My daughter’s homeschool program brings in artists through the Spectra program. Usually they are visual artists, but occasionally there’s something different. Papiba and his Capoeira class is definitely Something Different.
The class starts with a little Portuguese lesson, introducing the kids to a few basic words and numbers. Then they stretch, and Papiba introduces more terms as they go. From stretching, he builds up the basic moves that the kids need to know, many of which have colorful Portuguese names that they learn. Once they can do the moves broken down, he starts to put them together. He adds rhythm, the kids partner off, and the dance begins. At the end the children join in a circle, sing a song, and celebrate the little community they formed over an hour.
It’s real whole child education.
My daughter loves it, of course. Well, most of it. Sometimes she gets confused about what is expected of her in social situations, and she starts to pull back. But for the most part, she’s happily yelling out Portuguese words, doing cartwheels, and kicking over her partner’s head, holding hands in the circle, listening intently to this man whose whole attention is focused on a circle of children.
I think there’s a name for Capoeira class in the No Child Left Behind law… It’s called, “Unncessary.” The thing is, it’s the sort of thing that many kids go to school for. Last summer I wrote an article about school funding. One of the people I interviewed was Aptos High choir teacher Meri Pezzoni. She’d just lost her job because they were consolidating more and more of the music positions into one. If Papiba worked at Aptos High, he’d be teaching Capoeira, band, and Physics!
One of the things that Meri told me is that she had students who literally came to school to sing. They didn’t care about any of their other classes, but at least the singing got them onto campus. Once there, it might be possible to get them interested in more. Without the singing, they probably wouldn’t bother to come.
The other thing is that whole body education — things like Capoeira, singing, dance — develops important parts of kids’ brains. One time my choral group, Ariose Singers, did a Meredith Monk piece where we had to do dance movements while singing. I could feel my brain stretching…I swear it was creaking and groaning with the effort! Focusing on three different things at once makes your brain develop the capability of not focusing — being able to feel what comes next rather than having to count and consider. This is something that is part of life in Brasil. In the States, at least amongst those of us brought up in white middle America, it’s something we need to be taught.
And for kids, whether they need to be taught integrating body and mind or not, it’s nothing but good. It helps their brains take in more and different information. At the beginning of the second class today, Papiba asked what the Portuguese word was for a certain move, and a child just yelled it out with no hesitation. The no hesitation part is what’s key: that Portuguese word was right there – no struggling to find it amidst the jumble of information that we have to work to access.
My son laughs at me that sometimes when I know that I need to do something that I will probably forget to do (as I suffer an acute case of “Mommy brain”), I make up a song about it and sing it until I get to the point where I can take care of it. He thinks this is very funny.
But it works! And sometimes I hear him doing it, too. Given that he’s just about ten and starting into that dreamy pre-teen forgetful phase, perhaps he could use it more often. Probably we all could, and just think how much more fun life (and parenting) would be if we just sang and danced through our days.
