Is friendship really important?

Friendship is the most important thing to teens. There are two types of friends. There are friends with whom we have polite chats and there are our best friends. A friend is defined as a person that you know well. You can trust them and you respect each other’s opinion. For me friends are like family and I know that I can trust them. I like to go out with my friends to have some fun. I also like to talk with them because I know that they like me the way I am. If I need help with something they will always be there for me and I’ll also be there when they need me. Friends should always be together and school is a good place to make some friends. However, a friend can influence us in bad ways so we must be careful.

When we have a friend we need to do everything we can to make him/her happy and this is the essence of friendship. Making our friends happy is like the moon at night. My goal is to make my friends laugh all the time. I just want to make them happy even when I am sad.

 I don’t need a lot of friends because I have the best friends I’ve ever wished and I am so happy with them! I can’t live without them!

(Elisabete, 10^th grade)

Human Rights

Heart, sweat and tears
United with no fears
Men, women and children
Are not unbeaten.
Nothing's awful to see
Racism, for you, them and for me.
I didn't know how can it be
Gandhi, Luther King
Helped people and brought
The fight agains discrimination
Saving their nation!

João Pinto, Maria Leonor Silva, Tiago Costa 12th D


Humans are discriminated
Under stupid circumstances
May this be not right
Although it's what happens.
No, this isn't right.

Religion, colour, sex, social origin
In all the world we are equal
Go ahead and make the difference
Humans all have the right
To be free, happy and live
So don't discriminate. Just Fight!

Diana Pinheiro, 12th D
André Caetano, 12th C

What is it like being a teenager nowadays?

Being a teenager nowadays is a little bit strange, difficult and different from what it was. The moment that we are changing from a child to a teenager is the hardest, because we start having our own ambitions, mostly we want to be free to do what we think that is correct.

As a teenager, I can say that I'm at the best age of my life, because I go to school everyday and meet my friends - yes, I like school, but I don't like classes. I can go out at night with my friends, and do lots of things with them, I don't have the obligation to pay a rent or a tax.

However, there are also negative aspects of being a teenager, like being easily influenced by a group or even by a person to do something wrong that may cause problems in our system or to our health.

I don't really know how it was to be a teenager in the past, but I think that the adolescence I'm living is better, easier and happier than the one that our parents, uncles or grandparents lived years ago.

José Pedro, 10th grade

What's your opinion about multiculturalism?

 “Our true nationality is mankind”, a sentence from H.G.Wells, means a lot. We can be from different countries but we are all the same. We are humans. Some people don’t think like this, because sometimes the country they live in is powerful in economy and military gear, and they think their country is the best. It’s not like this.

We are all made of flesh and bones, but with different skin colours and other different characteristics, and these differences don’t make us better than others nor the country we live in. We must help who needs. If we do that the world becomes a better place to live in. We don’t need to be racist, we don’t need war. We just need peace, tolerance and friendship. Simple as that. It isn’t a hard task. We can all try to do it in our everyday life. It’s a shame for our species that we haven’t behaved like mankind yet.

(João Ricardo, 11^th grade)

What's your opinion about multiculturalism?

I keep asking myself at least once every year “Why is the 21^st century mankind mentality still the same as a few centuries ago?” It´s mind-blowing! A big part of human population still has issues dealing with a person who has a different skin colour, speaks a language that sounds weird, dresses differently, has his/her own beliefs, possesses a big bank account, respects animals as members of the big planetary family and therefore is a vegetarian, has his/her own crazy style, etc. The point is, most people are still too imprisoned in the stereotype concept and it seems hard to change it. History has proven it.

Prejudice and ignorance are the main barriers that keep us from reaching equality. It can exist a small group of people who wants to change things and prove we can all live together, in harmony, make the difference. However, a house isn´t made of a couple of bricks. I think the first step to achieve equality is in education. At school, when a child wonders why his little classmate has a different skin colour, the teacher should say “See, little Johnny, when we are born, God releases a little magic powder upon us. You received the gift of having a gorgeous white skin and being a smarty and Emily earned the gift of having a stunning and shiny black skin and singing like an angel. So, as you can see, Johnny, we are all special in our own way, all made by the same and no one´s better than anyone.” Simple things like these can in fact change the way we see and understand things and people.

By the time humanity throws away their narrow minded sense, quits the old ideals, principles, morals and, mainly, abandons envy, greed, pride, arrogance,  and embraces love and only love, multiculturalism will flourish. We will all be able to live in a global society where prejudice won´t be a word of our dictionaries.

There´s a small sentence but very meaningful to me that I consider to be the key to a successful multicultural world, and I would like to share it with you: “When you truly love yourself, you will definitely be able to love your human counterpart”.

(Bruna, 11^th grade)