Catholic educators work to prevent new school attacks in Brazil
On the same day that a 28-year-old woman broke into a school in Nashville, Tennessee, and shot six people dead, a 13-year-old student in São Paulo -- Brazil's financial hub and largest city -- fatally stabbed a teacher and wounded five other people in his school.
The assault that took the life of a 71-year-old Biology teacher Elizabeth Tenreiro March 27 was the second school attack in the South American country in 2023.
While compared to the 89 gun-related incidents that have happened in educational institutions in the United States so far this year, two attacks seem a low number. But Brazilian analysts warn that there is an ongoing surge of occurrences of that nature.
A study recently released by researchers of the State University of Campinas (known in Brazil as Unicamp) demonstrated that there were 23 school attacks between 2002 and 2023 in the country, and nine of them happened since August 2022.
The emergency has urged Catholic educators to reflect on its causes and to discuss ways of interrupting the cycle of violence in schools.
"The COVID-19 pandemic intensified emotions like hatred, anguish, uncertainty, and loneliness. When the students came back to school, we felt that those unprocessed feelings led to more aggressiveness," Ascânio Sedrez, educational director of the Cabrini sisters’ Boni Consilii School, in São Paulo, and a member of the National Association of Catholic Education (ANEC), told OSV News. Read More…
