Last Friday, Veja.com, posted an article on the growing number of Brazilian students attending college abroad. I found the article from a link posted by one of my former students, who just happens to be featured in the article. Flavia, is one of the 24,000 Brazilians, who attended college abroad in 2009. She’s studying economics at Harvard. I like to think I played a very small part in getting her there.

My peculiar niche in the great market of Rio de Janeiro was teaching Brazilians how to write the personal statement for college applications. I also taught Kaplan SAT prep classes through FK Partners, but it was the essay workshop that I loved most.

The Fulbright/Education USA office in Rio was kind enough (desperate enough) to let me develop a workshop despite the fact I had very little experience teaching kids. I also had real doubt as to whether or not I could spend time with a room of full of teenagers and not resort to physical violence at some point. I did not like high schoolers when I was one, I was pretty sure they hadn’t improved in 8 years.

Well, 8 years changed something because I LOVE working with teenagers. At this age they’re just starting to figure out who they are as individual people, with their own opinions and dreams. Even at their most self-absorbed moments, I find them fresh and amusing. (Of course, I’m teaching kids who are trying to attend college. The true hooligans don’t sign up for my class.)

Flavia was in my very first workshop. I told the kids they were my guinea pigs (a metaphor I then had to explain) and they were great. Respectful of me and supportive of each other. That support turned out to be a critical element.

It turns out a workshop on personal statements really does get personal. In two weeks, I knew what achievement my students were most proud of, what they were afraid of and their most important memories. Forget therapy. If you want to know the inner most thoughts of a group of teenagers, have them write a personal statement.

I also love the cultural elements that come into play. You might not know, but probably are not surprised to learn, that writing about yourself in first person is a very American thing. While my students definitely struggle with prepositions, they are completely thrown by the first person. I have been told time and again that Brazilian students never write in first person.

And this whole, “what event in your past has most shaped who you are today” self-reflective stuff. “American universities really want to know about what I learned from my mom?” “Why does my opinion matter? I’m not anyone important.”

Can you imagine an American teenager asking why people would care about his opinion?! It’s pretty much assumed by all American teens that their opinion is in fact the only one that matters. And that’s what I love about the workshop. I get to see how a different culture interprets something so ubiquitous to my American perception. The College Application Essay.

Unfortunately, I won’t be giving any essay workshops this fall. Our move to Vitoria has made that impossible. But I am pursuing some options that I hope will allow me to keep working with teenagers and hopefully, send a couple more Brazilians Flavia’s way.