Learning without Borders
“Is it that difficult to pass a bill?”, I asked my father when I was a senior in high school and we were watching the news. I do not remember what the story was about, specifically, but I remember I kept wondering how hard could it possibly be to a deputy to pass a bill in Congress. That was not a question we discussed in school. It was not part of the curriculum we had to study to take the National High School Exam (a standardized test that students have to take in Brazil to get into a college). After watching some videos and reading about the process, I had a clearer vision, but the whole process still felt distant. Until one day, when my mother, who is an elementary school teacher, told me she heard of this program called National Youth Congress. The Congress would choose high school students from around the country to be entitled as Youth Deputies for a week, where they would go through a simulation of what working in Congress felt like. The selection method was creating a bill that solved a problem in the community the student lived in that has never been mentioned in Congress or in the Senate before. I thought that was my chance to finally understand how hard those who we elect have to work to pass a bill.
Coming up with a valuable solution that the government could offer to a problem we had was harder than I thought because there were so many variables I had to consider. How could we implement it? Which resources do we have to provide to society to adapt to the new system? Where would the money come from? Trying to come up with a way to integrate federal, state and municipalities demonstrated it to be a challenge. However, I ended up creating a bill to participate in the competition. The bill I wrote would give households that regularly separated their trash, according to the selective waste collection program, a yearly federal tax deduction. My goal was to encourage the population to start separating their garbage to increase the amount of recycled trash. I thought about how the whole process would work: the microchip that would be installed on people’s door, so the garbage collector could scan it when taking the selected residuals and send the information to a database connected with the company which charges electricity. After a determined number of times the code for the same house was scanned in different days, the electricity company would start deducting a percentage of federal taxes on their bill. In this way, the population would save money by separating their trash accordingly.
The bill earned me a spot on the 2014 edition of the National Youth Congress and I went to the capital of Brazil for a week to see what the work of a Congressman was like. I had no idea what was waiting for me! As the days went by, we had to study the constitution and do a financial analysis of our bills to check if they obeyed our Magna law and if the project fitted into the national budget. After checking the validation, we then discussed the bills in thematic commissions, where we could debate the need and validation of that bill at that point in time and circumstances. Until that point, I had never thought about how much a group can disagree. During one day of discussions, I lost count on how many times we disagreed on the importance of a proposal. Getting to a middle ground would take hours of discussion and fact-checking until someone would agree on giving up an article on the bill or including a rule that was not already there. After long days of work in the commissions, on Friday we would bring our top 3 priority ones to the plenary session. When we came together as 78 deputies, we had to discuss and vote on bills where some of us highly disagreed. It took us long hours until we voted on them, and we only did so because of the time limit. I am sure if we had more time, the discussion would go on.
The lesson learned from the whole experience was that it was incredibly hard to gather the minimum amount of people needed to approve a bill. In order to do it, we had to talk to individuals, hear their points of view, explain ours and try to find a middle ground. I came back home from the experience with a completely different view of what the democratic process was like.
Immersing myself in the day-to-day activities in Congress made me see those who work there with more empathy, while I also learned how the whole legislative process works. This skill could be useful in any professional context where I had to deal with national politics. Even though it was such a meaningful learning experience, there was no way I could experience it in a classroom. I needed to feel the pain to pass a bill in a context close to the real one to understand such a basic process of democracy. This experience introduced me to a new way of learning, which later made me question what learning meant at all.
Thinking back to the program, I realized the only reason why I pursued that experience was that I did not see borders to knowledge. Unfortunately, in several cultures, the idea that a school is the only space for learning is spread out, what prevents students from fulfilling their passions and talents outside of the basic curriculum. If I did not participate in several programs like the National Youth Congress, I would not realize the impact of extracurricular activities and find on giving students access to them as one of my life goals. One year after the experience, I found myself co-founding InspiraSonho, an organization to connect students with meaningful learning experiences outside of the classroom in Brazil.
Looking to educational systems worldwide, there are visible gaps in each one of them. However, what you can do to improve your educational experience? I believe the first step is amplifying the definition of learning. Most of the knowledge we acquired throughout history was transmitted in informal environments. Why, then, limit your brain to learn only in a school environment? I challenge you to try a new approach in the next few days. Start asking questions. Whatever you are genuinely curious about, ask those around you. You might not find an answer, but a door to an experience that will take you on a learning journey. Open the door and enjoy the ride!
