This article is a personal history of the Science and Mathematics Education Center (SMEC) in Perth, Australia, during my time there as a student. I make use of narratives to express what I see as the impact on my professional practice of having attended SMEC. I am grateful to SMEC, but what is being grateful really? In this paper I try to illustrate it, agreeing that while it is easy to start a thanksgiving text, I feel handicapped to capture all the greatness I am full of.
This paper is written in response to a paper by Maria Rivera on issues of language and identity. I give an autobiographical account of my own experiences in relation to language identity and colonialism. I relate language and issues of alienation during the colonial time and I reflect on how that past is still currently distorting the way we look at our local language. I depict some episodes that, although they cannot be generalized, show how colonialism still deforms our cultural liberty. I conclude that only with cultural emancipation can we teach in a truly contextualized manner and do research based on our context. Only with cultural liberty we can be emancipated in the context of globalisation.Keywords Language Á Culture Á Identity Á Colonialism Á Science teacher education Sumário executivo Este artigo é escrito em resposta ao artigo de Maria Riviera, no qual ela fazendo uso de escrita narrativa conta episódios de Elena uma emigrante dos Republica Dominicana aos Estados Unidos da América frequentando uma escola bilingue. No meu artigo faço uso de narrativa autobiográfica para contar a minha própria experiência com línguas e ensino. Sendo eu de Moçambique uma ex-colónia de Portugal, eu começo por narrar como a politica colonialista de assimilação numa única cultura portuguesa agiu como fonte de humilhação e de vergonha para muitos nativos e particularmente para mim, uma Moçambicana Chope (tambem escrito 'Copi', povos oriundos do Sul da provinia de Inhambane). Durante o tempo colonial, os alunos que não falavam a língua portuguesa eram considerados perdedores e de baixa classe intelectual. Os que falassem português, que era o meu caso podiam se comunicar razoavelmente bem com a professora, mas a minha luta não se tornava mais fácil por isso. O artigo faz referencia de como eu senti This review essay addresses issues raised in Maria Rivera's paper entitled: Language experience narratives and the role of autobiographical reasoning in becoming an urban science teacher.
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