next year we plan on working in two different cities for the Pilot Project and in each one of them we will serve around 1000 people. In five years we have the potential to grow to as many cities show interest in our project of implementing the project. If we get funding we can expand to many cities and states in Brazil or even abroad. 

We have been using several questionnaires and also applying Focal Groups Method to evaluate each initiative. Starting next year we will also use  the Integrated Questionnaire for the Measurement of Social Capital (SC-IQ) that shows interesting connections within a community. We also base our reports in external evaluation of educational indicators of the city and each school in particular. In sume, we use both quantitative and qualitative instruments to monitor and evaluate progress in our projects. 

The solution is part of the education arm of Instituto Cordial, a thing and do tank aimed at solving complex problems in society using data and intersectorial articulation, in association with former coordinators and the former education secretary of Tremembé, responsible for implementing the Territories program Educational Movements in the city in recent years.

4 part-time, 1 staff and 3 contractors

Luis Fernando is the CEO of  Instituto Cordial, an independent, non-partisan think and do tank that works with data science, territorial intelligence, and intersectoral articulation to strengthen networks and base public and private decision-making on data and evidence. Dr Cristiana Berthoud is a former professor and researcher from the University of Taubaté, São Paulo, Brazil and from 2013 to 2020 was the secretary of Education in the city of Tremembe. International trainer and supervisor for FAST (Families and Schools Together) in Brazil and currently also an independent consultant in Education.  Tumaki Aruanã is an art teacher both in public schools and colleges and a FAST Trainer. Fernanda Zannitti is a publich school teacher and trainer for the programs FAST and Community of Learning. 

Our team has as its main value the diversity of gender, age, experience and expertise as an enrichment factor in the collective co-construction of projects and solutions. Specifically, the social technology that we developed and called TEM - (educational territories in motion), was developed with the broad participation of young people from the communities, teachers, residents, in a continuous process of listening. A multiplicity of voices and knowledge constituted our working platform.

We use several instruments to promote the participation and engagement of the residents of the territories, such as interviews, home visits, focus groups, working groups and general meetings held in schools. We encourage and value the participation of everyone so that the TEM project and, later, the RAÍZES do CONHECIMENTO app could be representative of the cultural intelligence of the local community

Becoming a solver team is very important for any new initiative due to MIT tradition and quality in all its projects. In Brazil, in addition to few opportunities to obtain funds for innovative solutions, we find barriers to access, without budget, quality services for the development of technological solutions applied to social technologies. As a solver team, we will certainly have access to partners who will provide us with sufficient human and technological resources to develop our project.On the top of all we need an organization that share our values that "every child matters, every family is important and every community needs support to grow strong and independent" and we know Solver Teams around the world work for the same values. We aim to make difference, to change communities and to build millions of Educational Territories in Brazil and in other countries to help children and adolescents to sucessed in schools and in their lives.

MIT faculty and initiaves, other solver members around the world who are also working to improve quality of education in low income communities by engaging families and community members in the shcool. Opening up schools doors to welcome cultural inteligence of the community to transform the school system into a comprehensive education policy.

Any other organization that could help us in the areas mentioned above would be of great help.

We believe that, even with a simple solution like the one we are presenting here, the Roots of Knowledge, we are putting technology and artificial intelligence at the service of people. We use artificial intelligence to co-build with each child, young person, adult and elderly person in a community, a collection of cultural intelligences that it holds and that are so despised by institutions, in general. In particular, the Brazilian public school, unfortunately, was built by an academic and political elite without considering the knowledge and cultural values of the communities they serve. This is the case in countless other countries in Latin America and elsewhere in the world, with more centralized governments. Curricula, with few exceptions, are inflexible and do not allow students to identify with what is being taught, which is why so many feel that school "is not their place." Our solution humanizes relationships, allowing everyone - school staff, families, students, community residents - to share their stories and knowledge and encourages the development of integrated and meaningful pedagogies and curricula.

Our application is still in the prototype stage, however, artificial intelligence is one of the technological elements to be incorporated, as it allows the identification and mapping of common experiences, common talents and all human resources, cultural, tangible or not, of each community. . It helps to build a true map of knowledge, values, talents, educational resources that can become assets for the integral education of children and young people.

Our social technology, developed and tested for years in vulnerable communities in Brazil, has proven to be very effective in improving social cohesion, creating social capital among residents and, in particular, building a new social paradigm in which education is no longer a responsibility government government and school and is shared by all. The technology that we have developed and want to turn into reality, the Roots of Knowledge APP, is a simple and, at the same time, powerful instrument to unite people, because it invests in the power of the story told and shared. Life stories and memories of the history of the communities will be used as a catalyst for relationships. When people can get to know each other better, they can engage socio-emotionally with others and create common goals and objectives. The APP breaks the barriers of physical distance, introversion and lack of opportunity and places each resident at the same level of opportunity to know, make themselves known and participate. Once the relational barrier is crossed, the community is transformed and strengthened. When the school opens, welcomes and the community enters the walls of the schools, everyone wins. Stronger schools, more participatory community, transformed territory.