Anderson is Brazilian and grew up in São Paulo. He says that he has ‘always been internationally-minded’. He has studied several languages, studying literature and cultural courses in the USA (New York, Houston and San Francisco), UK (Saffron Walden and Hastings) and Germany (Freiburg). He has a Bachelor’s degree in Language and Literature (English, Portuguese and German) from University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil. He also has a Post Graduate degree in Translation from the University of São Paulo.
For over twenty years, Anderson has taught Portuguese at St Nicholas School, an IB World School in São Paolo where he is now Head of the Portuguese Department, and where he also teaches Theory of Knowledge and Global Perspectives. In these roles he as attended many IB Language workshops.
Anderson is also an author and has published four books: the novels Rua Direita (2013), Avenida Paulista, 22 (2019), and Professoras (2023), as well as the short story anthology O Livro que não Escrevi (2016). He is also a playwright, author of 4 plays (one of them translated into Italian). IB World Magazine published an article Anderson wrote about a project Anderson developed at Saint Nicholas School which stimulates students and the whole school community to write poems and short stories.
The project, which has been running for fifteen years, stimulates creativity and taps into students’ love for reading and writing. St Nicholas School works with the CCT (a poor community), in São Paulo, where many of the children live in a Favela. CCT students also contribute stories and poems to the project (called Made in Brasil). The texts produced are published and books are sold as part of a ceremony, hosted by St Nicholas School students, which includes a musical presentation and a theatrical performance. St Nicholas School raises around US$1,000 with this project every year, and it donates hundreds of books to CCT’s library. If you want to read the article, just click on http://blogs.ibo.org/blog/2017/02/15/the-power-of-words/
In addition to his teaching and writing, Anderson serves as a translator and interpreter, having worked in various events around the world, including a Brazilian-American Conference organized by the FTAA (Free Trade Area in the Americas) translating an important talk between American Secretary of Commerce and Brazilian Minister of Agriculture.
Anderson has supervised SSST Portuguese students in IB Schools worldwide. He has also supervised a number of Extended Essays over the years. Some of the topics have included the study of Language (for example, how football coverage was portrayed in Brazilian newspapers in the 2014 World Cup, comparisons of right wing and left wing magazines on presidential elections, the study of language used by poor characters in the movie “Second Mother”) and Literature (for example, a comparison of two novels on the topic of violence, the portrait of teenage characters in a novel by Jorge Amado, how the woman is portrayed in a novel by Clarice Lispector and in a novel by Simone de Beauvoir), among others.
Anderson is an excellent role model for our ILLTC students. Besides Portuguese, he speaks English, Spanish, German and Greek. A true ‘lifelong learner’, he is currently studying French. We are delighted to have him working with the team supporting our Portuguese students.