It
all started with an analogy done by Rubem Alves,
in his book “TALK TO WHO WANTS TO TEACH”,
making a comparison between Jequitibás
and Eucalyptus trees, for confrontation or synchronization
between educators and professors. What differences
exist between an educator and a professor? What
is the difference between a jequitibá
and a eucalyptus tree? Well, first it’s
good to remember the differences between an
old pharmacist and a modern druggist; between
an old, mule drawn trader and a modern cargo
transporter. The old pharmacist was a complete
professional, used to performing every procedure
in the pharmacy: He would measure, mix and manipulate
the substances, transforming them into medicine,
carefully package them and then, tenderly entrust
them to his clients, delivering them to the
very sickbed when necessary. The pharmacist
always had a little conversation for each person
that came into his pharmacy. He was the main
spring of his commercial establishment. A pillar
of local culture, distributor of wise advice
and local news, and a sort of social fraternity
director, a passer-on of wise old sayings and
life directives. The mule drawn trader was a
man who raised his team of animals, fed them
every day, cleaned them, put on the saddle,
took care of the cargo, put up camp and even
told stories to his companions at night, around
a warm campfire. No one hears about the pharmacist
and the mule drawn trader anymore. What we have
are busy, impersonal pharmacies, void of consideration
for people’s feelings. Exceptions, of
course, are rare. Freight drivers don’t
even exist in the place of the mule drawn traders.
What you have are companies directed by offices
that communicate by telephone, controlled by
computers, smelling of sterility, distant, as
distant as the destiny of the cargo they carry.
And what about the educators? They were men
and women dedicated to their choice for a lifetime,
sharing and mixing their lives with the lives
of their students. They were the transmitters
of universal knowledge, teaching everything,
from hygiene to world history. From the mother
tongue to the most complex arithmetic. From
geography to religion, from drawing to natural
science. From home economics to etiquette. It
was a time that forged competent and educated
young men and women, a refined nobility, in
an environment with an eternal perfume of spring.
The professors of today, or at least those who
are not educators, poor things, are disposable,
a perfectly substitutable work force. They remain
on strike for months at a time, go off on recess,
go off on vacation, are laid off or fired…and
all this time wasted away from school goes on
continuously with absolutely no effect whatsoever
on governmental, national or public concern
or consideration toward their situation, they
are just replaceable employees, competence or
degree making little difference in their passing.
An even better comparison can be found between
the jequitibá and eucalyptus trees. The
jequitibá is a long living tree, getting
up to fifty, one hundred, two hundred years
old and more, passing from generation to generation,
useful and precious. Now, to the contrary, the
eucalyptus tree is ripe for the taking in four
or five years, a green desert, good for little
except its wooden face value, a silent den,
home to no warm blooded animal or bird.
And is all this the truth? It is no use for
modern professionals in teaching, or educational
employees, as they like to be called, in reference
to union matters, to deny it. It’s the
world itself that is dissolving the office of
the educator, the same way that it also almost
finished off the jequitibá, the braúna,
the candeio, the jacarandá, the cedro,
the peroba and the sucupira. The jequitibá,
strong and eternal, symbolizes the educator.
It transmits a soothing presence of permanence.
It remains as the world passes, useful in all
directions. The eucalyptus, - disposable by
nature, is the professor, that no longer accompanies
the student. He has no time to spend on his
charges, no longer following the individual
drama of his pupils, doesn’t feel or live
anything professionally, desperately racing
from school to school, from class to class,
to earn his paltry daily wages, or somewhat
more when well placed. The professor no longer
remembers his students’ names and the
students aren’t interested in their professors’,
either. Wireless teaching machines, they are,
and little else!
The in success of much in the world today has
its causes firmly rooted in disloyalty and lack
of interest, motivation and incentive, along
with the incapacity to dream. The growing disinterest
of world governments in relation to education
is what is really behind the failure of the
profession of the educator, relegating it to
last place in the list of national priorities,
getting rid of it, principally because education
in itself gives additional advantages to those
interested…political campaigns. How to
weasel out percentages, the famous one-third,
of the payment checks? Unfortunately, many educators
holding the vocation of educators end up transforming
themselves into simple professors. Like simple
eucalyptuses. Without loyalty, without a total,
living conviction of purpose. Without developing
the capacity of tenderness, of refinement, of
personal interest in what they do.
Happy and content is the educator who still
maintains his loyalty to their profession, like
the mule drawn trader and old pharmacist. These
- I’m sure - are worth their place in
heaven.
