There’s graffiti all over the school!

I grew up in the city of Winchester on the south coast of England. It was a great place to be a kid/teenager – by no means a village, but small enough that if you didn’t know someone directly, you probably knew someone who knew them. It is just an hour from London on the train, yet it is situated in a particularly lovely part of Hampshire, characterised by gorgeous, gentle countryside (a million miles from the dramatic mountains, forests and beaches of Rio).

Thatched cottages in Wherwell, Hampshire. Putting the Shire into Hampshire.

Winchester is a fairly wealthy city with a population of just 40,000 – when I was growing up crime levels were very low. So you can imagine my shock when I arrived at school aged 11 to hear there had been an attack.

I’ll be honest, it was kind of scary but also kind of exciting. It seemed that a gang of kids had broken into the school overnight and sprayed graffiti all over the place – on classroom walls, in the gym, on the outside walls of the main buildings. What made it doubly exciting was that there was swearing and most of it was directed at the teachers who were insulted by name.

As wide eyed kids, my friends and I looked on in astonishment as some teachers strode around looking angry, trying to help with the clean-up effort, whilst other teachers were in tears. Rumours swirled around as to who the culprits were with the smart money going on a group of 6 kids who had left school the previous year.

I took you on that little trip down memory lane there because I wanted to show some more school graffiti, this time from Rio:

The girl is wearing the t-shirt all public school kids wear here in Rio. The words in the bubbles are Paz (peace), Futuro (future), Educação (education), Amor (love). Nice work Luiza, whoever you are.

It’s a nice image don’t you think? As far as I can tell, this kind of artwork is quite common on the outer walls of public schools in Brazil. Of course it is commissioned by the schools themselves and is a far cry from the ugly pixação we looked at a little while back.

I think the (mental) image of the hostile graffiti in safe, wealthy Winchester contrasts interestingly with the positive message of the graffiti in ‘dangerous’ Rio. I also wonder whether having this kind of artwork on the school walls might discourage the ugly tagging that the vast majority of people want to see eliminated? Perhaps involving kids who are interested in street art and being positive would be a better approach to just saying “this is bad and must be stopped”.

Some words to the wise: Discernment, Culture, Curiosity, Improvement, Respect, Understanding…