Two months ago: I walked out of the English Classroom on a Friday, angry that the eighth graders refused (again) to remain seated, to work, to do any part of the lesson I had meticulously planned. Probably too meticulously (I had written the exact amount of time each activity was to take). The students slammed the door behind me, and then opened it to yell down the hall and throw a few spitballs at my back.
I didn't even roll my eyes this time. Let them be. They are just being what thirteen year olds can't help being sometimes: little douchebags. In five minutes they will regress to their happy to learn five year old selves and be content coloring pictures. They are still children, after all.
A strange man with a weird hat was standing in the hallway as I marched down, books and materials in hand. The other group had shut the door to the classroom, and I could hear what appeared to be a pack of wild elephants destroying an innocent stack of school desks inside. Hoping they were not lying in ambush for me with more spitballs, I knocked smartly on the door.
Strange Hat Man: "La profesora no está." ("The teacher isn't there.") Scornfully. As if he had something to prove to the (not really all that) lost-looking Gringa.
"Yo soy la profesora." ("I am the teacher.") With the calm that only a primary school teacher can maintain while trying not to be drowned out by screaming students.
In that moment, I realized I truly was a teacher. It happened suddenly, sneaking up on me in a definitive moment of transition from the girl who was always a good student to the woman who is actually a pretty good teacher. Demanding, but just. Trying hard to bring out the absolute best in her students. I've been thinking about that moment a lot this week.
Earlier this week, a fellow volunteer shared a kick-ass TED video about What Teachers Make http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/taylor_mali_what_teachers_make.html.
It's been inspiring me all week to kick my students into high gear and demand of myself and them the very best we have. Fewer than two weeks remain.
I know I have only been teaching for four months, and that many may day I have little claim to being a true teacher. I lack certification. I never took a single education class in college. But I walked into an elementary school serving some of the highest-risk students in a far-flung part of the world, and I transformed almost immediately into Miss Coleen...with upswept hair, glasses, professional clothes, and strict classroom rules.
There was no assistant teaching. No orientation. No gradual transition from non-teacher to Miss Coleen. Hell, there wasn't even an observation period. I made the transition in a day, in front of a room full of seventh graders (check out the post in the aftermath here http://caminochile.blogspot.com/2011/03/tia-coleen-and-total-utter-chaos.html).
But honestly, I think I've risen well to the challenge. After four months of the struggle in this school, I can say with some confience thst I have at least a tiny claim to that kick ass brotherhood of teachers making a difference.
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
22 June 2011
16 June 2011
Tía Coleen's First Strike
First strike ever for Tía Coleen. Kind of anticlimactic, really. I went to school to teach two hours of classes, and then came back to the house to change and watch the Chilean equivalent of the Maury Povic Show. The most effort I've put forth so far was to explain to my most difficult students in fifth grade why they need to take their education seriously (dismal failure) and to wring out my laundry in my bathtub.
This strike is bigger than just Escuela 5, Puerto Natales, or even the Magallanes region. Nation-wide protests of university students, teachers, parents, and others have been quietly festering for several weeks. Currently the news is reporting that 50.000 people have manifested in the streets of Santiago, with the largest protest outside the building where we had our orientation...the MINEDUC. So far everything is rather peaceful, but it is only a matter of time before they bring out the armor-plated mobile water cannons at Chileans called Guanacos to disperse the crowds.
I devour whatever I can find about education system in Chile and elsewhere by scanning newspapers and blogs, and I asked everyone I could think to ask (including the teacher is who supposedly my boss) about the strike. I wish I could say I was better informed, but I still don't exactly get what exactly the strike is seeking to accomplish. My limited information suggests that the we are seeking equality in education, protesting privatisation of schools, and demanding that the government of Chile step up to the plate and deliver a better system.
Many of the protesters here are referencing the recent US documentary "Waiting for Superman" as a connection to educational problems in my own country. Many of the problems that show up here are similar in parts of the USA...lack of funding/resources for public schools, difficulties with parent/guardian support and responsibility, and problems with execution of government initiatives for educational equality. I have no real experience with the US education system, but anecdotes from friends who are teachers (especially those working with Teach for America) suggest that we have just as much inequality in education as Chile.
Obviously, my experience with the Chilean educaiton system is extremely limited. I have only been teaching here for four months, after all. But I have seen problems manifest in the microcosm of my school that surely must be repeated in some form nationally.
My students are high risk. They come from the toughest economic and family situations in Puerto Natales. Many of their parents work all day to support them (often in dengerous jobs like off-shore fishing), are unsupportive because they themselves never finished school, are abusive or addicted, or have passed away. I often run into my students long after dark, on their own, in the street. I tell them they should go home, since their parents must be waiting for them. They sadly tell me that they aren't. Others lack even pencils to write with. Others cannot afford to pay for their uniforms. Many probably come to school hungry.
Thus the lack of resources: yes, it is real. The government of any country ought to help mediate them to include students from all backgrounds in well-equipped, adequately-staffed, safe, clean schools. You could protest for this. From what I gather, that is a main sticking point of the protest today...that the government is not giving enough resources or distributing them equally.
Then again...the government of Chile provides teachers with laptops. Students too, from tough backgrounds with good grades. Every classroom in my school has a government-issued projection/sound system. The computer lab comes from the government, too. Everything from posters about healthy eating to anti-bullying initiatives is embalzoned with the blue and red Gobierno de Chile logo. Even my school bag. To an outsider, that almost appears like an excess of government involvement.
Maybe the problem is not with the government, but with the actual distribution of resources. If the government laptops arrive in the schools, but teachers mainly use them for facebook and personal email...are they really being put to use the way that they should? If the projectors are almost never used because teachers prefer to make students copy from out of date textbooks, what is the point of having them in the classrooms?
The government must be held accountable, but individuals must maintain some personal responsibility as well to use the resources the way they are meant to be used. That means relying on individuals to do their part, which unfortunately is a very unreliable system. I am here in Natales part of the English Opens Doors government program, and I am a resource for my students as a native English speaker. I work in relative-well equipped classrooms and have a head teacher who speaks English very well.
And yet I did not even have a list of my students in some classes until I made one myself (result of which was that a bunch of students gave false names for two months). That little disconnect cost valuable time, when it could've been fixed easily by the people in my school. It is only one of numerous problems that I've run into, all stemming from my school's failure to adhere to the guidelines of the a EOD program (substituting my second day, teaching students with special needs, teaching alone despite my complete lack of language skills and experience, never planning with my head teacher...etc etc etc).
It doesn't give me much faith that government resources are used well in my school or others if they are mismanaged so gravely in just my situation.
What happens when there is a strike in schools? The students who cannot leave because their parents cannot pick them up have to stay in the building...languishing in education limbo with the few teachers and administrators who choose to stay. Classes are lost for the day. Parents have to interupt their work. We lose one more day of time together before I have to leave.
I understand that the point of a strike is to disrupt normal activities, but in this particular case it seems a little counter-productive. We demand that education improve and that everyone have access to it by...closing schools and removing teachers, taking away hours of learning from the students. Not to mention wreaking havock on the families who count on schools to keep their children safe and help raise them when they have to work. Plus students learn that their teachers can leave whenever they want, and that school is out when there is a strike. It's not a serious cry to government help in their eyes...it's a vacation! How am I supposed to make the point stick with those fifth graders that they must attend school if they see their teachers all leaving for reasons they don't understand?
I don't have the answer. I am neither for the strike nor against it. In all reality I lsck the information to make the call. But educational inequalities are real. Privatisation will not help undo them. There are improvements to be made to the system in Chile. Education will be the way that Chile finally develops, and the struggle for the future starts in the classrooms (even the president said it, check out this entry http://caminochile.blogspot.com/2011/05/with-love-from-battle-of-blackboard.html).
Education appears to be the lightning rod for all the other problems that a country has. Social, economic, developmental, general...it is a multi-factorial pressure cooker. This strike is only a couple of hours, rather insignificant even in the face of only a week of class hours (2 out of 30-ish). But people are talking, debating, discussing. And that is the whole point.
This strike is bigger than just Escuela 5, Puerto Natales, or even the Magallanes region. Nation-wide protests of university students, teachers, parents, and others have been quietly festering for several weeks. Currently the news is reporting that 50.000 people have manifested in the streets of Santiago, with the largest protest outside the building where we had our orientation...the MINEDUC. So far everything is rather peaceful, but it is only a matter of time before they bring out the armor-plated mobile water cannons at Chileans called Guanacos to disperse the crowds.
I devour whatever I can find about education system in Chile and elsewhere by scanning newspapers and blogs, and I asked everyone I could think to ask (including the teacher is who supposedly my boss) about the strike. I wish I could say I was better informed, but I still don't exactly get what exactly the strike is seeking to accomplish. My limited information suggests that the we are seeking equality in education, protesting privatisation of schools, and demanding that the government of Chile step up to the plate and deliver a better system.
Many of the protesters here are referencing the recent US documentary "Waiting for Superman" as a connection to educational problems in my own country. Many of the problems that show up here are similar in parts of the USA...lack of funding/resources for public schools, difficulties with parent/guardian support and responsibility, and problems with execution of government initiatives for educational equality. I have no real experience with the US education system, but anecdotes from friends who are teachers (especially those working with Teach for America) suggest that we have just as much inequality in education as Chile.
Obviously, my experience with the Chilean educaiton system is extremely limited. I have only been teaching here for four months, after all. But I have seen problems manifest in the microcosm of my school that surely must be repeated in some form nationally.
My students are high risk. They come from the toughest economic and family situations in Puerto Natales. Many of their parents work all day to support them (often in dengerous jobs like off-shore fishing), are unsupportive because they themselves never finished school, are abusive or addicted, or have passed away. I often run into my students long after dark, on their own, in the street. I tell them they should go home, since their parents must be waiting for them. They sadly tell me that they aren't. Others lack even pencils to write with. Others cannot afford to pay for their uniforms. Many probably come to school hungry.
Thus the lack of resources: yes, it is real. The government of any country ought to help mediate them to include students from all backgrounds in well-equipped, adequately-staffed, safe, clean schools. You could protest for this. From what I gather, that is a main sticking point of the protest today...that the government is not giving enough resources or distributing them equally.
Then again...the government of Chile provides teachers with laptops. Students too, from tough backgrounds with good grades. Every classroom in my school has a government-issued projection/sound system. The computer lab comes from the government, too. Everything from posters about healthy eating to anti-bullying initiatives is embalzoned with the blue and red Gobierno de Chile logo. Even my school bag. To an outsider, that almost appears like an excess of government involvement.
Maybe the problem is not with the government, but with the actual distribution of resources. If the government laptops arrive in the schools, but teachers mainly use them for facebook and personal email...are they really being put to use the way that they should? If the projectors are almost never used because teachers prefer to make students copy from out of date textbooks, what is the point of having them in the classrooms?
The government must be held accountable, but individuals must maintain some personal responsibility as well to use the resources the way they are meant to be used. That means relying on individuals to do their part, which unfortunately is a very unreliable system. I am here in Natales part of the English Opens Doors government program, and I am a resource for my students as a native English speaker. I work in relative-well equipped classrooms and have a head teacher who speaks English very well.
And yet I did not even have a list of my students in some classes until I made one myself (result of which was that a bunch of students gave false names for two months). That little disconnect cost valuable time, when it could've been fixed easily by the people in my school. It is only one of numerous problems that I've run into, all stemming from my school's failure to adhere to the guidelines of the a EOD program (substituting my second day, teaching students with special needs, teaching alone despite my complete lack of language skills and experience, never planning with my head teacher...etc etc etc).
It doesn't give me much faith that government resources are used well in my school or others if they are mismanaged so gravely in just my situation.
What happens when there is a strike in schools? The students who cannot leave because their parents cannot pick them up have to stay in the building...languishing in education limbo with the few teachers and administrators who choose to stay. Classes are lost for the day. Parents have to interupt their work. We lose one more day of time together before I have to leave.
I understand that the point of a strike is to disrupt normal activities, but in this particular case it seems a little counter-productive. We demand that education improve and that everyone have access to it by...closing schools and removing teachers, taking away hours of learning from the students. Not to mention wreaking havock on the families who count on schools to keep their children safe and help raise them when they have to work. Plus students learn that their teachers can leave whenever they want, and that school is out when there is a strike. It's not a serious cry to government help in their eyes...it's a vacation! How am I supposed to make the point stick with those fifth graders that they must attend school if they see their teachers all leaving for reasons they don't understand?
I don't have the answer. I am neither for the strike nor against it. In all reality I lsck the information to make the call. But educational inequalities are real. Privatisation will not help undo them. There are improvements to be made to the system in Chile. Education will be the way that Chile finally develops, and the struggle for the future starts in the classrooms (even the president said it, check out this entry http://caminochile.blogspot.com/2011/05/with-love-from-battle-of-blackboard.html).
Education appears to be the lightning rod for all the other problems that a country has. Social, economic, developmental, general...it is a multi-factorial pressure cooker. This strike is only a couple of hours, rather insignificant even in the face of only a week of class hours (2 out of 30-ish). But people are talking, debating, discussing. And that is the whole point.
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
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