Brynn Barineau

Tag: Teaching

  • Teaching Teachers Day 1

    Today was my very first day of teacher training as well as my first day of totally on the books employment in Brazil. It was also the first time I’ve had to be in a classroom at 8am since undergrad. (Yup, it still sucks.) 

    Thankfully, Brazilians are generous with the coffee and the snacks. The caffeine was needed because it was a full day of sitting and watching mock classes on American Literature. Remember American Literature? Probably not because you didn’t have Brazilian coffee to get through class.

    I left at 5pm with Ben Franklin’s aphorisms in my head and a song in my heart. I’m so excited to have a regular job working with some brilliant expats and Brazilians. (Will I make my first real Brazilian friend? Only time will tell.) Here are some of the lessons I took away from the first day.

    – Puritan writing is awesome, particularly “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God” which I will be teaching to my future children at an early age but replacing God with Mommy.

    – Benjamin Franklin, the genius behind “A penny saved is a penny earned,” also invented the lightning rod which patriotic Americans hung flags on. The rod came before the flag.

    – If you want to laugh a lot gather a group of teachers. I’m pretty sure a sense of humor is the only thing keeping them sane.

    – I’m not a transcendentalist.

    – Every piece of literature taught in high school was originally written for adults. What would Poe think about his work being taught to 15 year-olds? And why didn’t I realize this while in the class as a student?

  • The Entrance Exam: a comedy of errors

    The Entrance Exam: a comedy of errors

    Traditionally in Brazil, universities have each had their own entrance exam. A student applying to six universities, would need to travel to each university and sit for six different exams. The process was inefficient and costly for both students and universities.

    In order to make the admissions process more egalitarian and streamlined, Brazil created the ENEM, a national entrance exam. This year is the second year the exam has been in official use and is now used by many universities as the sole entrance criteria or a first round exam.

    How’s it working out?

    Putting aside my personal belief that a single test score on a single weekend is a terrible way of determining a student’s merit, the ENEM in Brazil has been a tutorial on how to screw up administering a national exam. A true comedy of errors, that is unfortunately not funny at all since kids, already in one of the most stressful times of their lives, are the ones who suffer.

    Let’s start at the beginning.

    In 2009, the answers were leaked in advance and the exam was scrapped days before the testing date. Every student in Brazil hoping to attend college had to regroup, the exam rewritten and universities across the country had to push back start dates in order to use the ENEM as their admissions criteria.

    Earlier this year a software error within the Ministry of Education released personal data for millions of students.

    Last weekend the 2010 ENEM was given. This time around the test was successfully kept secret. Not quite as successful was the printing. At least 2000 tests had the Natural Science and Human Science questions inverted from the results sheet, some tests were missing or repeated questions and there are reports the essay theme was leaked in advance.

    Inevitably, someone sued. That “someone” being both state and federal agencies arguing the test failed the very basic standard of being equal for all students. A federal judge ruled the exam invalid. Inep, the federal agency responsible for the ENEM, appealed the judge’s decision and as of Friday the ENEM results are reinstated. But the appeals court’s decision is, of course, being appealed. The minister of Education said it would take at least two or three months to organize a second exam for all 3.4 million students and is therefore in favor of keeping last week’s test. A final decision could be weeks away.

    In the meantime, a second exam has been schedule for the students who received misprinted tests on the same days as the individual entrance exams for many of the top universities. Those students will have to choose which exam to take either forgoing application to a top university or the many universities who use the ENEM.

    And the students, the children who spent hours preparing and planning futures based on the results of this exam, they are being told not to worry and go on prepping for any other entrance exams they have.

    I think it’s important to see this entire fiasco from the student’s perspective. In the US, the SAT and the anxiety it causes are well known. Imagine if the SAT was the only admissions criteria. No grades, no essays, no letters of rec. Just an SAT score. That is the situation in Brazil. I’ve worked with teens here during the process and American seniors a zen masters compared to their test obsessed Brazilian counterparts.

    Based on my work here, I have some advice for Inep.

    Unfortunately, there is no way to salvage this year’s exam. Either 3 million students have to take the ENEM again in a few months or 2,000 take it again and miss out on applying to the universities with overlapping exams.

    There is a solution for next year, however. Don’t offer the exam.

    The Minister of Education should take responsibility and admit the federal government is not yet capable of administering an exam to 3 million students simultaneously. Therefore, the ENEM should be suspended for a minimum of 5 years.

    Universities will return to offering their own entrance exams. Don’t worry. The ENEM has only been official for two years. I’m sure universities are still capable of administering their own exams at least as successfully as you have administered yours.

    Over the next five years you, the bureaucrats, will revamp security and printing protocol. You will follow the excellent advice of Maria Helena de Castro, a former president of Inep, expand the question bank from a meagre 10,000 to 100,000 so that you can always have multiple of versions of the exam. This way you will be able to offer the exam on multiple weekends allowing backup dates should there be problems and reducing the number of students sitting for any exam.

    The exam will be administered during the next five years on a trial basis. Scholarships for top scorers and emphasizing the chance to practice sitting for entrance exams, are ways to encourage students to take the exam seriously during it’s trial phase.

    If after five years Inep has managed to administer the exam without security breaches or the score sheet being printed in reverse order, then the test may be brought back for official use.

    A spokewoman for Inep called the 2009 exam a great success. That is wrong. It was successfully salvaged after a disaster. Now, officials are saying this year’s exam was successful save the misprinted exams, dismissing the 2,000 students who received those exams. Inep claims to have made the admissions process better for students, but based on the many student protests against the ENEM this week, I don’t think they believe you.

  • Expat Milestones: First Job Interview

    Expat Milestones: First Job Interview

    I’m bragging a little today. You see, in the life of an expat there are some standard milestones. At least standard for an English speaking expat who moves to a non-English speaking country with no previous knowledge of the language. For example…

    -There’s the first time you order a pizza over the phone in your new language.

    -The first time you notice and can yell at the taxi driver for taking you on the longer “tourist” route.

    -The first time you understand enough to genuinely enjoy a film in your second language.

    Last week I hit a new one: first successful job interview in your second language.

    On Wednesday, I received the official offer to teach here in Vitoria. I had been waiting to hear back and a particularly frustrating night of Portuguese had given me a sinking feeling that I had blown the interview.

    I didn’t know going into the interview that it would be in Portuguese. I had already been through one interview with the high school coordinator. We spoke in English. All emails had been in English. I was applying to teach in English. I was reasonably expecting more English.

    When I walked in for the second interview with the principal, as we exchanged greetings the high school coordinator said, “Vamos falar em português, tá bom?” We’re going to speak in Portuguese, ok?

    Had I known the interview would be in Portuguese, I might have abandoned the entire project. I do not have very good Portuguese. It’s not false modesty. It’s speaking only English at home and having only American friends in Rio. The Portuguese I have acquired has been in spite of a pathological fear of sounding like an idiot, so the announcement that I would be interviewed by the principal in Portuguese caused a shot of adrenaline urging me to flee out the door.

    As I sat down in front of her desk, I told myself, “Just keep talking. If you start thinking too hard you’ll realize all the mistakes you’re making. Then you’ll feel embarrassed, followed by panic, and you’ll end up either tongue-tied or crying.”

    So I smiled, kept my arms at my sides to hide the giant sweat stains appearing, and I kept talking. At the end of the interview the principal complemented my fluency.

    Now, I’m the newest teacher at my school and I have to say I’m pretty proud of myself. Not only did I interview in Portuguese but I got the job without any help. I researched and found the school on my own. I sent an email asking if there were opportunities for someone with my background. I sent my resume and had two interviews. I didn’t use my husband’s contacts or drop a single name. I got the job entirely on my own.

    The only downside is that I just found out American expats still have to pay US taxes. Damn.

  • To American School or Not To American School in Rio de Janeiro

    To American School or Not To American School in Rio de Janeiro

    What would expect to get for $40,000? A great car? A renovated kitchen? What about $40,000 every year for four years, $160,000? A Harvard diploma? Nope, try a high school diploma.

    The American School in Rio de Janeiro, at the high school level, costs $33,000 a year. New students pay a registration fee of $6,500, making the grand total for freshman year $39,181. This does not include bus fees or lunch. Now, if you only have a toddler, it’s much more reasonable. Just $19,600 for half day pre-school.

    A few months back I got a message asking about schools for American kids in Rio de Janeiro. Full disclaimer: I have no kids of my own. What I know about EARJ, the American school in Rio, comes from working with high schoolers applying to college in the US. And that was only for two years. My sample size is admittedly small. Weight my opinion what you will.

    I’ve never written about EARJ because I was working with kids attending the school (i.e. their parents were paying clients). They were all great kids and I thought the professional thing to do was to remain neutral on the subject.

    Now that I’m based in Vitoria, here’s my opinion. For $40,000 a year, I expect my child to be able to build a time machine to travel back to ancient Rome and discuss in fluent Latin with Julius Caesar his reasons for taking the army across the Rubicon.

    It’s not that the school is bad. On contrary, I’ve met some really bright and driven kids who go there. I’ve also been stared at by a room of blank faces when asking for the formula for the area of a circle. My problem with the American school is that you pay $40,000 for the equivalent of a solid public school education.

    In my classes, students from the British school and Brazilian private schools like Sao Agostinho ($9,900 per year), consistently out scored the EARJ kids in math. Let’s not talk about the EARJ kids’ abysmal writing scores. I now think the best way to learn English grammar might be by taking it at a Brazilian high school.

    Essays, vocabulary and reading comprehension are EARJs strong points. This makes perfect sense given American educational culture. American teens (or Brazilians who attend an American school) don’t know what to do with a semicolon but they can express their personal opinions quite fluently. We also tend to focus more on the type of critical thinking tested in reading comprehension.

    To be clear, when I say the EARJ kids score better, that doesn’t mean they’re making 800s on the practice tests. No, the scores I saw were typically average, if not a little below. And here’s the amazing thing, they seem totally unaware of the fact that they are average.

    I said earlier that the kids I’ve taught were great. I genuinely liked everyone of them. There’s just a sense of entitlement common to the EARJ culture. Pausing to look up from their iPhones and Blackberrys, kids with average SAT scores will tell you how NYU is their backup school. Or maybe Duke. Duke might be ok if Cornell turns them down.

    NYU as a backup? Maybe if you’re the next Stephen Hawking. Where are the guidance counselors?! How can these kids be in their junior year of high school with no clue as to what a competitive SAT score is? For $40,000 a year, I’d want someone my kid can dictate her essay to.

    And we’re back to what you get for your money. I would assume that one of the benefits of sending your kids to the American high school as opposed to the British or Brazilian schools, is that you have a leg up when it comes to college admissions in the US. Someone would be there to guide you through an admissions process that is complex, bureaucratic and unique. It doesn’t seem to be the case at EARJ. The kids don’t seem more knowledgeable than any other students.

    So it’s left to the SAT teachers to talk to the kids, point out the average scores, and crush their dreams. Thanks a lot, EARJ!

    My husband and I will most likely go the Brazilian school route with our kids. They will get their English lit exposure from Mommy’s Summer Reading List. Expats moving to Rio with older kids probably can’t put them into a competitive, Brazilian school like Agostinho or Bento. In that case, I’m forced to be a traitor and recommend the British school. Their students have a more solid foundation in math and English and the school’s a little cheaper.

    Of course, if Chevron is footing your tuition bill, hell, go crazy. Enroll your kids, your maid’s kids, and your dog too. The campus is gorgeous and I think each student is given her own pet monkey.