Up at 6 to get ready for early start to venue.
Breakfast with sound technician who is organizing all the headphones etc for the English to Portuguese (the audience) and the Portuguese to English (me). Outside from the breakfast room window I see people walking up and down already exercising. Inside I have all the usual and then something I’ve never had before – made fresh by one of the hotel staff – it’s a tapioca. Kind of a folded omelette with tapioca casing and a filling of ham, cheese, tomato. Is delicious anyway.
From there and starting to meet lots of people already – out to the venue in S.’s car again through crazy morning traffic to the venue. About 30 mins away – a private university.
The auditorium seems vast. I know it won't be full but even with 200 there I haven’t spoken to this many people in a while. Not since I threw the radio mic across the floor in the Ian Gulland lecture theatre in Goldsmiths. Start to feel anxious.
Technical issues abound and for one reason or another I use the Windows XP machine provided. Claudia helpgin to get everything right! It’s very formal and procedural at first. We sit at a table on stage in a line of three. Me, Guillherme from UNESCO and Eduardo from a university and based in Fortaleza – he will give his presentation after mine and draw parallels between what I say and his material. Guillherme will be discussant and we will all take questions later.
Feel suitably nervous and prwol around the stage a bit pointing at slides nwith my radio mic like a rapper. If Jack could see me he would think it was frankly hilarious. For the first five minutes I don't think straight but I get into it with some audience reaction to things which I realise is delayed because of the translation – but not delayed much – these translators are amazing.
So it seems to go well and the audience, 200 or so of teachers, teacher educators and policymakers seems to respond well. I talk for about an hour. Eduardo goes next and describes project work he’s done called Riverwalk in Brazilian schools looking at pedagogic styles. We all take questions after a break. These are translated for me and back again by the heroic translators up in the booth at the back. They are simply amazing. The questions are all about the usual issues and they show how much people care and want to get this right, the delicate dance between pedagogy, technology and culture. It is genuinely interesting and I am so glad I came. Well that and the fact that they asked me. I am well looked after over lunch and treated like a celebrity: lots of photos with people.
Tomorrow it seems that someone will help me get to know the old city – the world heritage site of Sao Luis.
I feel very lucky and I hope that I’ve been able to contribute something back. Some of these people work with very poor students in very difficult situations and it’s humbling as usual to meet such teachers and their teacher-educators.
Also humbling to be so well looked after.