“Kindergarden”
“…I’m sorry, what?!”
Living in brazil for nearly four
months had made me realise a lot of differences between my host country and my
home country. One of these things is the education system. For one they have to
study EVERYTHING, until university level, they study more subjects out here
that I did back home for my GCSES, AND they have to study it for longer! Second
thing is that different year groups study at different times of the day. 1st,
2nd and 3rd college years (which is years 11, 12 and 13
for people reading in the UK) have to study from 7am to midday. The younger
year groups all study in the afternoon from 1:30PM till 6:00PM. For me who is
used to studying from 9AM till 4:30PM, trying to get to school every day for
7AM was close to impossible. The third (and secretly I think the coolest)
difference between British schools and Brazilian schools is graduation. In the
UK. You graduate ONCE, from university and that’s it. But here in Brazil,
woaaaaaaaaaaaaah, over here they graduate FIVE TIMES, yes that’s right five
times, the first time when they are just 5/6 years old. My host cousin had just
graduated from kindergarden (yes they get a party from graduating from
kindergarden, how unfair is that?!?!?!) and I just had to see what this was all
about.
When I think of the graduations,
I think of teenager’s / young adults people wearing long gowns with those square shaped hats jumping
in the air with massive grins on their faces, (like the people you see in the movies? ) and this graduation ceremony similar.
It started as each child was called one by one to walk across the stage while
wearing a royal blue gown with a frilly white bib. Once all the children had
been seated, various teachers took it in turns to explain what the children had
been learning and what achievements they had participated in over the past
year. It was then time to thank the teachers for their hard work and endless
support over the year. No surprises so far…until this, all the mother of the
children who were graduating were called forward and asked to sit in the seat
of their child. The children then started to sing a song about how much they
love their mothers and how they appreciate them. The fathers were then called
forward and the same song was sung just replacing the word “mae”(mother) with “pai” (father) By the end of the songs
there was not a dry eye in the audience seeing as all the mothers and fathers (as
well as aunts, uncles and cousins who were watching) were on the verge of
crying. After the song presentation came
the awarding of the certificates. Each child was called separately and
collected a huge white envelope with their name written on it. After this it
was time for one final parade as they were led out. As soon as they were out of
sight there was a massive cheer and I could just imagine them all jumping in
the air in slow motion with massive grins on their faces ( I’m such a day
dreamer >.< )
You would have thought that was
the end of the ceremony (don’t worry I did too; I was ready to go eat and
everything! >.<) but no, it was just an interval; seeing as there was a
part two! All the newly “graduated” children came back into the main presenting
area wearing different arrays of gymnastics costumes. Half of the girls were
dressed up as watermelons while the other half were dressed up as little
sweets, and the boys were dressed as little Christmas trees (well that was my
interpretation of the their costumes =]) They did a cute little gymnastics
presentation with some pretty impressive pyramids and everyone gave them a
massive round of applause at the end. Their ceremony ended with a homemade
video made up of pictures demonstrating their final year of “infant education” While
this was going on a massive shower of confetti fell from out of the celling which
sent the kids running and screaming as they tried to collect the flying
confetti, while all their family members stood watching them and crying. And in the middle of
all this hullaballoo the only thing that could come out of my mouth was “how
can she graduating? She’s only six! I have to wait until I’m like 20
something!” (okay I admit it; I was a little jealous :p) but I guess that’s one of the weird things I will
never understand while staying here in Brazil. :’)
