education

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Letters, Literacy and Related Events

“Do you know what I want for Christmas?” Ruan asked Mary. She was a little hesitant. On one occasion, Ruan asked for a cell phone for his birthday present. The other children just laughed when they heard this. They reminded him that presents are not something we demand from others. Now, he was talking about Christmas gifts. She thought that it was going to be another absurd request. He did not wait for her response. He just came out with it and said, “I want to learn how to read and write before Christmas.” It was definitely unexpected.

About a year ago, Ruan came up to us and told us that he wanted to learn how to read and write. He is thirteen years old and completely illiterate. He has been to the public school but never learned the basics. He is not the only one. In fact, most of our children and teens are illiterate. Only a handful of them are able to write their own names. However, none of them ever displayed any interest in learning or education in general. All of them have had negative experiences in the school system. After hearing stories about the precarious schools in the poor neighborhoods, we can understand their aversion. Recently we have noticed a change in their attitude towards learning. They are asking us to do more educational activities with them. The amazing thing is that the initiative comes from them and not us. We can’t really pinpoint one single incident that awakened this growing intellectual curiosity. I believe there are a series of events which contributed to this and they share one common denominator, which is relationship. The children have discovered the value of education within the context of human relationship. Prior to this, they have associated school and learning as something institutional and distant. They did not see the relevance of their knowledge in real life. Now, they want to learn because it makes sense to them within the context of a friendship.

I believe Bruno has a major part to play in this but his participation is unintentional. He loves to learn English and is self-motivated learner. Everyday he waits for us with a list of words that he wants us to translate into English. He is always coming up with new phrases and he wants to know the meaning of certain words and how to use them. The children noticed that Bruno has always tons of things to talk about with us. They wanted to be part of this but they did not know how. Some would sit next to us and just listen quietly. They noticed that the subject was about a movie or a book and it always connected to something educational. Ruan was the first one to ask our help. He wanted to read the books like Bruno and have access to the things that we talked about. Then Felipe started asking questions about the English language. Alex approached us and wanted to know if we have books about animals. One by one they begin to open up to us about their specific interest. They saw that their interest could be a means of building a stronger relationship with us. In a way, they are right. Their interests give a glimpse of the things that they like and care about. When they share it with us, they are giving an access into their souls.

Then the letters started coming. Ruan was the first one to receive one. It was from a church member in Florida. When I read the letter to him for the first time, he hardly said anything. He was impressed that someone would take the time to write to him. Then a few months later, we received some more letters for the other children and teens. The reaction was always the same. They listened quietly and all of them smiled when I told them that they were written by people from a far away land. After a while, nothing was ever said of these letters in our presence. However, unbeknownst to us, these letters were topic of conversations in the evenings when the children and teens were by themselves. The letters have created such an impact that some of the children began ask us why they did not receive any letters. They want to correspond with someone in the churches in Florida. I told them that letters are like a conversation. We don’t have to wait for someone else to initiate the conversation. They can do it as well.

In the past month, Ruan has been practicing writing with Mary. He even decided to forego a trip to the beach with the rest of the children because he did not want to miss his lessons with Mary. A couple of days ago, he asked if we would help him write the letter. Mary wrote down what he dictated;

“Dear…I really liked the letter you sent me and especially the Christmas card from last year. I thank you for praying for me. I want to tell you about my family…..I, Ruan, have three sisters but my favorite sister is four months old.….I want to make a Christmas card for you and hopefully I can send it to you with this letter….By the way, have you ever seen a alligator, if you can, please send me a picture of one…Please continue to pray for me and my family. By the way, my mother’s name is Andrea…”

Every single word written here flowed out of his heart without any guidance from us. This is the first letter Ruan has ever dictated in his life. I am sure that it won’t be the last. Maybe he might attempt to write the next one by himself.

“What do you do in your free time?”

The children have been become increasingly curious about our lives. They want to know what we do when we are not with them. We told them that we don’t have a TV at home. They were shocked. It is something unimaginable for them. We told them that we like to read and having a TV takes our away time away from books. Bruno, trying to find something common with us, started talking about books that he wanted to read. He threw out names of some classical literature. The others got a little jealous because they did not know names of any books. Some of them have never had any access to books in their lives. To rectify this, I decided to take a Roald Dahl book to the streets recently. He was one of my favorite authors when I was a young boy. I have acquired several of his books in Portuguese with the hope that some day I can give it to our children to read. For now, I just wanted to share some of my favorite books with them. I showed the book to Ruan and told him that if he learns how to read well I will give him a book like this one. His face lit up. He immediately grabbed the book out of my hand and showed it to the other children and said, “Look what Uncle Stephen bought for me to read one day.” The others looked on and I could see that they were a little envious. I did not say anything. Hopefully their jealousy will give them the desire to read as well. Bruno asked about the author. I told him that he was the one who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This led into a long conversation about other books of this author that were made into movies. The children were familiar with the movies but they never knew that they were based on a book.

My most memorable time in school was when we had lessons with our favorite teacher. It did not matter what the lesson was. It was almost irrelevant. If the teacher was a loving person who truly cared about us, whatever subject he or she taught was interesting. Education is fun and exciting when it helps to bring us closer to one we love. I had forgotten about this essential and crucial aspect of education. Education on its own is dull and uninteresting. However, if it opens the door to wonderful world of warm human relationship, then it becomes marvelous and exciting.

Ruan is progressing gradually everyday. He recognizes new words every day. He likes to sit next to Mary and listen intently to her instructions. He has developed a ritual. He practices writing or reading first and then he wants to play checkers with me. He has been faithful in his lessons everyday. I think that this Christmas he is going to get his wish.

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Inspired to Learn

Give to the wise, and he is wiser still, Make known to the righteous, And he increaseth learning.-Proverbs 9:9

The three were of the same age. I did not notice this before for some reason. I had shown them a brochure about an upcoming movie festival with a free screening of classic and modern Italian directors. Lucas was interested. He is in his third year in Psychology and some of the movies being screened were discussed in his class. Victor, on the hand, never heard of any the directors or the movies. He has been focusing on seminary studies until recently taking a break from studies to decide what he wants to do. Bruno was the only one among the three who had watched some of the movies in the list. He also knew most of the directors and their works. Among them was the famous “The Bicycle Thief” by the director, Vittorio de Sica. I have never seen the movie but Bruno has. He did not like it. I asked why and he said that there was too much hype about the movie which it did not live up to. I know the story because it is a movie all movie buffs like to talk about. Frankly speaking, I never found it interesting enough to watch. Bruno related the basic plot-line to Lucas and Victor who have never even heard of this movie. It was strange to see all three of them standing next to each other discussing movies. They were the same age but all three from different social classes. Lucas comes from an upper middle class family. Victor’s family is also middle class and Bruno lives in the streets. All three have the desire to learn. Only two have family and friends to inspire and motivate them to pursue their desires. Bruno has been in the streets since he was sixteen. He has no contact with his family and he never talks about them. He is on his own when it comes to self-improvement. No family is going to stand behind in his pursuits. Yet, all these disadvantages have not stifled his desire to learn.

Bruno is always dressed the same. I mean this literally. He has been using his same polo shirt for a few months and it is torn and tattered. It is covered with so much dirt that we cannot recognize its original color. His hands and feet are covered with dirt. He carries an equally filthy blanket with him all the time. I gave him one of my polo shirts which he accepted gleefully. However, he never used it. He kept it in his bag pack which he is never seen without. In it, he keeps perhaps his most precious possession; an old tattered note book. It contains the names of all the movies he has seen or would like to see. The movies are mostly American and their names have been translated into Portuguese. However, Bruno wants to know their original names in English. He makes Mary translate the names back into English. It seems like he invented this method for learning English and we are impressed how far he has come. It is safe to say that Bruno is by far the most intelligent homeless young adult we have met. No one would guess it by looking at him. Most people would just see a homeless young man. However, when you spend some time with him, you will discover an extremely intelligent and interesting young man.

He is able to speak intelligently about movies and politics. He formulates his ideas in a logical manner and his vocabulary is very impressive. We are always amazed about the things he knows. He can tell us about Virginia Woolf and the books she has written. He likes to watch movies that most twenty year olds would find uninteresting. One of his favorite movies is Sophie’s Choice and he explained in detail the story to me. Lucas and Victor stood there and just listened. They too were astounded by his impressive knowledge. It is not just limited to movies. He could also explain the present political situation lucidly. He also able to see beyond the rhetoric and identify political maneuvers of partisan politics. When we asked him where he got his information, he told us that he reads different newspapers that are discarded at the local stores. In this way, he has access to several different news agencies.

Bruno sniffs paint thinner more than the other children or teens. He uses about half a liter a day according to him and we believe it. The only time he says that he doesn’t use it is when he is watching a movie or when he is with us. I guess the movie is a form of escape which takes away the need for chemical substance. It has been recently that he stopped sniffing in our presence. I used to have a hard time trying to get him to stop while doing an activity and he would just leave our group instead. He used to prefer paint thinner over our company. Thankfully, things have changed. We enjoy talking with him now and he always has a big smile for us whenever he sees us. The smile is always followed by a question about something he read or heard.

Bruno has never asked anything from us. Even when he was hurt, he did not ask Mary to do first aid. However, recently he asked if we could buy him a English-Portuguese dictionary. I had an old one in the house and I gave it to him. He received it happily and hugged us. This is unusual for him. We think that his filthy attire is a defense mechanism to avoid physical contact. Therefore, the embrace coming from him was a little bit more special.

Bruno is often seen with Ruan and Felipe. About a week ago, Ruan asked us if he could teach him to read and write. We were a little surprised. We had not realized that Ruan was illiterate. When I read the letter from a person in Florida, I translated it for him. Then when I asked him whether he wanted to write to this person one day, he nodded without saying anything. I remembered that his face lit up when I said that I would help him. However, I did not realize then that he did know how to read or write. Ruan comes from one of the worst neighborhoods in the center. I can’t say much about the schools in the area because I don’t know them. It would be unfair to judge the whole school based on Ruan. We know that he went to school for a few years before running away to the streets. Now he wants to learn to read and write but sending him back to the school is not going to help him. We told him that we will try to find a place where there is literacy program. He said that he was willing to start right away. Bruno was sitting next to him throughout this conversation. He said that Ruan has been asking him to teach him. Bruno does not feel confident to get him started.

Not too long after, Felipe asked us if we could help him with his writing. He said that he was not confident in writing and wanted to practice. It was the first time Felipe asked anything of this sort. All this happened in a short period of time. Suddenly three of our homeless teens are inspired to learn and study. I saw Felipe watching Mary one day as she was writing some notes for some of the children. They remarked that she had beautiful handwriting. Ruan received a letter from someone in Florida. Perhaps the idea of writing to someone contributed to this desire to learn. He also observes how much pleasure Bruno has whenever he shares the things he learns with us and is able to ask intelligently about things he does not know. All these things could have contributed to this newfound interest in learning. They have discovered a context in which learning is useful. If we told them that education would guarantee a better future, they would agree with us but they would most likely do nothing about it. They don’t think about their future much. They are not convinced that education is going guarantee a good future. However, they care about relationship. They see that our relationship with Bruno is growing because there is a deeper exchange between us and Bruno. They want to move beyond playing games and coloring books. Perhaps Bruno has shown that learning can enhance a relationship and make it richer. I believe that they are becoming more interested in learning because they want to be connected in a deeper way with us and the other people with whom they come into contact. Unfortunately, schools have reduced education into something utilitarian. Whereas Bruno wants to learn for the sole purpose of discovering new and wonderful things so that he could share them with those whom he cares for and loves. Ruan and Felipe saw this and now they desire to discover the joy of learning for the sake of learning.

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