Framingham educators visited Brazil to better teach immigrant students. What they learned

FRAMINGHAM — Every year, Framingham Public Schools sees a steady stream of new students from Brazil. The city has long been a magnet for Brazilian immigrants, and the school system is the main cultural entry point for youngsters arriving in the U.S.

In an effort to better understand that student population, Superintendent of Schools Robert Tremblay and several other Framingham educators visited Brazil over the summer to learn about its education system.

"One of our overarching themes in our strategic plan is belonging," Tremblay told the Daily News in a recent interview. "It seems to me that with the number of students we have in our district that are coming from Brazil, the next level of engagement for me — to understand the lived experience of our students — was to do a cultural study. I wanted to see if I could go into the community that our students are coming from and understand the context, to understand race, culture, class, politics and everything that shapes the experience of our families."

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Tremblay spent a month in the South American country, studying at the Federal University of Minas Gerais as part of a summer school program. He attended English-language lectures on Brazilian politics, local history, religion, politics and other topics, while also taking Portuguese classes. Tremblay also visited schools to witness the Brazilian education system firsthand.

"I attended public schools, private schools, vocational schools and colleges, schools in the favela — the poverty-stricken areas — to see what kind of educational background some of our students are coming from," he said. "I also met with executives from the college, with the hope of starting a partnership in the future between the university and Framingham Public Schools, where we can teach our educators the content that I learned and to send a cohort next summer to visit the schools and Brazil."

Tremblay spent time in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, the original home of many of Framingham's Brazilian families. The superintendent said that by witnessing the education system firsthand, he has a better understanding on what students immigrating to Framingham are going through.

"One thing I learned was that the school day in Brazil is only four hours long," Tremblay said. "I wouldn't have guessed that, and you think about students who are coming from Brazil and they come to Framingham and have a six-hour day. I didn't see many extra-curricular activities, whereas the American public education system is defined by them. There is a lot of inconsistencies in the educational experience, and I needed to make sense of that."

Tremblay spent much of his trip alone, utilizing Brazil's public transportation system to get around.

"I wanted to put myself in what may be some difficult situations, to get an experience of what it feels like to be a stranger in a strange place, without a huge grasp of the language," he said. "In a matter of four weeks, I was able to figure out how to use public transportation, how to order food, how to get a haircut — things you wouldn't normally think about. And I was able to draw out how families are coming to Framingham."

Framingham cohort visits Brazil

Tremblay wasn't the only Framingham educator who visited Brazil this summer. While he was there as part of an independent mission, educators from the Cameron Middle School visited Brazil after receiving a grant to fund their experience.

Mae Waugh Barrios, a language teacher at Cameron, was inspired by a previous teaching excursion to China in 2012. Interested in bringing that experience to Framingham, the logical place to go would be to Brazil, as 60% of Cameron's students are either native or secondary speakers of Brazilian Portuguese.

"I started asking around, and I realized that out of 125 teachers (and staff) at the school, none of the non-Brazilian teachers had ever been to Brazil," Waugh Barrios said. "I began looking for grants that could fund a trip that could take school staff down to Brazil, to better understand the culture where many of our students were coming from."

Waugh Barrios was able to land a grant from the Fund for Teachers, which paid for her and two teaching colleagues — Cameron world language teacher Katherine Dimitriou and special education teacher Kathleen Boldt — to visit Brazil for 10 days. Cameron Principal Michelle Melick was also on the trip and they hired language assessment manager Keziah Franca as their guide. Like Tremblay, the group visited Minas Gerais, examining different schools and getting a perspective on Brazil's education system.

"We had so many moments where we learned something and were able to connect it to something we are seeing in Framingham," Waugh Barrios said. "For instance, at Cameron we have a real problem with students getting to class on time. However, in Brazil, students don't change classrooms at the end of each period — the teachers do — so for students who come to Framingham, that is a new concept for them to learn. And it's easy to see them getting hung up going to and from class, especially if they are the chatty types."

Waugh Barrios said by talking to Brazilian school officials, her group was able to share similar experiences when educating students.

"An interesting thing we learned was that by talking to school staff, they had a lot of students who were raised in America but their family has come back to Brazil, and those students write and read better in English than they do in Portuguese," she said. "It was so interesting to hear that from teachers in another country."

Besides Waugh Barrios and Melick, Cameron world language teacher Katherine Dimitriou, special education teacher Kathleen Boldt and language assessment manager Keziah Franca also took part in the trip.

"Keziah was our translator and local guide for our trip. and it wouldn’t have been possible without her help," Waugh Barrios said. "She worked tirelessly to translate for us at all times, especially during each of our school visits. She also facilitated our school visits and was so instrumental in creating and executing our entire itinerary."

Future plans for program

State Rep. Priscila Sousa, D-Framingham, who chairs the Framingham School Committee, is a native of Minas Gerais and was visiting family at the same time Framingham educators were in Brazil. Sousa said she was humbled by the Framingham group's dedication to getting a better understanding of students who were once like herself.

"I'm blown away by the commitment," she said. "Bob (Tremblay) left his family and went to a country where he doesn't speak the language fluently and put himself in a different situation. He did that to better understand students like me, who came to Framingham in 1995 as a 7-year old who wished there was an adult who cared about what the assimilation process was like for me."

Sousa added that while children can assimilate quickly — a child can go from speaking no English to being fluent in six months — "that process is taxing and we can't take that for granted. I'm humbled to see the dedication of our school staff in doing this."

At one point, the educators met with Sousa for dinner — an impromptu Framingham gathering 4,600 miles from the city.

"There was something special about us all coming together — a superintendent, a principal, teachers, the School Committee chair, all going to Brazil," Tremblay said. "We could replicate that each year, and imagine the strength that kind of experience would have for the school system."

Tremblay said he paid for his own air fare, although he's asking the district to reimburse him for hotel accommodations and the cost of one meal per day. He said he had a family vacation at the end of the trip, which he paid for out of his own pocket.

Tremblay added that he was still responsible for his typical summer workload as superintendent.

"There was only a one-hour time difference, so there was no problem being able to answer emails and to do meetings on Zoom." he said. "As it turned out, the Farley building, where our offices are, was having work done and we were not able to really occupy that building this summer, so everyone was working remotely anyway."

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Framingham educators went to Brazil to teach their students better