Brazil

Brazil  By Tyler Kendle

Country Overview Brazil is located on the eastern side of South America and is by far the largest and most populous country on the continent. In comparison to another country, Brazil is slightly smaller than the United States of America. Brazil continues to pursue industrial and agriculture growth in its heart of the economy. Today Brazil is the leading economic power in South America by exporting a large labor pool and numerous natural resources such as: gold, iron ore, nickel, timber, and tin. Although Brazil sounds like a great place, they do face a major problem throughout the country. The problem Brazil faces is how to rid the country of drugs. Brazil is the second largest consumer of cocaine in the world. It is very important to reduce the amount of drugs that are passed around in this country because drugs have a huge impact on children and their education. Arts Education Brazil is divided into three levels of education: Fundamental, intermediate, and higher education. Unlike the United States Brazilin children are only required to attended school for a minimum of 9 years. With the lack of information regarding arts education in the fundamental and intermediate stages this leaves me to believe that Brazil does not offer a wide range of education on the arts in schools. However there are organizations like Arts Empowerment that are trying to provide the country with a better understanding of Art. Arts Empowerment wants to provide teachers the opportunity to learn about arts education so they can better teach their students in classes. Many of the most notable artists are taking part in this origination to help teach others. Although art education is not found to often in the Fundamental and intermediate stage of schools, it seems some arts education can be found in the higher education stage. This is probably due to more money available to fund the arts program. In higher education students have the ability to choose different areas to study and focus on; so they could focus on art rather than science or social studies. Art education with older students seems to affect the culture of Brazil since art is prevalent in Brazilian society.

Artist Profile Cândido Portinari was born in 1903 in Brodósqui, São Paulo, Brazil. Brodósqui, São Paulo is known for one of the biggest coffee plantations in Brazil. Portinari began his life by working with his family on the plantation, but soon discovered this was not the life for him. At the early age of 9 years old, he started working with an artist to restore paintings in the church of Brodósqui. The artist put Portinari in charge of drawing the stars in the church which was all it took to see he had the skills to be a great artist. However, the village where he was offered no arts education so he had to wait to save up money and get out of Brodósqui, São Paulo. When he is 15 Portinari has enough money to move to Rio de Janerio and attend classes at “Escola de Artes e Oficios”. At the age of 18 he applied to take painting courses in the School of Fine Arts, however he was no admitted until he was 23. From that day forward Portinari gained a huge reputation in Brazil and today is known as one of the most important Brazilian painters. One of his first awarded paints was titled Café, which he got his inspiration from the coffee plantation where he grew up on. The painting Café was created from oil paint which Portinari entered in the 1935 International Exhibition of Modern Art where Café took Second Honorable Mention. In the United States during the 1940s Black Americans were still not allowed in the Library of Congress, so Portinari was invited to paint murals in the Library. The theme was American History which Portinari painted Black Americans so now black people will always be present in the Library of Congress and they will never be forgotten. In 1952 the Brazilian Government asks Portinari to create two panels of art work so they can donate them to the United Nations. Portinari agrees to do this for his government and creates one panel titled War and one panel titled Peace. The paintings took four years out of his life to create but in reality they actually took much more from him. Portinari was being poisoned by the toxicity of his painting materials. However, Portinari kept on painting because it was what he loved to do. In 1962 Portinari had another issue with poison from his materials and this time it proved to be too much for him. “Painting did not kill him; he just gave his life for it” Arts Organization The Afro Brazil Arts is a not for profit youth improvement organization that inspires achievement and community through a Brazilian self defense and dance program, called Capoeira. The ABA has been working with over one million children since it began in 1991. Besides teaching Capoeira they also teach Brazilian dance and music in their classes. The ABA has earned an enormous amount of reputation in schools and operates a Capoeira Academy where people of diverse ages and limited abilities can come together to work on their skills. Capoeira lessons that are taught in the Academy by artists are designed to teach morals and values that extend beyond the class. The artists have been very successful in maintain a high degree of focus from their students, while teaching them difficult maneuvers such as; cartwheels, roundhouse kicks, and socials skills like talking in front of the class. ABA performs many performances throughout the year; however, their major performance takes place during Brazil’s annual festival called Carnival. ABA’s artist take the stage in a stellar performance, they fly onto the stage showing off their wide range of skills in martial arts which excites the crowd. Their artists use their performance to demonstrate the importance of working together to achieve greatness.

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Teacher Training Teacher training and their qualifications in Brazil are similar to the United States. Individuals who wish to become a teacher have to attend a University and get a degree in their field of interest to become a teacher. Teachers who are interested in the Afro Brazil Arts can also get training. ABA staff members will meet with interested teachers and artists to create a well managed classroom environment to help them teach the Capoeira into their lesson plans. Capoeira lessons will provide a much needed fun and interactive learning experience.

Funding for Arts Education In Brazil the local government is responsible for using the funding on education that is supplied to the school from the Federal Government. Besides the local government there are many charities and programs that are trying to raise money to help support arts education. A program called USAID which stands for United States Agency for International Development is helping raise money for Brazilian children to learn about arts education. The program has invested over 11 million dollars during the past ten years which assisted around 35,000 Brazilian children. Without the aid programs outside the school I believe there would be very little funding for a proper Arts Education. Conclusion Brazil has a great history and tradition in the arts world. Every year there is an annual festival called Carnival that people all around the country take part in. The event is a way of showing off their freedom of dance and art work that they have created. In Brazil the most portrayed version of art comes through paintings and dance. However, I was very surprised to find very little information on arts education in their schools. It seems like most arts education is found outside of the schools in local programs such as Afro Brazil Arts or Arts Empowerment. This is very similar to my experience with arts. My school did not offer much arts education but there are a lot of schools in Michigan that do offer a great variety of arts in their schools. One aspect of arts I would like to see migrate over to the United States is their art of Capoeira. I would be very interested in taking lessons on this style of dance and martial arts. From my findings I did see that Capoeira lessons can be taught to teachers so that they can perform this art work in class; however I did not find any evidence of any teachers actually using this style of dance in their class rooms. This is very surprising to me; this style of dance seems to be very exciting and engaged by a large number of youths around the country. Brazil and the United States are very similar in the fact that they both don’t have great arts education in schools. Although Brazil doesn’t offer many arts education programs I believe their arts history and tradition is much greater than the United States.

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