GOODBYE WALTZ

 GOODBYE WALTZ

Goodbye love, I'm leaving

I hear a clarion in the distance

But wherever I go I will feel

Your steps next to me

(Robert Burns/Alberto Vieira/João de Barro)

The song chosen for today has a very special meaning for me. Even because the first time I heard the melody, it wasn't with the original lyrics. No. In fact, it was a version written by I don't know who, that we sang at the end of the school year... in fact, at our "graduation" of the high school admission course... yes, I'm from the time when you, at After finishing primary school, I had to take the entrance exam to be admitted to high school... today, the second cycle of the fundamental course, or Fundamental II. Other times...

Nowadays education is inclusive, when I was a student it was exclusive. You only moved on with your studies if you were really prepared for it. I'm not saying this was better... no. I'm saying that as long as you didn't really learn the subjects that were taught during the school year, you didn't get promoted, period. And this started in the first year of primary school. You had six months to become literate and already be introduced to the world of reading. Of course, some couldn't and stayed along the way. But the emphasis of the school was to pay attention to those who progress through the challenges imposed and, even by leaps and bounds, reach the desired point. The teachers did their best, trying to get all their students to reach the level of excellence required by the Department of Education. It wasn't an easy job. Every month a test was administered to the students to verify their degree of learning. At the end of the first semester, a more rigorous test, which would serve to separate the best from those who would need greater attention, from the teacher and parents. and, finally, at the end of the year, the final test, administered by the State, where the teacher did not have a license to accompany her students, since inspectors from the Secretariat came to administer the dreaded test... because you had to reach an average at least fifty points to be able to move on to the next series....

When you moved to the second year, the number of books for you already started to increase... Science, Mathematics and History, in addition to Portuguese, were part of the curriculum. In history, you would learn about the country, from the "discovery" to the present day... of course not like that... slowly, one step at a time. In math, you started with the tables... and how hard it was to learn, my God... but you did. Because everything you would see later on depended on knowing the basics, which were the four operations... In science, the first notions about what the world was like, chemical reactions, these things... and in Portuguese , in addition to a lot of reading, the introduction to the world of verbs and adverbs...

I think that in Portuguese the classes I liked the most were writing. Because I always liked to write. It was how I performed. Letting go of imagination, traveling through space-time, feeling myself in another world, my world... yes, because when you are writing something, you are living in a world parallel to this one, you have the power to give and to taking the lives of your characters... You're playing at being God... have you thought about that? I already... countless times...

Well, as I said above, once a month the teacher applied a test to her class... she saw who was behind the most, tried to help the child evolve, called the parents to talk... after all, in the official test she didn't could do...

As some people say these days, the children's greatest terror was when the teacher applied a surprise test. She would go into the room, tell her to put the material in her desk and leave only a pencil, a pen and a sheet of paper on the table... wow, we had a hard time. But most managed to get away with it. And so we evolved, until we reached the end of the first cycle, which was the fourth primary year. If you scored an average of eighty-five points, you were guaranteed a place in the next stage, which was the gym. Less than that, he had to take the entrance exam and be one of the first classifieds, in order to be able to take one of the vacancies that were left, after the enrollment of the students who had gone straight to the high school. If you didn't feel confident about taking the test, you could take the "Admission to the Gymnasium" course, a year reviewing all the subjects, preparing for the dreaded test...

My admission course class was a very nice class. I don't remember anyone, apart from the teacher, but they were really nice people, as all kids are after all... My first real book, I read it when I was taking that course. It was the year that astronauts first set foot on the moon, and the teacher asked us to write about it. That's what I did, after all I had read a comic book a little before and the ideas on the subject were very fresh in my head. After correcting the essays, the teacher took me aside and asked if I read a lot of books, as she thought my essay was exceptional. I explained that I had never read a book, apart from school books, and that all my contact with reading came from comic books, mainly the Disney line...she was surprised. On the same day, she lent me two books by Monteiro Lobato, "Reinações de Narizinho" and "Don Quixote" ... I just loved reading them. From then on, whenever possible, I started to read books, too...

At the end of the school year, we sing "A Valsa da Despedida", of course with different lyrics. And I never forgot this one, nor Dona Olga, my fifth-grade teacher, who started me in the world of literature...

It's seven hours and forty minutes of this beautiful Thursday we're living! Stay with God and may He give us the most beautiful day we've ever had in our lives...