Now I want to return to writing about my travels outside the US.
As part of that story, at the bottom of this post are a couple of links to videos about the Casa Grande Foundation (FCG in Nova Olinda, Brazil). The first link is to an interview with Yasmim (with English subtitles), who is one of the many delightful and articulate young participants at FCG.
The second link is to a video of me just winging it about FCG at the end of my first week there. Though the thoughts I expressed at that time were early impressions, they continue to ring true to me after a total of seven weeks spent at FCG on two separate occasions last year. Yasmim and I knew nothing of each other's videos when we spoke on camera, but I think the videos make a good pair.
About my phrase that the children are "learning to be owners of art and technology and connection": In using the word "owners," my intent was to describe the sense (and reality) of personal choice, investment, engagement and responsibility that the children have regarding their endeavors.
A story:
During my second visit to FCG, the children were all on break from school. Nevertheless, they showed up every day (or close to it) in order to do their jobs, continue learning, play and spend time with friends. Everyone associated with FCG was also preparing for an important event to take place later in the month. That meant lots of cleaning, washing, painting, dusting and reorganizing.
F, in his early teens, is in charge of the comic book library, and one day I was helping him there. On this particular day, I was dusting comics and other graphic arts books, giving them new protective plastic covers if they needed them, labeling piles according to author or illustrator, and setting the comics out on shelves. F's logic for organizing things wasn't clear to me so, after a spell of simply putting things where I'd been told, I asked him about this. How did he decide which comics went where?
F explained to me that some comics went together because the covers were particularly wonderful, others were organized by theme (e.g., super-hero, fantasy), yet others by author or illustrator, etc. F's choices made great sense to him. "Hmm," I thought. "This library is open to the public. How would community members know where to find the comics they wanted?" This was not the kind of library system to which I was accustomed. I continued to ponder this, and realized that anyone searching for a particular comic book would naturally discover any number of other comic books along the way, many of which would likely be enjoyable for him or her. It would be like hunting for a particular tree in the forest and discovering the beauty of other botany on the path.
The next time I spoke with co-founder Alemberg, I told him about my journey regarding the organization of the library (including my tree-hunting epiphany), and asked him how he thought about it. Alemberg replied that he always wants to leave space for others to enter, have an idea or a feeling about something, and take responsibility for getting involved. If there were only one way to organize the library, it would be a static place with no room for personal engagement or innovation.
As a fan of theater improvisation, I should have recognized this as very familiar territory; nevertheless the sky cracked opened for me. What a concept! To structure with the goal of engagement rather than that of uniformity or predictability! Imagine living that life.
Here are the videos:
Yasmim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
meg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
with love, meg January 17, 2014
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