Which are our greatest results?

This last week left many student’s heart from Ceará anxious due to one single reason: the disclosure of the UFC 2010 vestibular final result. After undergoing the second phase of vestibular, many people devoured hurriedly time to have some news. Some pretended they had not even taken the exam and did not check the result, but in fact they’ve hoped for some news, being bad or good, in a sort of clandestine happiness. Others could not even sleep well at night while imagining the impact of the result in their future plans.

Trapped in this kaleidoscope of sensations many students of PRECE have spent their time over the last weeks which preceded the final result of the examination. All of our EPC’s – Cooperative Popular Schools – have had students involved in the whole process (both the first and second phase of the exams). The feeling that portrays that is like a metonymy; not only the ‘vestibulandos’ (as we call the students who undergo vestibular) suffered the tension caused by the super-awaited news, but also did their parents, their siblings and all of their families. They all shared the result direct or indirectly.

Every year, PRECE accommodates students who come from the countryside to Fortaleza in order to take the exams. That implies the involvement of many undergrads who make up the Students Support Team (another PRECE project). They always give full support for lodging, food, counseling and help in shifting the locations of the tests. Not only undergrads offered some help, but many other PRECE friends and College professors. As a matter of fact, several people did really help.

Right after the disclosure of the result, the reactions of many families were quite heterogeneous: there was the student who disappointedly cried, sobbing in the loneliness of her bedroom; the boy who turned a couple of whole nights in ‘alcoholebretion’ with friends; the other guy who over-prayed thanking God for the achieved victory; the young girl who will have to find a job soon because she cannot keep on ‘only studying’; the lad who did not expect to pass the examinations and cried happily due to the unexpected result of his approval; there is the other girl who decided to study hard as soon as she received the news that she hadn’t passed; all the proud facilitators of their pupils good results; the student who will count every single hour till the day he will taste the picturesque ‘feijoada’ and the yellow juice(no one really knows its true flavor) in the University Restaurant every Wednesday; the girl who choked on a piece of sadness, which left her dumbfounded; there was the father who received the news down there in the plantation and his eyes filled with the sun because another of his kids was about to get into university.

Also this week the media took advantage of that and sold many spaces to schools in the dissemination of results. There were several pages in newspapers and magazines presenting pictures of students and their positions in the vestibular ranking. Advertisements on TV prime time, inviting and exciting stickers for the radio. There were so many first places that they even overcame the number of courses the University offers. This is one of those intriguing things.

Many PRECE students passed in the tests. More than 50 students who came from public school and from poor families got into the Federal University. That is a striking result, especially because we all know each other’s life story. These are excellent results, but they are not our greatest results yet. Getting into university does not imply local development, that does not imply necessarily social changes, that does not imply transforming lives. As a matter of fact, those are not our greatest results. What then are our greatest results? The question is very good and there are multiple answers for them. Amongst them, I can point out some: the entry into the university is only a needed crossing, but it needs vector motion. By that I mean the return to local communities and PRECE is what makes all the difference. The involvement, the knowledge exchange and the experience of those who get into university, besides their commitment with many of our more than 20 projects spread about the areas of formal education, economic development, social control and governance is what supports my theory.

I do not mean the vestibular approvals are not important; those who did not pass the exams must be sure that that is just a consequence of the whole process. However, our greatest results might not be measurable. They move unnoticed by many people, but even imperceptible they contribute to the changing of reality in Pentecoste and in many other towns where there is the presence of PRECE. With this work, we are fighting for the construction of a new society, for the construction of the towns we want.

Original version written by Nonato Furtado

Graduated in Pedagogy from Acaraú River valley State University (UVA – Universidade Estadual Vale do Acaraú) and in Languages (Portuguese and Spanish Linguistics and Literature) from Federal University of Ceará – UFC. He is Currently undertaking the Masters Degree course on Linguistics at UFC and works as a Literature and Spanish teacher in UFC extension projects and in private schools of Fortaleza. He constantly writes short stories and chronicles, all of them rooted in poetry.

Version by Marcelo Moreira