Esther Comer Rodrigues

After graduating from Graded in 1974 I attended Graceland, a small liberal arts college in Iowa. I transferred to Central Missouri State University for my sophomore year but quickly realized that the rural Midwest did not suit me after growing up in cosmopolitan São Paulo. Dennis and I found we could “breathe” again at our next college, Western Washington U. in Bellingham, Washington. We got married after my Junior year, (his Sophomore year), and I spent our first year of marriage doing my student teaching at a Middle School. What a wake-up call! Public education and students were nothing like I had experienced at Graded. After graduation, we moved to Deer Lodge, Montana, where I taught English and Spanish I and II. I didn’t speak much Spanish, but the Superintendent of Schools was convinced that with the last name of Rodrigues I could teach Spanish!

A year later we moved back to Washington State where Dennis enrolled at UW and I was hired to start ......., yes you guessed it -- a Spanish program at Maple Valley High! Once again that exotic last name got me hired. I spent the next several years taking intensive Spanish language classes so that I could keep ahead of my students.

Our first son, Daniel, was born in Redmond, WA in 1982 and in 1983 we returned to live in São Paulo. I consider myself one of the lucky ones to have lived the Brazilian experience not only as a child and a teen, but later as an adult. Most notably, it is quite simply a wonderful place to raise children. Thomas was born in 1984. I was hired to work as the Elementary School Librarian at Graded and for one year both boys attended Graded’s Montessori program. I loved my job as Librarian, but I did not love the fact that as a local hire teacher I earned significantly less then my American expat colleagues. This was particularly hard in the runaway hyper-inflationary mid-1980’s. I stood up and said as much at a local hire teachers meeting that we were summoned to by the then Superintendent. This earned me my fifteen minutes of fame among the local hire teachers, but it also earned me the reputation as a ‘rabble rouser’, which made my work environment difficult. When the opportunity came to adopt our first little girl, Amaya, I decided to leave the work place and become a full time Mom.

Several years later we adopted our second Brazilian daughter, Jackie, and a few months after she came to live with us we discovered that she was deaf. When she reached school age Graded was the ONLY English language school that would consider enrolling her. For this I remain forever grateful to Vera Guisti, who was the Pre-School Administrator at the time. I had worked with Vera in High School in the Social Work Club in the early 1970’s. The Social Club’s weekly trips to play board games with the young boys in the orthopedic wards of the Santa Casa, and playing games with the small children at a large state orphanage, (before the meningitis epidemic put a screeching halt to that) were instrumental in our decision to adopt Brazilian children.

I moved to Sao Paulo towards the end of 4th grade, entering Miss Matson’s class. I was totally confused when I attended our first assembly. Everyone stood and sang two very strange songs, The Star Spangled Banner and the Hino Nacional Brasileiro. I had attended Canadian public school prior to this, and was used to “Oh, Canada”, and “God Save the Queen”! My first Portuguese class was in that small office room tucked between the two classrooms. Reading my first-ever Portuguese sentence, a perfect introduction to the Brazilian predilection for nicknames: “Pedrinho tem um nome só. Um nome só tem Pedrinho.”

Fifth Grade: Mr. Hamrick’s class: We were seated in rows alphabetically and Murray Case used to playfully lean his chair back against my desk. My father insisted on purchasing boys’ basketball shoes (probably Bambas) for his daughters for gym, because they were better for our feet and sturdier than the cheap Congas. I hated them and kept them unused in a box in my desk all year long. Mr. Hamrick often suspended traditional teaching and allowed us to just tell stories and talk and we all thought we were distracting him from his lessons, but I suspect he knew all along that great education comes from learning to converse and listening to each other. We studied insects and US geography. The art teacher made us do “wire sculptures” with extremely rusty, hard wire which hurt my fingers. Early in the year, a Substitute teacher had me stand at the board and do a division problem. I had moved in the middle of learning the Multiplication Tables and still did long division without the benefit of my math facts. It was humiliating and probably contributed to the math-phobia that plagues me to this day. Tried out for the Do-Re-Mi’s, first and second semesters and failed to make the cut. I was devastated. I loved to sing, but couldn’t carry a tune. Fifth grade was also the year that I came home from school and declared to my mother that I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be a Librarian and this decision was inspired by the elementary school Librarian at the time, whose name, unfortunately, I do not recall. It took me many years, but I did finally graduate in May, 2008, with a Masters Degree in Library Science!

Sixth Grade: Miss Eddy’s class. Miss Eddy encouraged my love for reading and was glowing when I gave an oral book report on the novel Jane Eyre. Miss Eddy also believed in studying current events and I became fascinated by the first heart transplants. I remember seeing Miss Eddy with tears in her eyes over the news of Bobby Kennedy’s death. This was the first time in my life I remember seeing an adult cry. Miss Eddy also invited the High School debate team in to show our class a “real” debate. She encouraged me to do math at my own individual pace, so I didn’t have to fear public humiliation at the chalkboard that year. Tried out for the Do–Re–Mi’s first semester – Didn’t make it. Tried out for the Do-Re-Mi’s second semester, and ...... Made it! I continued to sing in the choirs through Junior and Senior High School and loved singing alto, harmonizing with Wendy Levy and Bonnie Garland.

7th - 8th – 9th Grades. I continued to fall in love with literature. Had the most amazing English teachers who allowed us to explore the classics with all kinds of creative projects. I remember making a bulletin board about Treasure Island with Bonnie Garland, making a papier-mâché horse head and using an old blanket to re-enact a scene from Midsummer Night’s Dream. I fell in love with American History in Mr. Lanieus’ class. Others have mentioned maps and we certainly did our fair share of those with Mrs. “Now students”, Termaat. Português classes – All gramática and only gramática. Reading the Fábulas of Monteiro Lobato. Doing Ditado and getting back my paper completely covered in red marks. Throwing a ball back and forth to act out “one to one mapping.” I “got” this kind of math! Lessons in propaganda techniques taught by Mr. Orndorff were some of the most valuable lessons in my life.

10th Grade –This is the year I finally gave up on understanding any of the math that Mr. Rodionoff was valiantly trying to impart to us, so I transferred to a regular Geometry class and discovered I had a knack for it. Biology with Mr. McCorkle was simply amazing and then finally came my turn to go to São Sebastião. My project studied pigmentation in fiddler crabs. We had to cut the eyes off the eyestalks of fiddler crabs, crush and mix them with some chemical substance and then inject the crabs with the substance. My unlikely partner in this gruesome activity was George Derr. We had a falling out about our written work, which weighed on both of our consciences for 27 years. The Miami Class of 74/75 Reunion of 1999 gave us the opportunity to clear the air and just rejoice in seeing old friends again.

11th Grade – Does anyone else remember the absolutely dreadful AP US History teacher? What was his name? The class started out large, more than 30 of us, I think. By the end of the year it was down to three: Wendy Levy, Kim Hauner and me. We would huddle together in one corner of a large room and the teacher sat diagonally across at the other end of the classroom, as far away as he could get from us. I still remember being outraged, when he came to us two weeks before the AP exam and asked us not to take it. He was afraid we wouldn’t do well and that it would reflect badly on him! This only made us that more determined to take the exam. We did well – in fact, I earned so much college credit, that I never had to take history in college at all! (Regrettably... but I made up for it by raising a son who majored in History!) A lot of my friends were seniors, notably Roberta Sturz and Karen Rodrigues.

12th grade – I tried everything in my power to avoid taking Dna Talita’s Portuguese literature class. It turned out to be the best class of my entire year. I fell in love with Portuguese literature and language. Suddenly all those years of studying oxítona, paroxítona and proparoxítona, made sense when it came to scanning poetry! The trip to Ouro Preto where we studied Cecilia Meireles and my second trip to São Sebastião (where I worked with fiddler crabs again), were highlights. (This time we poured plaster into the crabs’ homes to study their shapes..... not quite as cruel, but it confirmed to me that I really did NOT want to be a biologist....)

Other Graded memories: Eating Kibon limão picolés for desert. Drinking the limonada at lunch. When it was my turn to help at the lunch line I loved pouring the juice glasses. Working with Wendy and Kathy Schlenker and Betsy Bryant in Graded’s library during the June/July vacation. It was sooooo cold. We huddled in the High School Library office, trying to keep warm with small portable heaters and repaired books and drank strong tea. At lunchtime, to warm up, we played ping-pong in the hallway by the gym.

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Other Brazil memories

Wendy Levy and I planned a very extensive bicycle trip that we never actually took. It would have taken us from our homes in Brooklyn Novo, across the Pinheiros River, up into Morumbi. We made lists and plotted our itinerary, but about as far as we ever got was the Hípica Paulista, where we fed carrots to the horses and petted their sweet soft nostrils.