Brazil! - Brazil!
Tue, Apr 13th 2010
Every now and then, just when all my five energy wells are drying up, I get an international booking which, although always distinguished by an incredibly crammed timetable created especially for me, gives me back all my energy!
The training week I have just returned from in St Pauls School in Sao Paulo, was one of these glorious golden bookings. International schools – yes, of course, they are mainly for well-off families – most of the fathers have good jobs and the families have domestic support etc…..BUT…. like all communities they each have their own set of challenges. Most of them take in children from 3 -18 years, so it’s a real challenge to ensure that the children and parents experience a continuum of vision and shared values. The schools will be a wonderful mix of cultures, beliefs and traditions. Ex-pat teachers will be working alongside teachers from the country itself. ‘Respect For All’ needs to become an internal moral compass that everyone follows. Teacher training is different in every country – my methods of involving the adults and children in the problem solving process and in resolving their own motivation and relationship issues – are very challenging, even by UK standards. Ensuring parents and teachers don’t let their children get caught up in the crossfire of their differing expectations, hopes and disappointments with each other, will always demand that eventually the outside trainers work with the parents to bring them into the same vision.
Soooo - in the midst of all this challenging new work, I managed to find a yoga teacher to come to my hotel every day (she was Japanese and brilliant at Shiatsu massage as well!). Sao Paulo is pulsating with different cultures and cuisines – so Japanese sushi is everywhere and amazingly it was the only bargain I could find in this ridiculously expensive city – but, my goodness, good fish really gives you energy. However, what gave me most of my energy back was the energy, good nature and openness of all the hundreds of staff and children I met throughout my visit. If a school community has become too tired or they have ignored their own collective well-being for too long – their self-esteem becomes dangerously low. If self-esteem gets too low, then people start to interpret change as a threat – and they move (subtly or unsubtly) into fight and flight – with the agent of change (often me, the trainer) as the focus of the threat. This time I was in luck – people rose to the challenges of my ideas and there were only a few minor pockets of resistance. Most importantly there were leading ‘lights’ in a school. These are the ‘Diamond Geezers’. They shine with love of children, common sense and are always able to see the good in others – even if that person clashes swords with them and they whole-heartedly are able to put loads of energy into helping the school move forward. There were quite a few of these ‘diamonds’ here sparkling all around the school.
The biggest buzz for me though was to be found in the local samba bar. I am always asking schools in the UK to organise lovely treats for the staff who want to go – but in Brazil – WOW – there are venues which thrum with joy. We piled in there at the end of my training at 3.00 pm on a Saturday – the samba band had been going since 12.00 am with everyone dancing, drinking and eating. The atmosphere was electric and this goes on until 7.0pm when everyone goes home, gets more supper and then goes out again for the proper evening event. I was shattered by 6.30 pm just concentrating on trying to get my feet to follow the simple samba rhythm was hard enough, let alone the heat, the laughter and the sheer exuberance of it all. I have only posted up a couple of photos. I asked the Brazilians where they get their incredible strength and stamina from and they swear by a daily diet of black beans, rice and fruit. You heard it here first!
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