GENTE (Experimental School of New Educational Technologies) in Rio de Janeiro

By Jennifer Lee

Project GENTE is a recent initiative taken by the Municipal Board of Education in Rio de Janeiro in partnership with UNESCO to revitalize some of the poorest performing schools in the favelas. The project aims to transform educational facilities and pedagogy using today’s most up-to-date technology. The curriculum is designed to stimulate student autonomy and discourage impersonal standardization. The classrooms are far from the typical student to teacher lectures; each student has his or her own individual laptop with online lessons built for each week. The online lessons are individualized to match the level of the student and weekly evaluations are conducted at the end of each week’s lesson to measure the appropriateness of student knowledge. Students who perform poorly on these evaluations are given additional feedback and tutored by their classroom teachers. Teachers are assigned to the role of a facilitator who monitors each student’s work and creates a positive learning environment that encourages student autonomy.
Through the courtesy of Cristina Dale, who established the connection, our team was fortunate to visit a model GENTE school during our stay in Rio de Janeiro. The school, Andre Urani, is located in Rocinha,the largest favela in Rio. The van drive up through the favela was the most nerve-racking drive of my life as we had to swirl through the heavy traffic in a twisty narrow road. We navigated through a swarm of motorcycle taxis, full-size buses coming from both directions, and men, women and children walking on each side of the roads. As intense as the ride was with multiple near-heart-attack moments, it was a great opportunity for us to actually see the life in a favela.

The hour long drive took us to the school located at the top of the favela where you could enjoy an awesome view of the city from up top. Alice Riberio, one of the administrators, speaking perfect English, greeted us and spoke with us in detail about the school. After learning about the design and aims of GENTE, we were kindly given a tour of the school. The Municipal School Andre Urani currently serves 180 students from 7th to 9th grade, and it began the GENTE project three months ago in the beginning of the school year in 2013. The 3rd floor of the newly renovated building is divided into two large halls where all classes and kids mingle together in one space with no walls separating between classrooms. Alice explained to us that merging all classes together created a lot of problems in the beginning, but doing so for the last three months has significantly reduced the noise level and behavioral issues among the student body.  The project is heavily supported by the inspirational Brazilian educator Rafael Parente.

As Alice explained to us, the investment in the school has definitely increased various aspects of students’ lives besides just academics. For example, the school performs regular weekly health check-ups for kids every Monday, and also provides breakfast, lunch, and snack to take home at the end of the day. Andre Urani remains as a public school, and some of the kids who come from the nearby areas do not often receive regular meals, and many find life outside of school traumatizing.  The reformed school now attempts to provide as much health and dental care to students as seen in need. The renovation of the school building also creates a very creative environment to encourage student attendance and progress. The school we visited was clean and fresh with creative wall papers, bright colors, and high quality sports facilities such as a new swimming pool to encourage participation in other sports besides soccer.
When asked how she thought about the new program at the school, Alice commented that so far things seem to be working well, and that the school hopes to see continuous improvement among students. She shared with us that getting the new initiative started was difficult at first as some parents preferred the traditional style of teaching, but the students at school seem to enjoy using and learning through technology especially since their home lives are so far from the contemporary global technology. The visit to Andre Urani school was very interesting and thought provoking to me as a student of Education Public Policy. Educational reform requires much creativity and practicality to effectively serve for the betterment of students and the surrounding community, and the ambitious reinvention brought by project GENTE so far seems to fulfill the necessary needs and yield positive results. It was great to see educational reform done in practice and not only in theory. There are still much work left to be done to improve the opportunities for children living in favelas, but this reform effort marks a positive beginning.  As Nelson Mandela stated, “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”