Questões de Concurso

Chagas disease, also known as American trypanosomiasis, is a potentially life-threatening illness caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. About 6-7 million people worldwide are estimated to be infected with T. cruzi. The disease is found mainly in endemic areas of 21 continental Latin American countries, where it has been mostly transmitted to humans and other mammals by contact with feces or urine of triatomine bugs (vector-borne), known as kissing bugs, among many other popular names, depending on the geographical area.

Chagas disease is named after Carlos Ribeiro Justiniano Chagas, a Brazilian physician and researcher who discovered the disease in 1909. Chagas disease was once entirely confined to continental rural areas of the Region of the Americas (excluding the Caribbean islands). Due to increased population mobility over previous decades, most infected people now live in urban settings and the infection has been increasingly detected in the United States of America, Canada, and many European and some African, Eastern Mediterranean and Western Pacific countries.

Chagas disease’s transmission is caused by T. cruzi parasites, which are mainly transmitted by contact with feces/urine of infected blood-sucking triatomine bugs. Normally they hide during the day and become active at night when they feed on animal blood, including human blood. They usually bite an exposed area of skin such as the face (hence its common name, kissing bug), and the bug defecates or urinates close to the bite. The parasites enter the body when the person instinctively smears the bug’s feces or urine into the bite, other skin breaks, the eyes, or the mouth. T. cruzi can also be transmitted by consumption of food or beverages contaminated with T. cruzi through, for example, contact with feces or urine of infected triatomine bugs or common opossums. This kind of transmission typically causes outbreaks with more severe cases and mortality; passage from an infected mother to her newborn during pregnancy or childbirth; blood or blood product transfusion from infected donors; some organ transplants using organs from infected donors; and laboratory accidents.

Internet: <who.int> (adapted).

In 2020, the state of California experienced its worst wildfire season on record, with the Bay Area fire becoming one of the largest wildfires in American history. By the end of the year, the state recorded more than 8,600 blazes that burned down over 4 million acres of land, accounting for more than 4% of the state’s total land area.

California is known for its wildfire seasons, which usually take place between late summer and early autumn, though they have been getting significantly more intense, destructive, and longer in the past two decades. At least one-third of the worst wildfires in USA (United States of America) history occurred in California. But what causes California such susceptibility to wildfires in the first place and what is causing the exacerbation of it?

Wildfires can occur naturally and as a result of human activity, but three elements must be present for a wildfire to start. Fuel: Any flammable material surrounding a fire, which can come in the form of live or dead trees, dry vegetation, and other organic matter; Air: An abundance of oxygen supply. Heat sources: to ignite and burn the fuel. This could take the form of lightning strikes or human sources such as campfires or cigarettes.

Natural wildfires, which are classified as natural disasters by the Environmental Protection Agency, can start during low precipitation, dry weather and droughts. During these conditions, dry vegetation becomes the perfect fuel for wildfires and when lightning strikes, it ignites a fire that can spread rapidly with the aid of strong winds and elevated temperatures.

Internet: <earth.org> (adapted).

In 2020, the state of California experienced its worst wildfire season on record, with the Bay Area fire becoming one of the largest wildfires in American history. By the end of the year, the state recorded more than 8,600 blazes that burned down over 4 million acres of land, accounting for more than 4% of the state’s total land area.

California is known for its wildfire seasons, which usually take place between late summer and early autumn, though they have been getting significantly more intense, destructive, and longer in the past two decades. At least one-third of the worst wildfires in USA (United States of America) history occurred in California. But what causes California such susceptibility to wildfires in the first place and what is causing the exacerbation of it?

Wildfires can occur naturally and as a result of human activity, but three elements must be present for a wildfire to start. Fuel: Any flammable material surrounding a fire, which can come in the form of live or dead trees, dry vegetation, and other organic matter; Air: An abundance of oxygen supply. Heat sources: to ignite and burn the fuel. This could take the form of lightning strikes or human sources such as campfires or cigarettes.

Natural wildfires, which are classified as natural disasters by the Environmental Protection Agency, can start during low precipitation, dry weather and droughts. During these conditions, dry vegetation becomes the perfect fuel for wildfires and when lightning strikes, it ignites a fire that can spread rapidly with the aid of strong winds and elevated temperatures.

Internet: <earth.org> (adapted).

The production of the BNCC (Base Nacional Comum Curricular) gave rise to a series of discussions on the role of school systems in Brazil. A number of educators and researchers expressed their concerns about the homogenizing perspective reflected and refracted by the document. In other words, in a country as socially and culturally diverse as Brazil is, how might an educational instrument outline “essential types of knowledge” for students, irrespective of their personal, regional, and local specificities?

On the other hand, the document also incorporates a discourse which values peripheral contributions. In doing so, it adopts a more overtly progressive tone, which accentuates the importance of diversity. Szundy, in her examination of the BNCC’s English Language component, underscores how the document subscribes to the notion of ideological literacy. The author believes that the BNCC’s introduction of an intercultural axis brings the document closer to an ideological stance which “understands languages as resources that put us in contact with otherness, with plural and equally valid ways of being and of being in the world.” A bit further, the author argues that “BNCC may urge us to situate teaching within the realm of decolonial practices”.

We could be led to think that BNCC, by laying emphasis on the situated nature of learners’ knowledge, reinforces democratic ideals and seeks to promote unrestricted access to critical education. This interpretation, albeit problematic, seems less harmful than the enunciation of universal, “essential knowledge.” However, it is also Szundy who, in her analysis of the competences and skills associated with the teaching of English in the Brazilian 6th grade, encounters an autonomous view of reading: “The use of verbs such as formulate, identify and locate in these three reading skills is at odds with the formative and political understanding of the English language found in the component’s introduction, as well as with the document’s overall apprehension of the lingua franca concept (…)”.

BNCC’s discursive and ideological diversity refracts a myriad of epistemological and axiological contradictions, illuminating a clash between ideological systems. Amidst such conflicts, however, we may find openings for the creation of new curricula. This point is repeatedly made in Szundy’s analysis as she dwells on the skills and competences outlined by the BNCC for the 9th grade in Middle Education. In such descriptors, the use of verbs such as debate, analyse and discuss could suggest the development of more critical and political linguistic practices. Yet, in Szundy’s own words: “In BNCC, the English language’s status as a lingua franca (…) is designed to assist students in developing the skills and competences they need to become selfentrepreneurs and to participate in the global world without ever calling its macro and micro structures into question; without ever examining how these very structures operate to keep huge swaths of the population at bay, deprived of any access to the commodities of an utopian global village.”

BNCC, a normative document, prescribes a conditioning of students’ reading practices. The underlying pedagogical conception assumes the existence of a Cartesian reader, equipped with enough autonomy to identify the precise routes laid down by authors, as if fruition automatically conferred such abilities. This project is incongruous with the nature of language itself, i.e., with the fact that meaning emerges through socially and historically situated contact with otherness (even when that otherness is materialized in texts). Here, the notion of ideological sign comes in handy once more, since meanings only arise in concrete communicative situations, where they are imbued with existing social values.

Internet: <doi.org> (adapted).