Like everyone, I am shocked by the attack on a public school in Rio de Janeiro by a madman who shot the students. He killed 12 children, injured 10 and traumatized thousands.
Today I received an email, forwarded by a friend, that circulated on discussion lists and portrays the situation in Brazilian public schools.
It is a teacher’s account/outpouring. It provides a sad context for the images we have seen over the past few days:
Fwd: Reflections on the Realengo massacre
For a long time I have considered the violence against teachers, the institution and among students themselves to be just part of the tip of the iceberg. The debate about Realengo is following the same path as what happened at the century-old Campos Sales and Amadeu Amaral schools (in São Paulo): treating it as (merely) psychotic maladjustment (or a breakdown).
There are many stories, little studied (or collected). I remember, about two years ago, a pretty 12-year-old girl, the lover of a 31-year-old drug boss, who supported her whole family on money “given” by the “bro.” I saw a student of mine in his last year of high school move away because he was afraid of the little girl. When we decided, after many thefts and beatings, to put the girl “out” of school, our educational coordinator and another teacher were approached and threatened near the school… I remember a drug dealer, 17 or 18, who entered the school to kill his ex-girlfriend and, pistol in hand, ended up crying on a teacher’s shoulder and being comforted by him, while everyone else in the school ran out.
I often intervene—with some of the more active teachers—to prevent young Bolivian or Peruvian students from being beaten at the school gate or in the bathroom simply for being Bolivian. I asked a group of students, aged 11 and 12, why they were mistreating their classmate, what the reason was… they explained… “she’s ugly”.
I remember last year an 11-year-old boy who raped a 6-year-old classmate… and when the principal took action she was transferred to the Regional Education Office… or a colleague of mine, six months pregnant, whose arm was grazed by a bullet during class for asking a student to stop snorting cocaine at his desk…
Wellington chose the school he had attended, shot girls to kill and boys to injure… it is news because it happened wholesale, while this has been happening every day, retail.
Best
JK