No Screens, No Desks: Grade 9 Students Learn the Guarani Way

In a wooden prayer house in Parelheiros, São Paulo, a Guarani melody rose softly as students listened in silence. Community members stood together, their voices accompanied by rattles, a guitar, and a violin-like instrument. As the rhythm built, they marked the beat with their feet and long wooden sticks before forming a circle for the final song. The message, a community leader explained, was simple: together, people are stronger.

For Graded’s ninth graders, this would be their classroom for the day.

Each year, upper school students participate in Classroom Without Walls (CWW), an experiential learning program that takes them beyond the confines of a campus. Grade 9 students typically travel to Paraty, but heavy rains forced them to revise their plans this year.

Instead, students pivoted to a series of day trips, drawing on the rich experiences São Paulo state has to offer. After a day of rafting and another of hiking and ziplining, they traveled to Terra Indígena Tenondé Porã in Parelheiros, where they spent their day learning from members of the Guarani community.

The visit began with traditional songs performed inside the casa de reza, or prayer house. One told the story of the harvest, particularly corn, which carries both nutritional and spiritual significance. Another offered protection for all beings: families, animals, and even visitors.

When the music ended, a community leader carried a petyngua, a sacred pipe, around the room as part of a ritual of protection, healing, and spiritual strengthening. Greeting the students with the phrase Aguyjevete, a Guarani wish for physical and spiritual well-being, he began telling the community's story.

Students learned about the tekoa of Kalipety, part of a territory reoccupied in 2013 by the Guarani people of Tenondé Porã. As he spoke about agriculture and tradition, he passed around ears of corn for students to examine closely.

But much of the conversation focused not only on history, but on change.

Unlike many Indigenous communities in Brazil, Kalipety has no cacique, or chief—a role introduced during colonization when outsiders sought a single male representative. Over time, the Guarani in this village chose to move away from that structure. Decisions are made collectively by several leaders, many of whom are women, and women now also participate in ceremonial roles that were once reserved for men. The community hopes others will be inspired to do the same.

Students also learned about education within the community. Many lessons take place outdoors, and knowledge is often passed down through direct relationships with the land. Our students recognized that, like the Guarani, they move between languages and cultures in their school environment. The students of Kalipety learn in Portuguese, but the core of their ancestral knowledge remains rooted in Guarani, in concepts that may not have direct translations into Portuguese or other languages.

After the discussion, the group gathered for lunch prepared by the community, using ingredients grown on the land: couscous made from harvested corn, beans, chicken, and freshly cut watermelon for dessert. Later, students stepped into a small shop lined with handmade crafts, where artisans sold traditional necklaces, bows and arrows, and carved animal figurines.

Then came a walk through the crops. Rows of peanuts, numerous stalks of the sacred corn, and more than 40 varieties of sweet potatoes stretched across the land. Some corn species, their guide explained, had not been seen for years until the community returned to planting using their traditional methods.

I learned that they do everything naturally when they farm. They don’t use any pesticides. Instead, they wait for harvesting seasons.

-  Graham R.

During the tour, a young child approached the group, holding urucum, a small fruit whose seeds are used both as a spice (colorau, to add aroma and color to dishes) and as a bright orange pigment that serves many uses—as body art, sun protection, or insect repellent. One by one, students stepped closer as she dipped a cotton swab into the pigment and traced patterns across their cheeks.

For many students, the visit left a lasting impression.

I've always enjoyed learning about planting and more sustainable ways to do things. Watching them plant and place everything together rather than separately was very interesting. I think we should do that more often.

-  Yasmin T.

At the end of the visit, after one final thank-you from a community leader and words of gratitude from the students, grade 9 boarded the buses for the ride back to campus.

For High School Portuguese Teacher Maggie Moraes, the visit offered students something difficult to replicate in a traditional classroom. “I found it fascinating to realize that our society, so modernized and technological, is creating problems that we can’t solve,” she said. “Here, they think about society in a simpler way—a true ‘less is more.’”

Experiences like this, she said, engage students in ways screens cannot.

Students spend too much time on digital devices. Here, they smell the food and notice the smoke in the air as they enter the prayer house. It involves all the senses. They won’t forget this experience.

-  Ms. Maggie Moraes