I have written a 760-word text with 6 paragraphs to practice my ability to write a text with introduction, development and conclusion. If you are going to correct my writing, I’d like to know about the following: (1) does it have a clear sense of continuity (intro + development + conclusion)?; (2) proper punctuation; (3) proper verb tense usage; (4) I’ve tried to use formal writing, could it be considered formal writing? (5) And, of course, thank you very much.

The PISA 2015 results have shown a big problem with Brazil’s education. Most 15-years-old students have trouble with mathematics and language, two skills that are of increasing importance as humanity becomes more dependent on science and technology. Solutions for this problem may not be easy, for Brazil is a big country with a heterogeneous population. Nevertheless, I think there is enough evidence pointing to two things that could be acted upon: the lack of help at early stages for students who are struggling, and the parents’ academic formation, which is usually incomplete, hindering them from helping their children. In the next paragraphs I am going to elaborate on this two issues and how they might be connected.

The first issue, which is the lack of assistance for low-performance students while they still have a chance of overcoming their difficulties, has always been lurking on my mind without my being able to express it. This scenario changed when I watched a TED Talk by Salman Khan, the founder of Khan Academy, in which he cleverly explains at least one reason for why so many educational systems fail: when teachers finish one topic from a given subject and have their students’ results, they simply move on to the next topic in order to fulfill their planning schedule for the year, regardless of the many students who failed their tests. How are students supposed to understand the next topic if it probably will be dependent on the previous one?

Finish students have been doing very well on PISA, and part of this could be attributed to the fact that Finish schools give great attention to supporting students as soon as they present difficulties. Searching on the Internet one may find articles about how some Finish teachers are prepared for the specific job of working closely with low-performance students until they show enough improvement to dispense with the extra help. In Brazil most students do not receive support when it is due, and then end up with a considerable deficit in their knowledge. Most undergraduate students have trouble with Calculus not because of Calculus itself is complicated, but because they lack the knowledge from high school and elementary school which are absolutely necessary for a good performance when pursuing a higher education in science and technology.

The second issue involves the parents, who usually have gaps on their own knowledge, making it difficult for them to help their children. Most adults in Brazil have not concluded high school, or have done so through an adult education program, which barely covers the most basic things. I realized this first by observing families I know, and then having my suspicions turned into facts by the results of researches carried out in Brazil.

Researchers interviewed groups of parents by applying a questionnaire, in which parents had to evaluate the quality of education offered their children by the schools they attended. What they found contradicted PISA’s as well as national tests’ results, for most parents considered their children’s schools to be of good quality, whereas PISA and others tests indicated otherwise. After some more research, the cause for this discrepancy was elucidated: most parents, having not finished formal education, thereby not being able to judge what the school had been teaching, based their opinions on other observations; for instance, parents considered whether the school had had an indoor court, a computer lab, meals for the students, and uniforms. All these are part of what makes a school work, but they are not good metrics for the quality of what had been being taught.

It is easy to connect these two issues in a cycle: parents and schools are not prepared to help students, who end up failing at school to, in the future, become parents incapable of helping their own children. Expecting the students themselves to ask for more efficient approaches would not be advisable, as children do not really understand the importance of education for their future; parents would not be a good choice either, for most of them do not involve themselves in what and how schools teach, caring more about uniforms and food, as commented above. In my opinion, this situation requires intervention in the form of public policies, trough which Brazilian government could apply some of the ideas employed by Finish schools. At first the results would seem insignificant, but as more students were being supported, there would be more parents prepared to offer help to their children. A cycle of low-performance and struggle might give place to a cycle of good-performance and support.