Brazil (2)

When everything is different you're much more likely to experience those moments when you wake up to something you've been taking for granted, that has become part of life, that you stopped thinking about a long time ago. I've used Sao Paulo's excellent Metro system a couple of times now but it will take me some time to switch off that "what the hell" moment of irritation, when you don't get your ticket back. It's such a trivial thing, knowing that the barriers for the trains and the underground at home give you back your ticket, and you should keep it until you leave the train system through another barrier. When did any of us last give it a thought? But it's obviously more deeply engrained than I'd realised because I don't like it when it doesn't happen here.

It's not just the being away that's good, it's coming home again more awake.

Brazil (1)

I've been thinking of renaming this blog. It hasn't worked out as I originally planned (and as other people assured me it would - I was always awake to the danger of creating one more of those little unvisited internet graveyards of good intentions). Instead of a multi-disciplinary conversation it's just me sounding off about whatever comes into my head; and not terribly regularly at that. All on my own I can be as multi-disciplinary as the next guy or gal, but with wildly varying degrees of expertise and effectiveness. Laying personal claim to the spirit of DACE would be hubris on an impressive scale, and unjustifiable in dozens of ways. I think maybe the name should change but I have no idea to what. Anyway it seems likely I'm going to touch on all sorts of topics over the next couple of months so maybe I'll give in to hubris for a wee while longer. Any new name suggestions will be more than welcome - even although I'll probably ignore them (already I like "The unvisited graveyard of good intentions" but I suspect Bob Drake already has a song with that title).

I'm spending most of the rest of this year in Brazil, on study leave, working with colleagues here. I have a visiting position at Mackenzie Presbyterian University in Sao Paulo. The name of this university has caused some amusement among friends from the Western Isles but: (1) Mackenzie himself was an American (2) it is a very serious institution of 40,000 students, with possibly the best Law School, for instance, in Brazil.

Mackenzie's compact Sao Paulo campus is guarded and policed in a way that would be alien at home. There's a big high wall around it. Each of the entrances is controlled via the sort of barriers we know from railway stations and you need a magnetic card to come and go. Uniformed guards keep a close eye on the barriers and are stationed round the campus. This might sound intimidating but it's not. They just keep an eye on things. I don't think I've actually seen them speak to anybody. Their uniforms are not remotely military, more like janitors, and they're unarmed. It's worth noting that there are parts of the city not that far away that you wouldn't walk around after dark. On Sunday the entrances to the campus are all shut up, as in the picture (I'll post another showing it busy, if I can do that unobtrusively).

Mackenzie is a private university. I was curious about this. I was told that 75% of Brazilian Higher Education is private. The state universities are the most competitive to get into. The kids who go to expensive schools have a head start and are more likely to meet the entrance requirements. So poorer people are more likely to have to spend more money, maybe work at the same time as study, if they aspire to higher education. If this is correct Brazil has some way to go down the Widening Participation road. Of course there is also the possibility that this is a glimpse of our future.

I was also fascinated to learn that Mackenzie incorporates secondary and primary school provision. If you can afford it, you can send your kids to schools that are part of a University. I have no idea how integrated primary and secondary provision is with the rest of the university, if some people teach both degree level students and younger people. I don't think anybody I know has anything to do with the school level provision, however (seems like a missed opportunity - how exciting for school age kids to meet people who are leading edge researchers in subjects like astronomy, that grab the imagination). But it's quite likely I don't know lots of what goes on here yet.

This ingredient of Mackenzie really caught my attention. It's quite unlike anything that happens in the UK. But this might not always have been the case. It reminded me of the young William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, attending Glasgow University at the age of 11. This wasn't, apparently, a consequence of unequalled brilliance but just something that wasn't unusual for bright children of affluent families, in a time of much less formally organised education. I don't know if Glasgow University offered classes specifically for such young people or if they just sat in lectures and took in whatever they could. There probably isn't much similarity between Kelvin's 1834 experience and that of young Mackenzistas, even allowing for the radically different worlds around them. Nonetheless I was intrigued by something Brazilian universities do that ours stopped contemplating a long time ago. Probably somebody reading this knows more - please comment!

That was the first Brazilian bulletin. Everything here is different so I'm bound to touch on all sorts of topics before I go home; a tiny wee, inexpert DACE.