Recently I
took a trip to Brazil as part of a Global Learners Fellowship. We visited a handful
of schools in both Sao Paulo in Rio de Janeiro. In addition, we visited some
other Non-Governmental Agencies, Volunteer Organizations as well as some
typical tourist sites. I plan on writing a series of posts about the things
that I saw and experienced and the reflections from all of it. It really was
one of those experiences that will take several weeks, months, and even years
to fully processed and unpack. Naturally, I took a ton of pictures and videos.
Here is just a short video I put together as a one-minute highlight reel.
False Assumptions
When
I left for Brazil I had a lot of preconceived notions about what I was going to
experience and witness while in the country and in their schools. To be honest,
I had a pretty stereotypical American attitude that there was going to be very
little I was going to learn about how to do my job as a teacher better. I
figured I would have fun, meet a ton of great people, but not really find
anything great to bring back to my classroom. I knew the goal of our trip was
to open our eyes to global competency and give us a unique perspective on just
that. However, I was incredibly skeptical that I was truly going to be inspired
to change my teaching based on anything I was going to see in a Brazilian
school.
On
the insanely long plane ride to Sao Paulo, another Fellow and I were talking
about why we were even going to Brazil. Why were we not heading to Helsinki?
Clearly we would learn more there. Then we began to think that maybe we were
coming as the messiahs to preach the good word of American education to the
people of Brazil. How colonial of us. J Frankly, we were more excited about seeing the
cable car from Moonraker up on Sugar Loaf Mountain than visiting the sure to be
uninspiring schools of Brazil.
Yet
on our very first school visit to Humboldt High School in Sao Paulo my preconceived
notions were shattered in just a matter of seconds. Where I thought I would see
depressing and sad state of affairs, I encountered passion and enthusiasm
unlike anything I had ever seen. The students at this school showed a level of
passion for being in school that I have never witnessed in any school I have
ever attended or taught in. I saw the kids that had a love for learning and
literally craved it is we see Americans crave fast food. Now I must put a
disclaimer here that the school we visited was sort of a pilot school that I
will explain in a future post. Essentially it was a public school that did
receive a level of financial support from a business partnership.
There
was no sense of entitlement that we often face in American school. In fact it
was quite the opposite. The kids we spoke with felt that they were genuinely
lucky and truly blessed to be in school and to learn as a way to improve their
lives. It was like nothing I have ever seen or witnessed or felt before. Here I
was, this arrogant American teacher who thought that I had it all figured out. How
wrong I was. What I wouldn’t give to have just one of those students come to my
school and share their genuine love for learning with my students and teachers.
Words can simply not express the experience.
One
might ask why were they so enthusiastic and passion about learning? Obviously,
they had Classroom Dojo to facilitate their behaviors and make sure they were
getting stickers and badges to motivate them. Or maybe they were using the
flipped classroom model and these kids were going home and being inspired by
watching YouTube videos and coming in and having lively discussions. Some of
you are thinking it's because their teachers were held to such a high level of
accountability with test scores that they just naturally had this lively,
loving, and supportive learning environment. You might assume that they had a
one to one technology environment with every kid having a MacBook Air or an iPad
or wearing a pair of Google Glass. You can probably picture the walls filled
with student work and motivational posters with people climbing high rock walls
in mountaintops.
To
be honest none of that was there. It was just a bunch of kids that wanted to
learn and a bunch of teachers that wanted to teach them. It’s just that simple.
They had created such a community that it just worked. A great example of this
community was when we ate lunch. I am a lunchroom supervisor and often spend my
lunch periods eating while standing and roaming around redirecting and
disciplining kids to pick up after themselves. Yet in this school there were no
supervisors anywhere in the lunchroom area. It was just kids eating and in some
cases teachers sitting with them as well. You could feel the community and
respect the kids and staff had for each other and their school.
My
initial takeaway from this visit was how they were able to do so much by way of
motivating students and creating a community of learning with so little. You
could see in every teacher and student we spoke with a genuine love for each
other and passion for making theirs lives better. This was not about improving
tests scores, which is a reality for them, but it was about improving lives.
Their sense of community and passion was something I will never forget and will
remember with jealousy.
I moved forward from that first school visit
with a new outlook and tossed all of my false assumptions out the door. From
that point on I embraced the idea that I had a lot to learn and planned on
soaking it all up.
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