I'm going to kiss the dishwasher in my parents' kitchen when I get home. And the laundry machines. And the stove, and the pots and pans, and the bathtub, and my laptop. I'm going to go to the Boulder Farmer's Market and cry like a baby. I'm going to look at how our house doesn't have a lean to it and how all of our streets are paved and how ridiculously clear the picture is on our HDTV and wonder how I ever got along with something different. I am going to step inside a state-of-the-art hospital and feel uncomfortable that everything is so clean.
In talking with a dear friend yesterday, I was reminded that all of this struggle and pain and frustration and disorganization and confusion all adding up to a big fat sense of futility is temporary. For me. It sounds like I'm homesick because I am, but it also alludes to a greater issue.
I feel guilty that this is temporary for me. Because it isn't for the people who live here.
All the things that were supposed to be one way and actually are totally different. All the systemic confusion and lack of responsibility on so many levels locally and nationally. All the corruption that seems to happen with deals like the recent HidroAysén fiasco here in Chile (if you don't know what I am referring to, check out this article http://matadornetwork.com/change/11-disgusting-facts-about-a-massive-dam-project-just-approved-in-chile/). All the struggle to change and develop and become a world player. All the unequal distribution of resources and opportunity.
I can and will leave at some point and go back to my cushy life in the States. Honestly, I have the resources to leave tomorrow morning if I wanted to. I could be sitting on my couch on the back porch in late spring with a pool to swim in within three days, instead of struggling yet again with my eighth graders on Friday, wondering why I am here if they don't want to learn and not one of the teachers in the school can control them. They know I am frustrated. The 8th graders keep telling me that I have no patience and the seventh graders ask me why I am not ashamed of my Spanish.
I am beginning to hit some kind of a limit within me, which appears to be manifesting as anxious butterflies and a sincere desire to just leave the classroom and walk out of the school forever. My "boss" teacher didn't show up to school today, meaning that I had to throw everyone off by insisting that they fulfill the terms of their contract with the program and not force me to take a full class. People act like my presence is more of an inconvenience than anything else, whether it is in the school or at home or in Chile in general. I try so godamn hard every day to make everyone else's life easier and to give my time and work and sweat and money to help Chile, and some of it feels unappreciated on days like today.
I want to hope that this is just yet another "wall" like the ones that long-distance runners experience and that I just have to push through it...because make no mistake, my time in Chile is a marathon that is not getting any easier. Maybe this is just the feeling of the uphill section beginning after the first thirteen miles.
But I don't want to leave. Not yet. Because I want to prove to myself that I can stick it out, that I am tough enough and flexible enough to stay even when I could easily cop out. Besides, only 34 days of teaching remain. Less than a third of the time I have left here in South America. The rest will be split between English Camps and traveling.
At the very least, this time in my life gave me the perspective to truly appreciate the life I have lived up to this point...my education especially. And I now speak passable Chilean Spanish. And I have a lot of really beautiful photos. Maybe those three things are the whole point. Or maybe there isn't one.
At this point it doesn't seem to matter too much. I'm halfway through the marathon. Only thirteen more miles (uphill) to go.
24 May 2011
19 May 2011
Winter Arrives...Let the Comparisons to Southpark Begin
Knock, knock...housekeeping! As the more perceptive among you have surely realized, a few things have changed here on CaminoChile. There are new reaction buttons to give your opinion of a piece in one click. I highly suggest the overuse of the "WTF" button (because who doesn't like a few explitives here and there? Or everywhere?)
On your right you will find a new section weaving common threads out of the chaotic rantings that you often find here, for everything from "Coincidences" to "Armed Robbery." There is even one for "Chaos" if you feel like putting all of it in one place at a time. Fair warning, the chaos might jump out of the computer screen and manifest itself in your life. Then we can be comrades in arms.
Johanel, one of my sixth graders, made a keen observation today. It snowed for the first time last night here in Natales, and even the air appeared to have crystallized. Winter clarity of light and sight is here, complete with the pastel colors of sky and ice that signal the change of season. He looked up from copying "The Road Less Travelled" by Robert Frost.
"It snowed," he stated in Spanish. "Does it snow a lot in Colorado, Tía?"
"Yes, it snows a lot where I live. Nieve mucho dondé yo vivo." My customary double answer in English and then Spanish.
"Seems so," Johanel continued, "In Southpark the ground is always snowy. So Southpark and Colorado must be like Puerto Natales. And we are like the kids in the show."
Couldn't have put it better myself. Sometimes I feel as though I am teaching at Southpark Elementary, not Escuela 5. How funny would a volunteer teacher comes to town episode be? Right, probably not that funny for most. But for me it would be!
Life here in Natales grinds on like the bumpers barely held on by duct tape to some of the cars that drive down our street grind on the dirt. We are currently celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of this oasis in the vast wilderness of Patagonia, with shows and art and even fireworks next weekend.
It appears I chose to come here at just the correct time to have everything line up. If I had come even a few months later, I would never have known that the biggest fiesta in Natales' history had happened. I might not have met the wonderful friends I did. Some of my students might never have met me, since they dropped out or changed schools to escape bullying in the months since I arrived.
Everything continues to happen for a reason. I wrote it almost 90 days ago...feeling my heart swell with the knowledge that there was not simply one reason I moved to Chile, but a multitude. One by one, the reasons take their turns drifting into the dance of my life, cutting in on each other and passing me from one to the next in a grand choreography.
On your right you will find a new section weaving common threads out of the chaotic rantings that you often find here, for everything from "Coincidences" to "Armed Robbery." There is even one for "Chaos" if you feel like putting all of it in one place at a time. Fair warning, the chaos might jump out of the computer screen and manifest itself in your life. Then we can be comrades in arms.
Johanel, one of my sixth graders, made a keen observation today. It snowed for the first time last night here in Natales, and even the air appeared to have crystallized. Winter clarity of light and sight is here, complete with the pastel colors of sky and ice that signal the change of season. He looked up from copying "The Road Less Travelled" by Robert Frost.
"It snowed," he stated in Spanish. "Does it snow a lot in Colorado, Tía?"
"Yes, it snows a lot where I live. Nieve mucho dondé yo vivo." My customary double answer in English and then Spanish.
"Seems so," Johanel continued, "In Southpark the ground is always snowy. So Southpark and Colorado must be like Puerto Natales. And we are like the kids in the show."
Couldn't have put it better myself. Sometimes I feel as though I am teaching at Southpark Elementary, not Escuela 5. How funny would a volunteer teacher comes to town episode be? Right, probably not that funny for most. But for me it would be!
Life here in Natales grinds on like the bumpers barely held on by duct tape to some of the cars that drive down our street grind on the dirt. We are currently celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of this oasis in the vast wilderness of Patagonia, with shows and art and even fireworks next weekend.
It appears I chose to come here at just the correct time to have everything line up. If I had come even a few months later, I would never have known that the biggest fiesta in Natales' history had happened. I might not have met the wonderful friends I did. Some of my students might never have met me, since they dropped out or changed schools to escape bullying in the months since I arrived.
Everything continues to happen for a reason. I wrote it almost 90 days ago...feeling my heart swell with the knowledge that there was not simply one reason I moved to Chile, but a multitude. One by one, the reasons take their turns drifting into the dance of my life, cutting in on each other and passing me from one to the next in a grand choreography.
18 May 2011
With Love from the Battle of the Blackboard
"The battle to achieve economic development will 'won or lost in the classroom,' declares Chile’s president, Sebastián Piñera. To try to secure victory he has begun what he called Chile’s 'most ambitious educational reform since the 1960s.'"
Remember a few weeks ago, when I compared my struggles in teaching to "fighting in the trenches all day?" (If you don't, check your notes from this blog entry http://caminochile.blogspot.com/2011/05/its-enoguh.htmlYou don't have your notes? You don't have your notebook? Where is it? You lost it. OK, take this piece of paper and copy it again. Let's go, Tia Coleen knows you can do it).
I am not the only one who feels the strain of the struggle for a better educational system in Chile. As it turns out, even the head of state called for changes and improvements to the barely controlled scholastic chaos last December. (Read the full article here: http://www.economist.com/node/17679703) The reforms are a great idea. Implementation is a concern. It took two months for my materials to get here from Santiago, after all.
The calls for change come on the heels of an educational revolution already trying to jump from infancy to adolesence in a single bound. Since 2000, reforms and initiatives (including Idiomas Abren Puertas-IAP, which is the one in which I am partipating) have made the attempt to shift Chile's educational system drastically toward being able to compete globally.
Only in 2003 was high school made mandatory for all Chileans, and free of charge until 21 years of age (In perspective-Massachusetts was the first US state to pass compulsory education laws in 1852, and Colorado school districts made it cumpulsory 114 years earlier than Chile in 1889).
According to the information given at the orientation for IAP in Santiago, seven out of ten university students in Chile are the first in their families to attain tertiary education. In 1990, there were approximately 245,000 university students. In 2008, there were 769,000. This year, they will likely pass a million. That is a 400% increase in twenty years.
The main problem is that increasing the sheer quantity of Chileans receiving an education is not enough. The quality of the education (particularly in public schools like mine) must increase in step with the growth in numbers, or all that growth in the student population serves no purpose. Already it feels as though school is just a time/space holder in the lives of many of my students...something that they are required to do for reasons that even their parents may not understand. A relatively safe place to keep children during the day, where they can learn a few basics until they begin to work whenever adulthood rears its head. I suspect that in many parts of the US it is this way as well.
I don't pretend to know how in the hell one can implement true and lasting reform in a scholastic system and increase the quality of the education that students recieve. Likely the answers lie in the galacial changes of a culture over generations, a transition to a society that values education and encourages it. Probably too minute to see in the course of the five months since Piñera's declaration.
But the numbers and programs are a start. Even massive glaciers have to start with a few determined flakes of snow clinging to a Godforsaken piece of rock. Hopefully my school is one of them.
Sources/More Information
http://www.ncsl.org/IssuesResearch/Education/CompulsoryEducationOverview/tabid/12943/Default.aspx
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0112617.html
Remember a few weeks ago, when I compared my struggles in teaching to "fighting in the trenches all day?" (If you don't, check your notes from this blog entry http://caminochile.blogspot.com/2011/05/its-enoguh.htmlYou don't have your notes? You don't have your notebook? Where is it? You lost it. OK, take this piece of paper and copy it again. Let's go, Tia Coleen knows you can do it).
I am not the only one who feels the strain of the struggle for a better educational system in Chile. As it turns out, even the head of state called for changes and improvements to the barely controlled scholastic chaos last December. (Read the full article here: http://www.economist.com/node/17679703) The reforms are a great idea. Implementation is a concern. It took two months for my materials to get here from Santiago, after all.
The calls for change come on the heels of an educational revolution already trying to jump from infancy to adolesence in a single bound. Since 2000, reforms and initiatives (including Idiomas Abren Puertas-IAP, which is the one in which I am partipating) have made the attempt to shift Chile's educational system drastically toward being able to compete globally.
Only in 2003 was high school made mandatory for all Chileans, and free of charge until 21 years of age (In perspective-Massachusetts was the first US state to pass compulsory education laws in 1852, and Colorado school districts made it cumpulsory 114 years earlier than Chile in 1889).
According to the information given at the orientation for IAP in Santiago, seven out of ten university students in Chile are the first in their families to attain tertiary education. In 1990, there were approximately 245,000 university students. In 2008, there were 769,000. This year, they will likely pass a million. That is a 400% increase in twenty years.
The main problem is that increasing the sheer quantity of Chileans receiving an education is not enough. The quality of the education (particularly in public schools like mine) must increase in step with the growth in numbers, or all that growth in the student population serves no purpose. Already it feels as though school is just a time/space holder in the lives of many of my students...something that they are required to do for reasons that even their parents may not understand. A relatively safe place to keep children during the day, where they can learn a few basics until they begin to work whenever adulthood rears its head. I suspect that in many parts of the US it is this way as well.
I don't pretend to know how in the hell one can implement true and lasting reform in a scholastic system and increase the quality of the education that students recieve. Likely the answers lie in the galacial changes of a culture over generations, a transition to a society that values education and encourages it. Probably too minute to see in the course of the five months since Piñera's declaration.
But the numbers and programs are a start. Even massive glaciers have to start with a few determined flakes of snow clinging to a Godforsaken piece of rock. Hopefully my school is one of them.
Sources/More Information
http://www.ncsl.org/IssuesResearch/Education/CompulsoryEducationOverview/tabid/12943/Default.aspx
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0112617.html
16 May 2011
Adaptability's True Test
Chile still has more to teach me, it seems. My experience here is a bottomless pit of (often infuriating) life lessons and (more or less inevitable) changes of attitude. The lessons feel less like a gently leading me to a new world view like one leads a horse to water and more like Chile is slapping me across the face with them or hiding them in places I don't expect, so that they startle me when I pull back the covers to get in bed or jump out at me when I turn a corner in the streets.
In my interview for this position, I went on and on about how flexible I am and how adaptable I can be. I was sitting in the October sunlight in the hallway of the new Center for Community on Campus, on my one-hour lunch break from advising university students longing to go abroad. I felt compelled to prove how adaptable I can be.
"Put me anywhere there is a position," I remember myself saying. "I can adapt to anything."
It's been a ride so far. And I have proved to myself that the statement I made in my interview was true. Especially since lately I have felt a bit like my living situation had transformed into a telenovela.
The lesson that Chile appears to be slapping me with this week: too much attachment is just not worth it. Attachment to things, people, ideologies, customs, personal space...lo che sea. If it is more like grasping and clinging, it will only bring pain. Everything changes, and we cannot change that.
What a second. Did Chile just teach me to become a Buddha? Holy shit, huevón.
I have been clinging too much to my things. To my customs. To my language. To the extremely high expectations I have for myself and my students. To my friends and acquaintances. And all that I have accomplished by worrying and stressing is to make myself feel like crap, no más.
If I let go of my desire to control and allow things to be how they are, without stressing, what will I lose? Maybe my frustration, exhaustion, and nervous stomach. I can't change everything. Maybe, just maybe, I can't change ANYthing. I hope that the reality is somehwere in the middle, but it remains to be seen. And given how much my students appear to like chucking gigantic spitwads at my butt and how little English they appear to be learning...we might be leaning toward no change in the world from my time here. Awesome.
So, this week I am practicing detachment. Not disinterest. Not disillusionment. Not giving up. Calm detachment that gives me a bit of space to breathe.
And who knows? Maybe the point is not to try to change the world, or even to try to change my students. Maybe the point is to let it all change me. And if I am changing, the goal is already reached. The game is already won.
In my interview for this position, I went on and on about how flexible I am and how adaptable I can be. I was sitting in the October sunlight in the hallway of the new Center for Community on Campus, on my one-hour lunch break from advising university students longing to go abroad. I felt compelled to prove how adaptable I can be.
"Put me anywhere there is a position," I remember myself saying. "I can adapt to anything."
It's been a ride so far. And I have proved to myself that the statement I made in my interview was true. Especially since lately I have felt a bit like my living situation had transformed into a telenovela.
The lesson that Chile appears to be slapping me with this week: too much attachment is just not worth it. Attachment to things, people, ideologies, customs, personal space...lo che sea. If it is more like grasping and clinging, it will only bring pain. Everything changes, and we cannot change that.
What a second. Did Chile just teach me to become a Buddha? Holy shit, huevón.
I have been clinging too much to my things. To my customs. To my language. To the extremely high expectations I have for myself and my students. To my friends and acquaintances. And all that I have accomplished by worrying and stressing is to make myself feel like crap, no más.
If I let go of my desire to control and allow things to be how they are, without stressing, what will I lose? Maybe my frustration, exhaustion, and nervous stomach. I can't change everything. Maybe, just maybe, I can't change ANYthing. I hope that the reality is somehwere in the middle, but it remains to be seen. And given how much my students appear to like chucking gigantic spitwads at my butt and how little English they appear to be learning...we might be leaning toward no change in the world from my time here. Awesome.
So, this week I am practicing detachment. Not disinterest. Not disillusionment. Not giving up. Calm detachment that gives me a bit of space to breathe.
And who knows? Maybe the point is not to try to change the world, or even to try to change my students. Maybe the point is to let it all change me. And if I am changing, the goal is already reached. The game is already won.
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