Tuesday, April 25, 2006
The team from Intimus at the Colégio Energia
It is that time of year again. The team from Intimus, manufacturers of sanitary products for Brazil’s women, was in the Energia School gymnasium next door to us. In the past with other events at the school, including Intimus, MacDonalds and other companies who come, the PA system has been set on Stun, with noise levels fit to shake the apartment blocks either side of the school. Last time I phoned the school up during the earthquake, knowing that it would be impossible to conduct a conversation with the secretary, and thus making the point.
The point seems to have been taken. Intimus’ PA was somewhat muted. Plates did not actually rattle, but the entire neighbourhood was still able to hear every word. And with Intimus it is sex education: everything about puberty, from the need to use more deodorant to wet dreams, from menstruation to whether your first sexual experience can make you pregnant – all of it broadcast for all to hear. The team sing and dance, show videos, and involve the kids in jolly quizzes, girls versus boys, answering questions about sexual health issues. None of the young people show the slightest self-consciousness or embarrassment about this.
It is not just the school, of course. Last Friday, a bank holiday here, we could hear a Pentecostal preacher thundering from… we don’t know where. Presumably a new church is being planted somewhere in the houses to the rear of us – at least 100 to 200 metres. It was as easy to make out every word of his sermon as sitting in a church in England. There is one rule for whatever you want to say here: Make It LOUD!
But there is another aspect to Intimus at the school. However odd it may be for us Brits to hear the sex education lesson at full volume in our study, it also seems strange that this task is delegated to a commercial enterprise. Sure, the school is private: it makes commercial sense to accept the (presumably) free offers of help with certain aspects of the curriculum that come from the private sector. Let MacDs and Intimus do their thing!
But the actual teaching at Energia also exhibits another element that makes the whole thing utterly bizarre. Brazilian teacher-training is dominated by Marxism. That is in evidence at Energia: we know, because we can hear the teaching in the classroom that sits level with our study window. And last parents’ day, they had some of the teachers give demo classes in the gymnasium – one of the loudest efforts yet. We know that we are hardly of the Right, but to hear the History Teacher droning on again about “another lie from Bush,” and the evils of the church, and how Calvin invented capitalism, turns our stomachs. Where is objectivity? Where is academic rigour?
And where is the consistency in a pedagogical system which decries capitalism on the one hand, and then puts its feet up in the staff room while letting Sanitary Towel Companies do the sex education?
Crazy, man!
It is that time of year again. The team from Intimus, manufacturers of sanitary products for Brazil’s women, was in the Energia School gymnasium next door to us. In the past with other events at the school, including Intimus, MacDonalds and other companies who come, the PA system has been set on Stun, with noise levels fit to shake the apartment blocks either side of the school. Last time I phoned the school up during the earthquake, knowing that it would be impossible to conduct a conversation with the secretary, and thus making the point.
The point seems to have been taken. Intimus’ PA was somewhat muted. Plates did not actually rattle, but the entire neighbourhood was still able to hear every word. And with Intimus it is sex education: everything about puberty, from the need to use more deodorant to wet dreams, from menstruation to whether your first sexual experience can make you pregnant – all of it broadcast for all to hear. The team sing and dance, show videos, and involve the kids in jolly quizzes, girls versus boys, answering questions about sexual health issues. None of the young people show the slightest self-consciousness or embarrassment about this.
It is not just the school, of course. Last Friday, a bank holiday here, we could hear a Pentecostal preacher thundering from… we don’t know where. Presumably a new church is being planted somewhere in the houses to the rear of us – at least 100 to 200 metres. It was as easy to make out every word of his sermon as sitting in a church in England. There is one rule for whatever you want to say here: Make It LOUD!
But there is another aspect to Intimus at the school. However odd it may be for us Brits to hear the sex education lesson at full volume in our study, it also seems strange that this task is delegated to a commercial enterprise. Sure, the school is private: it makes commercial sense to accept the (presumably) free offers of help with certain aspects of the curriculum that come from the private sector. Let MacDs and Intimus do their thing!
But the actual teaching at Energia also exhibits another element that makes the whole thing utterly bizarre. Brazilian teacher-training is dominated by Marxism. That is in evidence at Energia: we know, because we can hear the teaching in the classroom that sits level with our study window. And last parents’ day, they had some of the teachers give demo classes in the gymnasium – one of the loudest efforts yet. We know that we are hardly of the Right, but to hear the History Teacher droning on again about “another lie from Bush,” and the evils of the church, and how Calvin invented capitalism, turns our stomachs. Where is objectivity? Where is academic rigour?
And where is the consistency in a pedagogical system which decries capitalism on the one hand, and then puts its feet up in the staff room while letting Sanitary Towel Companies do the sex education?
Crazy, man!
# posted by Andrew and Cora @ 9:05:00 am 
