HI I AM WRITTING THIS IS IN RESPONSE TO THE POST WRITTEN IN THE BLOG THE GOLDEN PAPAYA, I HOPE MAM, YOU DO GET A CHANCE TO READ THIS.
THIS IS A RESPONSE TO THIS BLOG: http://www.thegoldenpapaya.com/2009/08/who-cap-fit.html
Hi, I am a former student of PASB, and I was extremely sad to read your thoughts in this blog. Maybe you dont know those kids the way I do. Or maybe it is just a way people find to explain why they cant adapt, for it is much easier to blame the surroundings then ourselves who cant drop our guard to the new and different. It is funny to see that you casted your opinion on a whole country and its youth and you only cited one example. Well in that class there many great kids, people who stood up in a bench in the middle of a bus station to try to inform an alienated population about the situation in Iran (did it help no? but no one had thougt about that, maybe out of those hundreds of people one might have decided to do something.) Among those kids there is a son of a very rich farmer who from his own heart decided to help the little school located in the city near his farm (in a country with about 190 million people did he affect the nation? No, but no doubt that about twenty more kids will have a shot a colllege that they never had). Out of those kids there are more good souls than bad ones, and if the way they think is wrong, well our constitution says that the education of the youth shall be the resposability of the state, the family, and the school, so instead of posting their problems, I wished you had posted about how you tried to help, for that is the role of a teacher in a society, to teach more than just math, or english, teachers are supposed to help create a decent character in the youth, to serve as an example. I ask my self, do the comments in this blog help any of those kids? Does it help anyone? Is that the way someone should walk in into a new culture. As a student of the PASB, I loved my teachers, and I still do. I would die for my teachers, because more than teachers they are my friends, and counselors, the are the people who made me who I am. Now you know those kids for one year and your make your opinion so strong that it seems you have known them forever. I have known them forever, and I dont see them as the daughter of a former vice president, or the son of the magnate of Bahia, I see them as buddies, and I know them well enough to assure you that your opinion is totally off, and you definetely owe them an apology. That is the least you can do, because unfortunately you cant apologize to the whole country. The comments you made about doctors and medicine in Brazil is extremely irresponsible. Brazil today is very advanced in science and medicine, I participate here in studies regarding diabetes that the US is ten years behind. And sorry homeopath are not doctors. Another personal experience, early this year I suffered a severe back injury in the US, and I went to a doctor who limited himself to giving me tylenols and sending me to a chiropractor (sorry if it is written wrong) who manipulated my back in a way that when I got back to Brazil to gets exams and tests done it was diagnosed that the manipulation only worsen my condition. Now that is a terrible experience, but I wont judge American medicine by two irresponsible doctors, cause if I did I would be the irresponsible one. The youth of a country is the result of the country itself and the message that the country sends out. Funny to see how poor people, who struggled to life often come to power in Brazil, and how people see that as normal, while at the US you also have great examples, like the son a senator from Texas who gets in to Yale for being legacy(in Brazil no one gets in to college because of who their parents are). One might say that medicine in the US in general terms is more advanced that Brazil's. However Brazil fights for generic medicines for the poor inside Brazil and outside Brazil, while American government was responsible for the death of thousands of South Africans because Mr. Al Gore (vice-president at that time) threatened South Africa, blackmailing them to get them to suspend their generic medicine program, just to satisyfy lobbyists who defended those great american farmaceutical companies. If it is for that that one will want an advanced medicine, I humbly decline such advancements. I am just sorry for your kids. They are going to miss out on a great school, a school where the alumni closes their fists, and pound on their chests to proudly fill their mouths to say that they would die for the school. A school where seniors graduate, not wanting to graduate, for they love their school, and the people around them. There is a bond of brotherhood between everyone, not only with one's class, but with the school janitor whos calls us "high-school" and knows us from since we where little, with the guards, with the nurse that knows everyone there. I could go on and on, but I will end with one last personal experience. My name is Pedro Vilas-Boas Simões, and I was the soccer and basketball captain (yes jock, but also STUCO's president, and Model United Nations Secretary General, please do inform me in which of those categories you listed I fit in), but yes team captain, and in one of my tournaments, I got really sick, and one coach (whom I take as second mother) had to take me in an ambulance to a hospital in São Paulo. I nearly died, spent several days in the ICU, and my team returned to Salvador. Thanks to my coach's fast response I survived, and two weeks later I returned to school. That day they did a ceremony for the team, and they made a special welcome to me, and I saw in those eyes how worried they had been, and happy they were to see me healthy, that day I felt more alive than ever, that day I understood what that school really was, a family. Too bad you didnt get the same feeling, I am just confident to say sadly you are an exception. Sorry to invade your blog this way, but I felt I needed too, I owed to the school and to my friends, I owed it to me. I really do hope you have a better experience elsewhere, but I doubt that you will succeed on that if you keep this same attitude to new places. I hope you will accept the comment, for people have the right for response.
Thank you very much.
