Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/154758
WE ARE AEA! • WE ARE AEA! • WE ARE AEA! • WE ARE AEA! Misha Quarles Visits Brazilian Schools, cont from page 18 A favela in Rio scaled up the mountain. The children in the middle school we visited live here. each of the Fellows by Rosetta Stone. Below is an account from Quarles regarding her trip to Brazil. Brazil Experience I am grateful to have had the opportunity to travel to Brazil this summer as a learning experience. Our goal was to create our own global perspective by learning about a culture other than our own. We visited four schools, two in São Paulo and two in Rio. Each school had unique partnerships with local businesses. In São Paulo we saw a high school and an elementary school, and in Rio we went to a technology high school and then a middle school. At each school visit we benefited from the opportunity to watch instruction and talk with teachers and students. In the high schools, we were lucky to Fall.13advo.indd 30 have students that spoke English. They spoke with us and were able to answer our questions. When we went to the elementary school in São Paulo, we had three older students that translated for us. In the elementary school, the students allowed us to be a part of their classrooms. In a math classroom, we played the game "I Have, Who Has" with single digit multiplication. It is a game I played with my 6th-grade students all the time. One amazing piece of our trip this summer was traveling through Brazil while the people were protesting. At the high schools, we were able to talk with the students and get their take on the national protests. These sixteen- and seventeen-year-old students talked to us about how empowered they felt protesting. It gave them a chance to ask their government to give the people more. They also wanted to know where their tax money goes and to know why their schools go without. As part of our journey, we learned about the Brazilian culture. We ate authentic and delicious food, we attended the Afro-Brazilian museum, and we saw a neighborhood dance group and an adult dance troop. We visited local monuments, went to the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain and Christ the Redeemer. A major highlight of the trip was Meninos de Morumbi, a performance group from the Morumbi neighborhood. An amazing man, Flávio Pimenta started teaching the children in his neighborhood how to play music as a way to keep them off the streets. Now he has 200 students he works with, teaching them to play music, dance, and sing. When we met him, he talked about the importance of providing his students with another choice and showing them they did not have to sell drugs to survive. He said he sucks them in with music and then gives them values. He brought us up to the top floor where a few kids waited for us. They performed two songs. It was overwhelming. I could see the students' pride on their faces, and the passion they showed as they performed. They taught us how to play the drums and dance. "We are a band now," Flávio would yell as we completed a drum set together. It was easy to see right away how he inspires passion and a love for music in each of his students. 2 30 Fall 2013 x AEA Advocate 8/7/13 2:35 PM