Jill In Brazil: In the News

Jill In Brazil: In the News: "There was a school shooting in Rio yesterday. I am not sure of the details but a student came into the class and asked me if I watched..."

In the News

There was a school shooting in Rio yesterday.  I am not sure of the details but a student came into the class and asked me if I watched the news…. I said no.   Then he proceeded to tell me about this particular news story.  He wasn’t laughing but he was eager to tell me of the story because not only was it rare in Brasil but because he knew how common it was in America.  As a matter of fact, they were surprised that the American News Story was happening here.  Then I thought… I did turn on the news today for just a second today and saw the story.   When I saw it I was like “oh, another school shooting” and also thought for a second that it might be strange to see it in Brasil. When he was telling me, I knew why he had a little smirk on his face…  Let’s just say is just one of those things America is known for.  Brasil has a lot of crime; I think a lot of crimes of passion but School Shootings… not so much.   Maybe for Brazilians it was like the first or second time we saw our story like this.  Columbine, I was shocked.  What was it like 12 years ago?  It was 12 years ago that a school shooting wasn’t main stream news.  The school buzzer went off and I said, “You know why we have so many school shootings?  Everyone wants to be Famous”.  Famous for a good cause and if that doesn’t work, a bad cause will do.  

Tonight again at class my student told me that today he was reading an article on the internet about the school shooting and said there was a link at the bottom of the artical which said, "click here to see the other school shootings in America".  I guess we just do it better.

So,Here is a news story from Brasil recently that blew my mind.  It is a story about Bike Day.  In the south of Brasil, Santa Catarina they were promoting a bike day, asking for more people to exchange their cars for bikes.  All of a sudden a driver couldn’t stand following the 80 bikes any more, sped up and drove right through the crowd of bikes.  Bikes and people were flying everywhere.  It was crazy to see.  Could you imagine this in America?