Office view - São Paulo

Just in case you wonder, I have two offices. One is a home office. This other one is this one. The clube. Love it.
 

Too cool for school - São Paulo

Photo credit: estrolabio.blogs.sapo.pt

I'm working remotely from our club today here in São Paulo. I've mentioned our club before--it's small, friendly and has been a great part of especially our kids' sports lives.  

It's around 10 am and the place is crawling with kids ages 1-13 years old. No, it's not a holiday (yet--Carnaval begins shortly). It's just that these kids are the afternoon school kids. This is something I never get used to here: the school day that begins at 1 pm. 

When we first moved here in 2008, the kids were too young for "real" school and we put them in a half-day nursery school. In 2009, we applied to and got them into Escola Vera Cruz, one of the best private schools (my opinion) in São Paulo. It is 100% Brazilian--we were one of the few non-totally-Brazilian families there. 

Because we applied late in the process (I had no clue then how crazy it was to get into a private school here--some schools have 4-year wait lists!) and we had twins who needed separate classrooms, the only spaces available to us were in the afternoon period. While it is not too strange to have afternoon kindergarten in the US, it continues far beyond kindergarten here.  This is why I see tons of kids here at the club in the morning. Mornings are their social/sports times, then they go to school until 5 pm.

So here is how a lot of it breaks down. The primary schools usually have two time periods a day. This is pre-K through about 6th grade, though it depends a bit on which school your kids attend. The morning kids arrive at 8 am (with their parents or in a small school van privately paid for) and they leave at 12:15 pm. That is around four hours of school if you wipe out the 15 minutes for late arrivals and chaos, and just barely over three if you also count out snack time and play time. And you are paying $12,000US annually for those four hours, by the way. 

The afternoon classes start at 1 pm and go until 5:15 pm.  Some high schools have classes only in the evenings. When my stepson was studying to get into college in his senior year, he went to class from 6 pm-11 pm. Of course those hours work for the night-owl teenagers, but not for their parents.

So kids, morning or afternoon periods, are always home for lunch. There always needs to be a maid or nanny or family member at home to care for the kids. While many are kept busy in clubs or academies of swimming or martial arts in the off-period, you are still talking about responsibility of the parents, or a trusted taxi driver, to get them there. 

In the US, kids this age go to class from 9 am - 3 pm. Barring lunch and recess, that is five hours of school at least. We don't have them at home for lunch. Many after-school activities are at the school. 

My kids go to an international school here and attend from 8 am-3:15 pm. Two days a week they have afterschool activities until 4:30 pm. Personally I think it's a better use of everyone's time. In terms of hours per year, we may be even--I will have to look it up. We have a longer winter break in June-July, but a shorter summer one in December- January. 

Recently there has been a movement to change to "escola integral" or full-day school. Brazil's education system is routinely at the bottom of the heap worldwide and this is one of the ideas to give it a kick-start. This is one article on the benefits (sorry, Portuguese only).  It is one of the areas where I will come straight out and say that I like the American system better. I think kids should be in school all day. There is no way someone's nanny is going to be able to provide learning experiences for kids at the level of a school. And rare is the parent who has the financial wherewithal or patience to stay home and provide the education themselves.

I'll just never get used to seeing elementary school kids around the club at 11 am. It just doesn't feel right.

Supercamp - São Paulo

Helicopter mom spies on the first few minutes of Supercamp

My kids are in Superférias this week. Roughly translated, it means "Supercamp". It is held at our little club and I'm guessing there are around 70 kids there--ranging in age from 3 to 12. It is one of the few camps that accepts kids at such a young age for a full day. 

Kids arrive at 9:30 and leave at 5 pm. Suffice it to say that most normal kids are exhausted at the end of the day. Suffice it to say that the 7 year old supertwins are barely winded and go on to destroy my house at will after coming home. 

During the camp, the kids do all kinds of stuff--zooming down zip lines and getting chased by a goat at Bichomania (some petting zoo/animal farm outside of São Paulo), pool time and scavenger hunts around the club, and whatever else they do. In fact, I do not want to know the details as I would probably have a helicopter-mom heart attack. So, you would think I would have had to sign maaaaannnny documents to allow them to do all this. You would be wrong.

Last US summer, one of my sons went to a nature camp at the Morton Arboretum outside of Chicago. I had to fill out 2 pages of information about my kid. Emergency contacts, allergies, doctors, all the addresses he had ever lived, who was allowed to pick him up and drop him off, my financial information and the color of my underwear. Only one of these is not true. Then there was a third page which was a medical form with all kinds of detailed questions about surgeries, what to do in case of emergency, etc. I got a hand cramp off of all of this. Also I had to sign off on getting charged $20 per 10 minutes late to pick them up (I have twice been late at our club more than 15 minutes and got charged a grand total of zero).

The sign-up sheet for the club went like this:
Name
Parents' names
Member number
Phone number. 
One week or two (check box)
Signature

It's all you need. Love Brazil.

Any given Sunday - São Paulo

This is where I like to spend my Sunday mornings. On a lounge chair under the giant trees, poolside in our club. The kids run off to play ball, to eat ice cream and to cannonball. One of the true delights of my city life.

Lock those bad books up! - São Paulo

Last week one of my sons had a football (soccer) game at the club and the other one did not. The son who did not have a soccer game wanted to go to the club's library and read a book instead. It was a Sunday at 3 pm.  The library was completely deserted, and when we got to the big case holding the children's books, it was locked. With no one around who could unlock it.  

We stood there for a few minutes flabbergasted until one of the club's tech guys came by and said "hey! do you want to watch the movie?" We went into the club's cinema and there was not a single soul yet they played the movie just for us. 

What's the deal with locking up kids' books? If we are worried that they are going to get stolen, we have a different problem at the club. Education.