Janice Hickey, director assistant superintendent of educational services for the El Segundo Unified School District, recently returned from a trip visiting classrooms and meeting teachers in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. She takes note of the differences in educational opportunities between the rich and poor, comparing it to the educational system we have here. Here is an account of her trip:
The blistering, hair wilting, makeup melting heat was taking a toll on me and it was all of 8:30 in the morning. Ten California educators were stuffed into a Brazilian van, thundering out of Rio de Janeiro on a highway divided by no lane lines, headed for God knows where. All of us were in the country in pursuit of an International Leadership Certificate program offered by Dr. Linda Orozco through the University of California at Irvine, as well as undergoing additional coursework required by our administrative credentials to attain a Tier II level of certification.
As I bounced along hip to jowl with my fellow adventuresome California administrators, I was still in a state of shock over the school conditions I had witnessed the day before in a local neighborhood favela (slum) reminiscent of "Slumdog Millionaire."
If you like paint on the walls, technology in the classroom, and teachers with desks, slum schools are not going to be the place for you. If you like stifling heat, 40 crammed kids seated on ancient, rusted, decaying student desks, with one lonely fan laboring mightily in the back of the room, they may be just the ticket. And yet... all of the above couldn't stifle the gleam in students' eyes, or soften the steely determination of their instructors, or deflate the will of the volunteers who give generously of their time in an attempt to save another lost generation from the grinding poverty of the favelas.
Ironically, the poorest in Rio de Janeiro have the best seat in the house for stupefyingly sweeping views of the city and the beachfronts below. Favelas are the byproduct of the Ipanema and Copacabana building boom of the 1950s and 60s as citizens swarmed to the city for construction jobs, throwing up shanty houses against hillsides previously undeveloped. As generation after generation moved to the city, or had children of their own and space became limited, families built yet another tier to their houses until favela homes stretched four or five stories high. Access to neighborhoods begins at sea level via dark, narrow, cobblestone switchback alleys, many of which have never been mapped and are home to despair, poverty, filth - and dignity.
Solar Meninos de Luz is run by a charitable organization offering preschool through grade 12 programs. Children as young as two attend, freeing their parents to earn a living doing someone else's laundry and cleaning other peoples' houses. Infants are diapered, fed, and showered in assembly line fashion while older siblings crowd into classrooms struggling to attain their version of a winning lottery ticket - a decent education.
So as our cramped van continued its upward climb through an increasingly green canopy of rainforest foliage, it was a whole new experience to step out onto the manicured gardens of the American School of Rio de Janeiro, home to students of diplomats, foreign dignitaries, and wealthy families of Rio society. A series of five cupola-shaped buildings, patrolled by security guards with secret service-type ear pieces, comprised the K - 12 schools, which sported a manicured soccer field, state of the art student museum, outdoor adventure training center, and one-half-inch thick bullet proof glass. For the $25,000 tuition, children could glance out one window and see the gorgeous Rio skyline and beaches below, or out another to the ever encroaching favela houses overhanging the campus - hence the bullet proof glass.
Graduating seniors were deep in contemplation as to where to travel for their senior getaway trip -- Paris seemed to be the front runner. Classrooms were colorful, technology-laden, clean and small, averaging 15 students to a class. Educators lured from around the world by the high achieving students and luxurious teaching conditions put their students through rigorous paces, the crisp air-conditioning holding the stifling heat at bay. Banners in the main office celebrated the caliber of Universities these students gained access to: Yale, Harvard, Stanford, University of Chicago, New York University -- the list went on and on.
As we wandered the grounds, pausing to take pictures of the thick jungle foliage growing right up to the edge of the soccer field, I pondered: How could such a dichotomy exist? How could so much abundance be available to so few, while so much poverty and neglect stalk the so very many? Then I reflected on the United States educational system and the similarities were unsettling. Why do so many inner city schools catering to the poor and the voiceless suffer such a deficit in educational capital while more affluent communities with activist and advocate parents not suffer the same fate?
And yet certain similarities... The hope on the faces of the poorest students was indelible. The knowledge in poor students' smiles that education was their savior was inspirational. The joy in their laughter was universal. And their futures, for those who had the tenacity to stick with it, were entirely possible.
Similarities indeed.
**A footnote -- the day after I left Rio de Janeiro the torrential rain finally saturated those hills surrounding Rio de Janeiro, sweeping through the poorly constructed favelas and creating mudslides that killed over 300 people.
Here are some photos from the trip: Above, Brazilian favelas. Below, a portion of the downtown Rio skyline. (Photos courtesy of Janice Hickey)
