Visting Lumiar - An Alternative and Democratic School

Arriving in Sao Paulo i trekked over to the Lumiar School to pick up my tickets on to Porto Alegre from a friend. While here i’ve managed to check out a school i heard was in the making several years ago. It’s cool to have heard about it before, and now to have it come back and to be able to see the school in existence.

It’s based on some of the same principles which are common among many alternative schools. Letting students work at their own pace and focus their energy to explore what they are interested in. Classes are voluntary in an attempt to create a space where education is something pursued out of love of learning and not edict or fear. Art plays a large role in the educational process and there is plenty of projects to channel student’s energy in to engaging in activities. They have two kinds of teachers, general guides and specific subject teachers.

Where Lumiar differs from most alternative education institutions is it’s commitment to democratic education. In this way it’s quite similar to the Gateway Community School, where I went to elementary school in California. Students got together each week and made the rules, voted, and kept track of them. The youngest ones of course couldn’t read the rules posted on the walls, but they could ask another person to read them to them.

Lumiar’s in a nice house with a yard just a few blocks from the main Ave Paulista in Sao Paulo. They’ve not got as many laid out projects as the school i visited outside Quito, who’s name is escaping me at the moment. I think that’s due to their age, the school’s only 2 years old, and that most of the students are young (2 to 8 years old). They got some foundation money and use a sliding scale to allow for some more diversity of class backgrounds of the students. My guess is even then, the majority of the parents probably have university educations.

I wish there were more schools like this. Which though of education as a process of creating a space for kids to explore and learn instead of a place to pour instructions and information in to their heads. They did mention that they’ve setup a sister school project with another school outside of the city. Kind of a twist on the whole north south sister organization concept but taking in to account the rural / urban divide which exists within the developing world as well.

For anybody reading this, Lumiar’s looking for an english speaker, or other non-native Portuguese speaker to come and work for a year as a teacher at the school. They don’t have money, but can i believe provide room and some of the board.