When starting a study about School Culture, it is important to remember the specificities of culture in societies. Everything that is historically acquired, or that grows and transforms within a society, that manifests itself through habits, values, thoughts and ways of organizing and developing social spaces it can be called culture.
At school it is no different, it is necessary that it has an organized space, and that in addition to the common characteristic of every institution of teaching, that of transmitting systematized knowledge, she needs to be the author of her own way of being and of expressing her habits and values. Thus, each school institution must seek its own way of walking, of seeing the student, and to transmit their customs and values, hence the need to adapt to the philosophy of school.
School culture is strongly linked to the school's philosophy, that is, its mission, and it is this that will tell how the school sees the student in the educational process and its projection for social and intellectual life. The Educational Legislation, the elaboration of the Pedagogical Political Project, the teaching approaches, the target audience and the goals pedagogical and administrative, all these factors depend on the strategies addressed in the formation of the culture that the institution desires to form.
The culture of the “vestibular”, for example, meets a mechanistic school philosophy, the methodology applied in this school will be that of making the student passes the entrance exam, is well placed and above all raises the name of the institution that designed it, lots of exercises, lots of practice and little theory. Without a doubt, this is their culture, therefore, their mission. However, it makes use of the analysis of the client who seeks it, if its main intention is to pass the entrance exam – this is its institution.
Now, if the school is focused on “comprehensive education”, its mission will understand that the student must be seen as being complete with needs multiple, therefore, this school will have an eminently more complex approach, in order to meet the most distinct needs of its student. Its curriculum will have as a basic requirement the approach of transversal themes and a pedagogical approach so that the student can interact with theory, practice and collective experiences.
In view of the aforementioned facts, it can be said that the school mission comes from its values, and its policy has its origins in the values, from which its objectives and teaching strategies emerge. Hence the starting point, choosing the ideal school is to make a brief analysis of its history, it is to understand its culture, its mission, its philosophy; weighing its objectives and the applicability of teaching in light of specificities and social needs.
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
By Giuliano Freitas
Graduated in Pedagogy
Brazil School Team
education - Brazil School
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
FREITAS, Giuliano Martins de. "School Education and Culture"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/educacao/educacao-cultura-escolar.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.