It's already been one year and one month since I've been in Brazil. I had arrived full of excitement, apprehension, hope, fear. So many choices in life, how do you choose the right path? I went back to the 'about' section of the blog, to see exactly what my thoughts were when I set out for Brazil. So much has happened, since then. I have updated this blog every once and awhile. I was less frequent with my entries as Brazil became my home more than a travel destination. But now, one year living in Brazil, I'd like to give a bit of a recap on what's going on down here, and what might be next...
I came to Brazil with the intention of combining my two passions: education and sustainable development.
Education:
January 2012
-After a few months of joblessness, I decided to pick up the slack and look for work as an English teacher. I got a job at CNA (Cultura Norte Americana). I made good friends here, friends that I continue to see now that I have left CNA. I also, gained much experience using and exploring the potential of smart boards (or e-boards). But, working Saturdays, was not for me, and as I had predicted "things fell into place almost naturally". Through a staff member at CNA, I met Davida, who wanted to take private French classes with me. When I met Davida, she also told me that an International School happened to be looking for a grade 7/8 teacher to begin as of immediately. It was a job right up my alley.
March 2012
-For a few months, I kept up both my job at CNA and the new exciting job at the International School of Macae (ISoM). Admittedly, teaching all the core academic subjects for grade 7/8 was a challenge. But an awesome experience. By June, I had completed a full semester at CNA, and sent in my resignation letter. I was looking forward to having one job, and reclaim my weekends for travel.
July 2012
-In July, after an amazing 2 week trip back home and some travelling in Brazil, I returned to work at ISoM. However, thanks to a bit of rearranging, I was now set to teach only my subject area: Social Studies from grades 7-12. I couldn't have asked for anything better. Subjects included: World History, World Geography, American History, American Government, World Cultures and a Global Studies and Perspectives (where current events can be discussed in student-led course). While this has been challenging in and of itself, I am learning so much along the way. It has truly been a pleasure to work at the school, many times it doesn't even seem like work at all.
Sustainable Development:
Nov. 2011
-During my few months unemployed, I took advantage of the time off to do a one-month internship at TIBA (Intuitive Technology and Bio-Architecture). Here I was really hoping to see an example of a sustainable model, and learn and practice permaculture. The experience was inspiring, but I was somewhat disappointed upon leaving, somehow hoping to have seen more, to have witnessed something very different and inspiring.
June 2012
-Once I started working at CNA and ISoM, I had little time to devote to visiting other sustainable development initiatives, but I managed to take a few days off work to check out the Rio + 20 Earth Summit and join a delegation from Canada World Youth. While, it was inspiring to see civil society actors coming together, demanding change, I was disappointed that seemingly, nothing concrete, had really come out of the UN summit. It was a mere reaffirmation that heads of state are more interested in keeping the economy going then actually saving the very foundation (the resources) upon which the economy runs.
October 2012
-During a long weekend in October, I had a chance to go to another place I had wanted to visit, namely, Instituto Visao Futuro (Future Vision Institute), which is located in the interior of the state of Sao Paulo. Here again, I was curious to see the inner-workings of a sustainable community. I had amazing conversations with individuals here, and I started to get a glimpse of a path I'd like to embark on.
-All these experiences, gave me the inspiration to try to combine both education and sustainable development.
Combining Education with Sustainable Development:
July 2012
-My drive to combine education with sustainable development, has been met with mixed success. In my classroom, after weeks of showing my students documentaries, having discussions, and doing activities about environmental issues, I had hoped to awaken some sort of environmental engagement, but was disappointed when this wasn't achieved. But, I haven't given up hope yet...
October 2012
-I have got the green light to start a vermicomposting project at school. Taking in the school's organic waste produced by the cafeteria, and transforming it into fertilizer with the help of red worms. I've got the system up and running now, and it's been pretty exciting so far. Lot's of trial and error along the way. In the new year, I'm hoping to design lessons around vermicomposting. While I am starting small (only able to take in 150 litres of organic waste per month), I hope to eventually be able to take all the organic waste produced by the school and transform it back into soil.
January 2013
-The school (after 2 years of planning) will be investing in an 'outdoor classroom'. An area the size of a classroom with a table and seats, bushes, plants, trees and four garden plots for the students to plant. This is supposed to be constructed over the summer holidays (Dec/Jan). I'm not holding my breathe, but when it is eventually completed, it will end up being the final destination for the nutrient rich natural fertlizer that my worms are producing. If we can grow some foods that end up at the cafeteria, we will have completed the entire food cycle. Where food waste from the cafeteria is transformed back into food for the cafeteria. This would be an amazing achievement. I plan to get students involved in every aspect of this cycle.
Where do I go from here? I really am liking working with education. I want to bring in environmentalism into the school, one step at a time. I want to visit schools like the 'Green School' in Bali one day, to check out their initiatives. Who knows, maybe be a part of creating 'Green School #2' somewhere here in Brazil.
My recent trip to Visao Futuro, also sparked another interest. Checking out some more alternative education models. I listened to Jose Pacheco (who started a successful alternative school in Portugal). School with no classrooms, few teachers (and many volunteers), no bells, no official start and end times, student-driven curriculum. Taking in students that were deemed 'lost causes' and transforming their lives through this kind of education, seems almost too good to be true. How does this all really work practically? I'm really curious to know. I'm thinking of trying to volunteer sometime at one of Pacheco's schools he's been developing here in Brazil.
I've got some general bearings, we'll see where the wind takes me from here. But, that's all part of the excitement. And while, I'm missing family and friends back home in Canada, this adventure has been amazing and I have no regrets. I have been learning so much along the way. I have met some remarkable people. I have some freedom to bring alternative projects into education, projects, that I know would be met with much more bureaucratic red tape in a public school in Canada.
Oct
15
2012
CouchSurfing South America Video Contest
Hey y'all,
I'll be putting up a real update soon! But for now, be sure to check out this video I made back in 2010. I'm putting it into a contest to win a trip around the world! Check it out and click 'like' on YouTube.
Thanks again for all the hosts during this trip that offered me a bed/couch.
I'll be putting up a real update soon! But for now, be sure to check out this video I made back in 2010. I'm putting it into a contest to win a trip around the world! Check it out and click 'like' on YouTube.
Thanks again for all the hosts during this trip that offered me a bed/couch.
Jun
19
2012
Rio +20: What really needs to happen.
"We are on the threshold of a future with unprecedented environmental risks…The combined effects of climate change, resource scarcity, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem resilience at a time of increased demand poses a real threat to humanity's welfare…Such a future generates unacceptable risks that will undermine the resilience of the planet and its inhabitants."
This was a message to the Rio +20 Conference from 40 figures including Nobel chemistry laureate Yuan-Tseh Lee, Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Monica Vieira Teixeira and Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former Norwegian prime minister who in the 1980s issued a landmark report on sustainable development.
Severn Suzuki, ‘the girl who silenced the world’ with her moving speech in Rio ’92, returns to Rio twenty years later and delivers the following message:
Over the years as I was going these [environmental] conferences, I sensed sustainability was an issue losing traction…and I slowly realized that the top level politicians were not going to change the world for us. I realized that if we wanted to change the world we had to find the solutions ourselves and implement them in our own communities and then go out and demand change from our politicians. I decided to focus on change from the ground up…on citizen engagement.
It is clear that the current global meta-strategy is to change everything from nature into profit at a blistering pace and on a scale and a budget that dwarfs its opposition…we need nothing short of a massive paradigm shift to a strategic way of living that will carry our human race forward to a future with dignity.
I work as a teacher at an international school and a few weeks ago, I had attempted to rally my students to make changes in their own lives and to push for changes at our school that would help the environment. After showing them documentaries and photos, outlining the dangers of the amount of plastic we consume. The pacific trash vortex, how we are destroying our planet,
I challenged them to think of how they could make changes in their own lives for a better world. The changes they came up with were all superficial, demanding little to no effort.
Beside our school’s water fountains there is a plastic cup dispenser. And students get a new plastic cup every time they get a drink of water. I pointed this fact out to my students. They agreed that something should be done, and for a few days tried to at least reuse their cups.
After a week they had returned to using new cups and throwing them away.
I thought that perhaps I should talk to the school administration and make a move to get rid of all the plastic cups. Students would adapt to the change and either bring a water bottle or simply go back to the customary way we drink from water fountains.
In many ways, these kinds of changes are what citizens keep demanding from politicians. Ban plastic bags! Tax high polluting vehicles! Fine those who do not recycle!
But, is this really the best we’ve got? I can go to the school’s administration and get those plastic cups removed. Students will adapt. But when they are faced with a choice, later on in their lives between an eco-friendly option and a non-eco-friendly option, I have done nothing in my role as teacher to inspire them to make an eco-friendly choice.
When these kids grow up to be the world’s lawyers, politicians, doctors, nurses, teachers, businessmen…they will only perpetuate the current dangerous mindset we see in today’s leaders.
Is making going green seem cheap really our only way of getting people to join this cause?
Many of the world’s leaders are not at the Rio+20 conference, some have chosen to stay home or are at the G20 conference in Mexico. Economy triumphs over our saving our home time and time again.
Give up waiting on politicians. For each ‘step forward’ by politicians responding to environmental demands, there are two steps backward somewhere down the line in response to defending business as usual. And should world leaders make changes, they would be in the form of economic incentives to be green (taxes, credits, subsidies, fines). These are only band-aid solutions so long as the population remains uninspired to change themselves and their own communities.
David Suzuki mentioned in a lecture once that it’s as though our society is in a car headed for a collision. The environmentalists are shouting in the back seat point to the brick wall ahead, trying to warn the driver and the others of the impeding danger, but everyone seems unmoved focused only on the piece of road directly ahead of the car.
If we can’t stop the driver, we need to call up friends to go ahead and start building a new car now. From the grassroots, we need to start building a well-designed society where such a collision will never be allowed to occur again.
This was a message to the Rio +20 Conference from 40 figures including Nobel chemistry laureate Yuan-Tseh Lee, Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Monica Vieira Teixeira and Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former Norwegian prime minister who in the 1980s issued a landmark report on sustainable development.
Severn Suzuki, ‘the girl who silenced the world’ with her moving speech in Rio ’92, returns to Rio twenty years later and delivers the following message:
Over the years as I was going these [environmental] conferences, I sensed sustainability was an issue losing traction…and I slowly realized that the top level politicians were not going to change the world for us. I realized that if we wanted to change the world we had to find the solutions ourselves and implement them in our own communities and then go out and demand change from our politicians. I decided to focus on change from the ground up…on citizen engagement.
It is clear that the current global meta-strategy is to change everything from nature into profit at a blistering pace and on a scale and a budget that dwarfs its opposition…we need nothing short of a massive paradigm shift to a strategic way of living that will carry our human race forward to a future with dignity.
I work as a teacher at an international school and a few weeks ago, I had attempted to rally my students to make changes in their own lives and to push for changes at our school that would help the environment. After showing them documentaries and photos, outlining the dangers of the amount of plastic we consume. The pacific trash vortex, how we are destroying our planet,
I challenged them to think of how they could make changes in their own lives for a better world. The changes they came up with were all superficial, demanding little to no effort.
Beside our school’s water fountains there is a plastic cup dispenser. And students get a new plastic cup every time they get a drink of water. I pointed this fact out to my students. They agreed that something should be done, and for a few days tried to at least reuse their cups.
After a week they had returned to using new cups and throwing them away.
I thought that perhaps I should talk to the school administration and make a move to get rid of all the plastic cups. Students would adapt to the change and either bring a water bottle or simply go back to the customary way we drink from water fountains.
In many ways, these kinds of changes are what citizens keep demanding from politicians. Ban plastic bags! Tax high polluting vehicles! Fine those who do not recycle!
But, is this really the best we’ve got? I can go to the school’s administration and get those plastic cups removed. Students will adapt. But when they are faced with a choice, later on in their lives between an eco-friendly option and a non-eco-friendly option, I have done nothing in my role as teacher to inspire them to make an eco-friendly choice.
When these kids grow up to be the world’s lawyers, politicians, doctors, nurses, teachers, businessmen…they will only perpetuate the current dangerous mindset we see in today’s leaders.
Is making going green seem cheap really our only way of getting people to join this cause?
Many of the world’s leaders are not at the Rio+20 conference, some have chosen to stay home or are at the G20 conference in Mexico. Economy triumphs over our saving our home time and time again.
Give up waiting on politicians. For each ‘step forward’ by politicians responding to environmental demands, there are two steps backward somewhere down the line in response to defending business as usual. And should world leaders make changes, they would be in the form of economic incentives to be green (taxes, credits, subsidies, fines). These are only band-aid solutions so long as the population remains uninspired to change themselves and their own communities.
David Suzuki mentioned in a lecture once that it’s as though our society is in a car headed for a collision. The environmentalists are shouting in the back seat point to the brick wall ahead, trying to warn the driver and the others of the impeding danger, but everyone seems unmoved focused only on the piece of road directly ahead of the car.
If we can’t stop the driver, we need to call up friends to go ahead and start building a new car now. From the grassroots, we need to start building a well-designed society where such a collision will never be allowed to occur again.
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