May 24, 2013
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No School
This week, Living Stones has been overfull of children. I am not complaining because of that, but because of the causes. The children in Guadalajara, Cajueiro Claro, and Mussurepe have no school. The teachers in Paudalho are on strike. No one knows when the strike will end. Apparently, some mess between the teachers and the local government and getting paid. http://www.sinpro-pe.org.br/base/2013/05/20/professores-de-paudalho-deflagram-greve/ (if you want to read Portuguese).
It just blows my brain that Brazil has enough money to build stadiums and duplicate the road, and yet can’t pay teachers regularly. It is absurd that these children should suddenly have this gap in their education. Education, what education? The realities I see are rural areas with no school, or a school until 3rd grade. If the school bus comes, because during rainy season the road washes out, it is not very regular. When they go to school, the classrooms are overcrowded (40-60 in a classroom is not unusual), and the materials? Chalkboard, bring your own chalk. One or two fans, if working.
If you want better quality? Pay for a private (probably Catholic) school. No money? Sorry about you. And consider the ramifications of this teacher strike: let’s say it ends next week (being hopeful here): two weeks out of school will require at least two weeks of makeup work to get back to where they were before. That is a month of learning, gone. Most of the children miss about a month from transportation problems. If there is anything else going on in their life or family, make it another month. After holidays, that leaves about 6 or 7 months of the year where they are actually in school: and you wonder why most of the children are behind their grade–they can’t study enough to pass the year with all those gaps.
I watched a show set in the medieval times, and it was depressing. All that was needed to ruin everything was one person in authority who was evil or manipulative, and then everyone suffered. Because the common people had no rights. And I am reading “Half the Sky” which has a bunch of facts and stories that blow my mind about women and how they are still suffering today without a voice in so many places in the world. All it takes is a society where the culture says that all a woman is good for is reproduction, and then everyone is screwed. So many problems in this world, and I don’t know where to start in trying to fix them. Overwhelming.
