The Kids are Teachers Too

A cute anecdote: There is a guy that hangs around the São João school, probably my age or a couple of years younger, that takes advantage of the wifi there because he lives close by. He brings his laptop and sits in the courtyard when there's energy. Often he sees me and tries to chat me up, telling me about his laptop, his digital camera, his technology.

Today I saw him sitting with an XO, with Kadma by his side. When he was finished using it, he closed the top. “No!” Kadma said to him. “You can't shut the computer down like that! It won't shut down if you just close the top.”

The guy opened it up again, and, sure enough, the computer hadn't shut down. With a slightly embarrassed look on his face, he reached for the power button. Kadma swept his arm away again. “You can't shut it down like that, either,” she told him. She then took the computer into her own hands, went to the “home” view, ran her cursor over the XO icon, and selected “shut down”.

Pride bubbled within me. Here was Kadma, a petite, quiet 11 year-old, teaching this big guy how to use a computer. I could have burst with delight.