Eliana was natually timid. She was even quieter when she was around Armando, a little bit too attentive. She’d say that she was just paying attention, that she was interested in her brother’s ideas, and always ready to bring him a drink and his special, toasted nuts. Armando’s famous dishes changed from house to house. An eclectic palate, perhaps. Or like Don Juan, a gift for extracting the best from every cook. Anyway, Eliana didn’t like to cook and in our house he drank beer and ate the large cashews that Eliana had learned how to toast whenever he wanted them. With Dona Esther, Eliana was impatient. Yet with both her brother and her mother she became childish, played dumb.
To write the reports, I decided to speak with future teachers: students of history, geography, biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics, Portuguese — kids just twenty or twenty-one years old, who’d spent the whole year going to classes in elementary schools and high schools as part of their training. I stopped talking and tried to listen to the teachers in charge of the professional development courses, the ones on the front lines of the despair and boredom the educators were suffering. What did these people see and hear? I interviewed some principals and teachers. I frequented classrooms and hallways, reviewed library collections, surveyed order and cleanliness, visited computer labs. I went to teachers’ meetings. I spoke with parents and students, with administrators, coordinators, pedagogues, heads and subheads of various bureaus in the Department of Education, and I got the impression — just like that girl of Teresa’s — that I was more in search of questions than answers.
After the change in government, two years ago, they wanted me in the Department of Education. I immediately declined, then wondered why. Lígia got mad, but she has no idea of the hell of politics, of how little can be accomplished from within, and anyway it wasn’t right for me, more a proposition than an invitation, and the Department was still just an ugly dogfight. Lígia reminds me a lot of Eliana — this obligation to serve, that proud selflessness that often becomes tiresome — the student who always ends up doing the work for the whole group and doesn’t even get mad at them for using her. Lígia’s irritation with me didn’t have anything to do with ambition or power: she just thought I couldn’t spend my whole life saying that everything was wrong in our education system and then let go the moment I’d been handed the reins. But I’ve been part of many different governments, I’ve thrashed and snapped plenty of reins, and I know I can do much more from outside. Lígia said that things are different now that we’re in power. But, my dear, who is this “we”?
Power, in my nightmares, resembles a great mass of energy, a black hole, turning and evolving through random movements corresponding to the strength of agitation made by all the groups it sucks into its vortex, deliriously smashing and pulverizing away like an abortion curette. I hear the uterine scream when the curette makes contact with living tissue, the crack of little skeletons when they break into pieces (Pedro Nava). My head pounding, I wake up sweaty, still resisting that sucking force carrying away my body. Like my father, I am not a good negotiator. I was never good with triangles, to say nothing of more complex polygons. I don’t think men of action — and of meetings — are any braver or more ignorant than me, only different. Lígia says I’m afraid. Eliana said so, too, when I preferred to stay in the high schools rather than accept a university position, something I only did much later. In fact, I am afraid of becoming enthusiastic and destroying everything around me. Starting with myself.
I suggested someone else for the job: Otávio, one of my advisees years ago. He was involved in the Workers’ Party and knew how to fight. He was appointed, provided that I promise to advise him. These things never work out, but I accepted the task of writing up a diagnostic of the middle schools in the municipal system. Over the course of a year, I sent my reports in the form of letters. Over the course of a year, as his ambition lost its shine, he became irritated with my letters and asked me to use formal documentation. He no longer wished to have a dialog, only an evaluation he could use as a weapon. I assented, I did what everyone else does: I diagnosed chaos. Otávio was furious.
I don’t know who was right. I understand Otávio’s logic, the lines of thought array themselves like trenches, and we become permanent warriors. According to such logic, we already know everything beforehand and we state what we know (or not) according to combat conditions. In letters between two named interlocutors, you and me, I described meetings, transcribed subjective impressions and opinions overheard, and I discussed the origins of certain ideas that had taken shape over the course of my diagnostic research. What I had in mind was a dialog. It wasn’t a question, as Otávio thought, of a lack of engagement, of a laziness for formalizing possible strategies. I really had doubts and I thought it would be healthy for him to entertain them, too. I didn’t intend to construct some kind of weaponry, but to understand what type of war we were in, and to resolve the small concerns that would guide us in addressing the larger ones.
We suffer from new diseases: it isn’t merely that the symptoms shift and deceive. How to diagnose things still nameless? I really distrust this excessive formalization, disconnecting us from the world. Government bodies suffer from an absence of reality, not from a surfeit of it, as many first believe when they arrive. They think they’re prevented from thinking by the crushing demands, the excess of the world. But it’s the opposite. The university has ended up the same way, losing contact: it still attempts to encompass some universal “everything” but we always manage to remain far from humankind, from life. My letters had the objective of bringing Otávio into the schools, situating his ear in the meeting rooms, at recess, in the conversations of the mothers who stood waiting for their children. Clearly, that’s my way of apprehending the world, suggesting small strategies for specific cases. I’d draw generalizations from each little universe — personal stories, just a few, the ones with rich material. It’s possible to discover interesting mechanisms through interviews. I’d have liked Otávio to respond to the letters with the intelligence I saw in him, and with the point of view of someone looking down from above, commanding a powerful bureaucracy with good intentions. I knew beforehand that my ideas would never have much of an effect on this vast machine, but I believed that contact with the repetitive small reality of a classroom might have some power. Focused contact: every case — each deposition — would begin a specific discussion about the necessity of revising the total ideological machinery that sustains the detached attitudes of teacher, principal, administrators. But our desire to mix our personal and social miseries diminishes with every day that goes by.
I didn’t work out. Otávio would say that we’d had all the time in the world for questions — now was the time to act. But interrogation, doubt, and listening are actions. At that time, his main focus was defeating corporatism (which he viewed as having atrophied the joints in the bodies and minds of our profession) and transforming the school into an inclusive space.
My ill-tempered outbursts have become more frequent. I should carefully and rationally reconsider the things that irritate me. Inclusion is one of them. I become possessed when I see that word, transformed into a detestable person. Because if my bad moods are triggered by an impotence for doing good, it’s a feeling compounded by the question of what should be done about what’s good. Rage is never holy, only human — our last recourse for affirming that we are ourselves and not another — and rarely is it creative.
Maybe being rich is good for rational thinking, unlike what Dona Joana always thought. Liberated, not under so much pressure, free to stop and look around. Rich, idle, retired. It’s a lie: nobody stops.
Three years ago, I was wandering the halls, observing the sequence of rooms, the teachers and students. A lightbulb in one of the classrooms exploded. It spat shards of glass over everything: the teacher panicked, students screamed, and when everyone finally calmed down the classic question came: Who did it? Murmurs, whispers, lowered heads, giggles. The outraged t
eacher insisted: Who was it? They pointed at Benício. Was it you? It was him. Why did you do it? He was silent. Go to the principal’s office and wait for him. Benício got up slowly, head hanging. I appeared in the doorway. I’ll save you some time, let’s walk together. Back in my office, with the door closed, I asked: Was it you who broke the lightbulb? He nodded. You sure about that? He shot me an angry yes, without looking me in the eye. He was already a big boy, in that phase where they’re all arms and legs, seated awkwardly in the chair, not fitting anywhere. He wanted to be reprimanded, get suspended, and be done with it. I said: It wasn’t you. I saw: it was Manuel. Why are you lying? His eyes popped, he stared at me with fear and rage. I maintained my gaze, awaiting his response. Benício dropped his eyes and went mute.
It was a long conversation. Only after promising that I wouldn’t go after his classmate, that I would still punish only him, Benício, that this would be our secret — little by little there tumbled out sentences in which I could discern the long and determined path he’d traversed to become the clown among the dunces. He’d never been accepted in any group, and adolescence had only worsened the situation, his affliction growing along with his arms, legs, nose, hair, prick, and pimples, all out of order and proportion. The role of class clown settled into place, the clown among the hooligan set. In eighth grade, the boys were already scoring with the girls, flirting and fighting and all that. During gym class they made him play goalie as a form of humiliation, and any trouble with the teachers always ended up on him, which is to say that he remained an object of scorn but was now a part of a group. He had penetrated the group, inserting himself, and he wasn’t inclined to relinquish this conquest. I tried to make him see what his classmates were doing to him, that there was no advantage to belonging to a group like that, but he seemed highly conscious of what he was, a nobody, and he liked his buddies, admired them and felt accepted by them exactly as he was: a nobody. Anyone who tried to convince him that he had the ability to be much more, not a nobody, and even more of a somebody than his classmates, would be classified as an enemy.
I spoke with his teachers. Benício was considered a mediocre student, timid and without much interest in any of his subjects. Though his social studies teacher found him to be intelligent, saying that he learned new concepts quickly and had a good memory, Benício’s insecurity was so great that he made mistakes on his tests and never managed to finish one. He did better on individual projects and with homework. The math teacher complained about his messy work. He’d pile the sums up on top of each other, scratching out numbers instead of erasing them, and as a consequence, his work was so sloppy that, naturally, he got the wrong answers. It seemed like he understood the logic of math, but it was difficult to evaluate him due to his careless work and reticence in class. His Portuguese teacher thought that Benício had some kind of neurological problem, given that his development was so uneven. He didn’t make common spelling mistakes, and carefully incorporated new words into his compositions. He used correct subject–verb agreement, something that most of the students couldn’t do. But on the other hand, he switched his Ds and Ts, his Fs and Vs, his Ps and Bs. And his essays were full of non sequiturs. One sentence never linked to the next, he’d completely change the subject, begin by proposing one idea and conclude with its refutation. He generally only wrote the absolute minimum required, stories full of clichés, in tiny, ugly, blotched handwriting. His teachers all agreed that he was a student who did his work without the least concern about turning in complete garbage for the entire past year.
They realized that they became more irritated with him than with the ones who probably provoked this mess — Benício didn’t have the smarts to manage his own disorder and could never tell when the time for fun and games had passed. He was never the instigator, but, entering into the ruckus, he got rambunctious and never knew when to quit. Then, after being possessed by some kind of borrowed agitation he couldn’t control, he’d realize that everyone else had gotten quiet. After being scolded he’d get embarrassed and turn red, which provoked the laughter of his classmates. And later, when the lesson got started again, he’d smile victoriously to his buddies, but they paid him no attention. His phys ed teacher, who’d known the boy for a while, since fifth grade, said he’d always been maladjusted, but that he used to make an effort to do well. Benício was incapable of reacting to their taunts, he’d get offended when they tormented him, but he’d still make an effort to succeed. Lately he’d gotten caught up copying his classmates’ pranks and couldn’t concentrate on the game. He’d already gotten a few demerits and the gym teacher had benched him. There was consensus that the boy had never had much of a future. Benício was bullheaded, he’d earned his reputation but not a single ally. Everyone had already given up on him, and now they rejected him. It would be difficult to wrench his conquest away.
I called his parents and tried talking to them. The father’s response: “Yeah, I know, he’s a jackass. At home it’s the same thing. I say to him, what are you, some kind of moron? But it doesn’t make any difference, kids don’t listen to their parents, and he never tells me anything.” Benício’s victory at home was assured.
I asked his teachers to help reinforce the boy’s positive attitudes, to call attention to him publicly, and single him out for his cooperation. Whenever he became difficult he was to be ignored. I asked his parents to do the same. They weren’t very convinced but agreed to send him to a psychologist. I used all my influence to get one, and even then it was necessary to give him money for the bus. We arranged it all. It was a second-rate psychologist, because I didn’t foresee any great difficulties with the case. At first, Benício was furious about our “intervention.” He stopped doing his homework and became even more rowdy in class — he started being the instigator. This was an advancement: he was finally at the head of something. This pulling of the rug destabilized him, confirming how important it was for him to be the class clown. He started to fight with his teachers and behave violently. He knew he needed to act this way to save face but he didn’t have any control over his actions. We changed tack. He began to be punished for acts that were legitimately his, and his grades suffered. His conversations with the psychologist were no longer about being the clown, but about being violent. This difference was important to Benício. In student-teacher meetings his teachers continued to reinforce his positive traits and returned his homework with personalized remarks.
Failing grades were important to his recovery. Benício went from being a mediocre student to running the risk of having to repeat the year. We began to understand that no matter how strong his determination to belong to that group, he’d left an escape hatch open in the event of emergencies. No matter how much contempt he showed for his assignments, passing would prove that he was not a complete moron, that his father was wrong, that some day he’d be able to turn things around. There’s a perverse mechanism in the schools with regard to this type of student, the ones the teachers have already written off. If they didn’t put up a fight, if they were agreeable, they’d usually get the minimum passing grade. It was useful to have a case like Benício’s to observe and discuss. It demonstrated the damage that a lack of honest evaluation can have on a young person.
After a long struggle, Benício found a balance between what the school, his parents, and his friends all expected of him. By forcing this triangulation, we threw Benício into the void. He lost his name, his lodestar, and had to start over. The rowdy ones settled down, as often occurs at this age, and new students entered the school. Classes were shuffled, some kids changed schools, and in the end, each one has his own story. We don’t always get to see them so clearly, dissecting them, photographing precise moments, as we were able to do in Benício’s case. I think he’s doing well now — he’ll be accepted on the team as long as he’s a good goalie, and accepted by his teachers as long as he’s doing his homework. He’ll be accepted in life as long as it lasts. He’s the goalie on our handball team and ta
lks about going on to college. He never got over his shyness, but he can look you in the eye now. He avoids me as best he can and at recess he brags about his biggest stunt, the time he made a light bulb explode, giving the teacher a nervous breakdown, and getting chewed out by the principal.
Me — evaluation notes, circa 1980
Perhaps I hesitated in sending these letters because it was a form of betraying Otávio. Perhaps because sending them was a way of exchanging interlocutors, and even genres. It’s fiction, what the girl writes: just like José. Maybe that’s the only way so-called humanity can face itself, allowing us to talk about what really matters. I don’t know how to tell a story or write one, either. A story, that thing closed up in itself. But I can collaborate in my own way. Yes, the letters will be good material for her, and maybe they’ll allow me to escape being interviewed. They’re exactly what she needs, the daily grind at the school, et cetera and so on. I don’t want to talk about what I’ve already forgotten.
I want, I don’t want, I want, I want. That’s how José writes. Everything is in the wanting. In his book we’re three brothers. Twins called Amado and G, in addition to the one who narrates. The mother and father are our mother and father, likewise without names. Amado and the mother are solar figures who protect the narrator from the black light of a cruel destiny thrown off by G and the father. Black light is what illuminates the bloodless theater where the narrator acts out the role of a fool in love. And oh! From the first pages he suggests that good will prevail and that love will be made eternal once more. I realize it’s better than saying eternal for as long as it lasts — it’s perfect, like everything else Nelson Cavaquinho sings about. But it’s a tic that bothers me about José: leaving a contradiction in terms hanging there, with an air of supreme poetic intelligence. And tossing off, without attribution, a verse from Vinícius de Moraes, a verse that tugs on the entire universe of a single author — if only for the initiated. José however claims that even the uninitiated can appropriate and make use of a single verse: it’s the way an expression becomes common speech, the way any new slang enters the language.
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