Estudiantes Chilenos Exilados por la Educación August 25th. Photo by Javiera A. Fuentes

“Y como, y como, y como es la wea? Aca estudiamos gratias en Chile hay que pagar!” ~ Chant of Chilean students exiled by education in Argentina

Surely by now most have heard about the massive student protests going on in Chile demanding free, public and secular education for all students in Chile. La Vida Idealist’s own Paul Kearney recently wrote about the protests in Santiago. Since his article, Chile has seen two days of national strikes, huge marches and manifestations throughout the nation, the death of a 16 year-old student by the hands of Chilean a police officer, and general public outrage.

The raising of voices and public out-cry for change is not, however, limited to the Chilean side of the Andes. Chilean students in Argentina, who consider themselves to be exiled by the educational system in Chile, refuse to be silent on the issue. They too are taking their drums, their banners, and their pots and pans to the streets of Buenos Aires. With gas masks and clown noses on their faces they chant “Se va caer, se va caer la educacion de Pinochet!,” a pointed accusation that the current government and its educational policies fall in line with those of Chilean dictator Augosto Pinochet.

Though the issue is incredibly complex and the situation more than a little “heavy,” I honestly find the ferocity with which Chilean students are fighting for their right to education inspiring. The argument is simple: the right to education comes before the rights of big business. Or, at least it should. And yet, students find themselves without options. In order to study they have to leave the country or incur a massive debt. It’s not unlike the situation in the US, something my immense student debt speaks to in volumes. The difference is, Chileans have decided they’ve had enough.

Playing tarkeadas from Sorcoroma, Chile in Aug. 25 March. Photo by Javiera A. Fuentes

So, for me it was an easy decision to march with the Lakas del Oriente, the only chilean style band of sikuris in Argentina, most of the members of which are students who came to Buenos Aires to study. On the 25th of August we were joined in solidarity by members of different bands through out the city as we lead the march playing tarka, a wooden, andean flute traditional used during carnaval.

Marcha chilenos en Buenos Aires Apoyo al movimiento estudiantil from Javiera A. Bontá on Vimeo.

Change is coming in Chile. This Saturday president Pinera will meet with student leadership to begin talks. I guess my question is; have we had enough?

Encouraging the use of imagination does not seem to feature highly in the curriculum and the difference between things being right or wrong is very stark.  Whereas in the UK you will be awarded marks for showing your workings, here in Peru if you get it wrong you will be rewarded with a big red cross and probably given some lines to write.  This is so much so that I now can’t bring myself to help children with their maths homework for fear of getting them into trouble for my poor GCSE level maths.

The maths that is taught in school here incidentally is extremely hard, more like A-level standard for children who are only 14.  There is still a lot of dictation, copying long passages from books and ironically, a large amount of time and effort is spent on decorating the books – something I only remember doing at primary school.  Here it is still considered important even at university level however.

Feriados (holidays) will be announced the day before, leaving no-one knowing whether they are being granted or not and therefore unable to plan for them. My biggest pet peeve is that similarly, the materials which parents are expected to contribute will equally be announced the day before they are needed.  This makes it so difficult for poor families or children’s homes to budget and ensure that resources are available.  At one of the homes LAFF supports the lists for the beginning of the school year were issued in the first week of term (not in the last week of term before the two-month long holiday which would have enabled families to save up) and included items such as soap and towels, along with the expected schools books, pens, pencils and uniforms.  To give you an idea, this can cost about 150 soles per child and for families who are surviving on 600 soles a month this is a huge burden.

Haylli haylli Qosqo llaqta!

So, this brings me onto how I have managed to gain some first-hand experience in the Peruvian education system.  I decided that I wanted to learn Quechua – I am fed up with understanding everything in Spanish and then people suddenly switching to a language I have absolutely no grasp on – so I enrolled in the local university language course.  I’m really glad I’m doing the classes; I’ve already learnt quite a bit of Quechua as the courses here are very intensive and I have an hour and a half of classes starting at 7am Monday to Friday.  It has also given me the opportunity to learn some interesting quirks about the system as well:

Organisation: This month is a very festive month for Cusco, however, it doesn’t mean that the feriados are given in an organised fashion.  In fact over the month there have been two feriados and one class that was cancelled due to the elections (annoying since I got a nightbus from Arequipa just to be there in time, having checked that it would run the week before). Funnily, my teacher always sounds surprised when he announces that tomorrow is a feriado – surely it’s the same every year?!

Teaching styles: I can’t fault my teacher’s enthusiasm for Quechua but unfortunately it leads him to giving at least one long monologue per class on how Cusqueñans should appreciate their culture more, how the university or government doesn’t appreciate Quechua teachers, or, more embarrassingly for me, singling me out as the only foreigner in the class and telling them others how they should be more like me (this is not helping me to make friends…).  Dictation is still on the menu as well.

Passing the course: In order to pass the course you have to do three exams (expected) but also hand in your exercise book for the teacher to inspect.  This, of course, was a surprise to me as in England your notes are your own responsibility and you would never be asked to show them to the teacher.  So, since, according to my teacher my exercise book ‘looked a bit like a 5 year old had scribbled in it’ I then had to spend the evenings of last week copying it out into another book using coloured pens and sticking pictures in to make it look pretty.  To my astonishment even once I had gone through this charade my teacher told me that it still wasn’t quite aligned right…

Finally, I had to miss the last few classes in order to go to Lima for work. Fortunately I was able to negotiate this with my teacher, but was told to write a page of lines saying Ch’usasaq Limaman (I am going to Lima) in order to make up it.  I thought he might be joking and had to stop myself laughing at this – after all I am neither 5 years old or living in the Victorian era…

Fran Talavera is currently the International Projects Manager with Latin American Foundation for the Future. For more on her experiences, check out her blog.

Sue and I spoke about the school at my site Books and Adventures last year, discussing how entrepreneurial determination and a sense of vocation helped her to bring emotional security to children facing enormous challenges in their lives.

Sue joins me today to discuss San Domingo Savio, and life in Ayacucho, in 2011.

Sue Allsworth teaching in a classroom at San Domingo Savio School

Sue’s branch of San Domingo Savio School, in the district of San Juan, has just entered its second year. After teaching TEFL in the city for the past six years, Sue now finds herself at the helm of her own educational institution as co-director of a primary school which serves children from preschool to fourth grade.

‘Coming into the director role I’ve learned so much about dealing with people in Ayacucho, even after all this time living here. We’ve faced delicate situations with parents and staff – family issues, financial issues – and I’ve definitely learned to pick my battles!’

Parents’ situations present a day-to-day challenge for a compassionate and perceptive school director like Sue. She explains: ‘There’s lots of neglect and even abuse in homes here; there are also many single parents, more than you’d expect in a Catholic country which prides itself on being family oriented.

‘Parents can be very protective of their children – almost to the point of wrapping them in cotton wool! Even a spot of rain can make the kids arrive late – parents don’t want them to walk in the wet and get a sniffly nose!

‘We try to raise expectations across the board at the school. We show parents a higher and faster level of education. We don’t just use the regular textbooks from the province, we’ve been to Lima and found resources from leading schools in the capital. We put together our own materials too, taking the time to do what’s best for the children. Instead of just one book for the year, we make our course books on a term-by-term basis.

‘Many parents say that they want their kids to have a good education and go on to university, but often they put the family before the needs or ambitions of the individual child. The influence of the campo is still strong in that regard.

‘We move through the curriculum faster than other schools, but we recap a lot more and we don’t just progress through the levels automatically, which sometimes surprises the parents! Parents want to see their kids advancing all the time but it’s important to check what the students have actually learned. We start the school year by revising the work they were doing before the start of the long holidays – it’s our aim to make sure that whatever our children learn in school is something they can practically use in the future.’

Raising expectations isn’t just about academic achievement for Sue and her team, however.

‘One of the main things I bring to the school as a Brit is a sense of punctuality,’ she jokes of the dreaded hora peruana discussed on Luba’s blog here at La Vida Idealist. ‘But we’re also about raising wider expectations and ambitions of the individual child.

‘We try to open their minds to realize they can sort out their problems without running to Mummy and Daddy. We try to impart values and morals to encourage independence. We have high expectations of mutual respect for anyone who enters the school and this pays off when we take the children out into the city: their behavior this year has been excellent.’

Sue Allsworth in the gardens of San Domingo Savio School

Although Ayacucho and I are parting company for a while, this isn’t the last you’ll hear from me at La Vida Idealist. Next week I’ll focusing on other ‘responsible gringos’ like Sue, talking to ethically minded foreign travel operators as we consider the pros and cons of tourism as a boost to development in Latin America.

Matt Finch is an educational consultant from the U.K. and is currently working at the San Domingo Savio primary school in Peru. For more on his experiences, check out his blog.

When beginning one of the grassroots schools Project Esperanza runs that educates Haitian immigrant children, the director of the school kept explaining that he wanted to start a school for the Haitian kids that walk the streets because “Education is what brings one from an animal life to a civilized life.” Many times when someone does something destructive or embarrassing, others who do not behave in such ways say that person has not undergone formation. I think that explanation really does make sense. There is something that hasn’t been developed or formed in the person through education and discipline.

A broken bottle such as this is often used as a weapon in preparation for a fight.

We have seen drastic improvements in such behavior among individuals we work with but it definitely does not happen overnight. Any habit takes time to change and these habits are no different. I remember when we first began our program for Haitian street kids in 2006 and we introduced the game musical chairs. I first explained the game, but it really caught on when we played. The students realized the concept of the missing chair and the person getting out each round, and became very excited and involved. The group of us volunteers pondered afterward, realizing that if these boys had not been in school, Boy Scouts, an organized sports team, or any real organized activity, they would have had a different type of development compared to ours.

I remember shortly after we opened the boys’ home, discovered many behavior problems, and addressed the issue by creating house principles. Trying to get everyone to sit and listen as we went over the principles was impossible. So we locked the house up after a soccer game and prepared lunch inside. We didn’t open the doors to serve lunch until after the principles had been reviewed. It took a few hours because there were frequent rebellions.

This was how things started. I know that this would never happen again to this extent because we have a strong group of changed young men who set a different example. But it took a long time, a lot of patience, and lots of repetitive attempts, dialogue, and correction to reach this point. It also took undergoing a lot of criticism. There are Dominicans who have no patience for such undisciplined Haitians and oppose the efforts (not that all Dominicans are disciplined by any means, but I believe their problems more generally lie in corruption nowadays rather than unruly behavior). Then there are foreign volunteers and visitors as well as local observers who want to blame the leadership for this behavior. As co-founder and director of Project Esperanza, this ultimately leads to me. Comments are made such as,

“Don’t let them do that.”

“You should tell them x,y,z.”

“You should have rules.”

or

“Do something!”

To this I say, “Not everything is under one’s control. Some things take time, patience, and lots of repetition. Progress is relative and it’s important for people to understand where something began to realize the successes that have been achieved. Money spent on repairing broken material items or purchasing products sold by street vendors is of less value than the development of human beings. People have to be loved before or at least while they are being firmly disciplined or they will have harbored anger, mistrust, and no real change will occur. So let’s be a part of the solution and not the problem. Have faith, patience, and love. This will change all things.

Caitlin McHale is currently living in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic as the co-founder and executive director of Project Esperanza.

Photo by Dana Zichlin of a sixth grade graduation in Chaquijyá Central, Guatemala.

But how do you teach a violent past –in Guatemala’s case, a 36-year-long civil war that ended less than fifteen years ago taking 200,000 (mainly indigenous) lives.  This question is especially controversial, considering Guatemala still struggles with recollecting its past. Following the 1996 Peace Accords the federal government founded the Commission for Historical Clarification, seeking to reconstruct history based on thousands of victims’ firsthand accounts of gross human rights violations — essentially, a record Guatemala’s historical memory. This method is problematic because it relies on a highly subjective construct of history based on selected representations (the partially discredited narration of Nobel-prize winning Rigoberta Menchú comes to mind). While this ‘officializing’ of the violence of the past certainly doesn’t ‘fix’ history, it does open up a space to redress grievances and establish a forum for discussion. Particularly for Guatemala, where in the non-so-distant-past speaking out on human rights could cost a chapin or chapina his or her life, this civic dialogue is a critical first step.  But these efforts are in vain if Guatemala’s checkered history is left out of the school curriculum.

A Guatemalan friend who works in education described this problem to me — well, actually, there are quite a few problems. To start, the school system is on average underfunded, under-attended, and understaffed by poorly-trained teachers, generally conservative in subject matter, and systematically discriminates against the indigenous population of Guatemala. Adding to this mélange of difficulties is the raging debate over teaching a violent past.  Guatemalan students do not study history, but “social studies” or civics, and newer textbooks even tend to remove history entirely from the curriculum. Many textbooks have no more than a few paragraphs on Guatemala’s great democratizing presidents in the 1940’s and 1950’s, and most Guatemalan national heroes tend to be painted either as tontos (fools) or heartless and cruel. Further complexity lies in the student themselves. While the curriculum should address issues of ethnic diversity and multiculturalism in a country as richly diverse as Guatemala, it tends to depict indigenous cultures as relics of the past.  Schools must also deal with having students from indigenous backgrounds, Ladino communities, and most provocatively, military families. Nevertheless, by withholding a thorough account of history and discrediting Guatemala’s great men and women, it’s a history lesson that tacitly reinforces an inaccurate depiction of the nation’s past and discourages active civic participation in the country’s youth.

Proactive efforts towards facing the horrors of the past, rather than ‘disappearing’ them, may be the first step towards a national recovery. Guatemala can use what is an inarguably tumultuous past to inform and guide its present and future; but a new question arises: how do you teach a violent past you’re still struggling to reconstruct?

Kate Bennett is currently researching nonprofit effectiveness in Guatemala. For more about her experiences, check out her blog. If you’re curious about this subject, please check out the book Teaching the Violent Past: History Education and Reconciliation to learn more.

6th grade students at a graduation ceremony in Proyecto Semilla, a school for child workers in Panajachel, Guatemala

At least, that’s the idea driving Mil Milagros, a Boston-based non-governmental organization operating in four schools around the tourist town of Panajachel in Guatemala.  Mil Milagros feeds around 600 students every day for the cost of about $1.20 per child; by feeding children a hot lunch in school, they ensure that children will finish primary school.

According to Guatemalan government statistics, 56% of the population lives in poverty and only 30% of the children in Guatemala complete sixth grade. Among Mayan girls, 79% do not finish primary school.  A recent article in The Economist put child malnutrition statistics around 80% in parts of rural Guatemala where the population is predominantly indigenous. Mil Milagros, however, believes the percentage to be much higher.

Mil Milagro’s mission is  to improve the health, well-being, and educational outcomes of children in Guatemala. High aspirations, but they fall in line with the United Nations’ equally ambitious UN Development Goals to achieve universal primary education and end poverty and childhood hunger by 2015. Mil Milagros is working to make these ideals a reality.  With day-to-day operations run almost entirely by their Guatemalan staff, Mil Milagros currently provides hot lunches to each school, nutrition classes to mothers, teaching seminars to teachers, and school supplies as well as dental and hygiene products to the students of four schools in the municipality of Sololá.

The success of Mil Milagros’ programs comes from their emphasis on strong partnerships and active participation of the teachers, parents, and students. The school of Chichimuch in Santa Lucia Utatlan serves as a glowing example: hot lunches are prepared everyday by a team of five mothers, each serving a voluntary shift every 20 or so days. While currently the hot lunches are dependent on funding provided by Mil Milagros, the community is already launching innovative fundraising programs. Last year the school purchased 140 chicks, one for every student. The children raised the chicks and after only a month the school was able to resell them, doubling their financial capital and fostering horticultural skills in the students. The schools seek to expand such programs to include school gardens and similar livestock projects.

Not only do these homegrown initiatives raise additional funds for the schools, they serve as incredible examples of capacity-building and sustainability through nonprofit work.

Kate Bennett is currently researching nonprofit effectiveness in Guatemala. For more about her experiences, check out her blog.

Spelling problems are just the obvious outer layer of a profound lack of language education.  It’s pretty hard to teach tenses to kids who find it difficult to identify verbs, even in Spanish – or adjectives, pronouns, etc. Never mind more complicated topics, like direct and indirect objects, phrasal verbs, or – horrors – the conditionals.

Earlier in the semester I was flabbergasted during a conversation with some students in which they asked me whether I thought it was easier for Spanish-speaking babies to learn English, or English-speaking babies to learn Spanish. It turned out that my kids were operating under the assumption that a person’s language is inherent in their genetics. I actually panicked a little when I heard this – I thought, if that’s really how they think about language, I’m done for. No wonder it’s so difficult to convince them they are capable of learning English, if they feel Spanish is as much a part of them as their eyes, or their hands.

At times, discoveries like this one sometimes make me feel somewhat useless  – even though I’m here because the government of this country identified a need and sought help. But my students’ real problems go much further than English or Spanish grammar, and it is frustrating to realize that my work does not address those very scary challenges. The most I can do is try and make sure that in my classroom, at least, they have a positive experience. Unfortunately, once they leave, it’s out of my hands.

For more on teaching English in Latin America, check out posts by Kent Green and Amanda Patterson.

Matt’s idea was ingenious. The books Forest Hills donated will be used for many years, but for the current students at Mexico Nuevo, the books have recognizable faces behind them.

Skype, an internet-based program that allows people to video chat for free, became even more exciting a few months ago when three of my former students had a live video talk with three students from Forest Hills High School near Charlotte, NC. My friend Matt, who teaches leadership and English at the school, heard about our need to collect books. He and his leadership class collected over 2,000 books for us so we can begin building a library at our middle and high school in northern Mexico. We decided to set up a chat.

What was extra exciting for my students was that one of the students on the other side of the screen was originally from Mexico. And one of my students used to live in the States. So although they were supposed to be practicing their English, they were able to speak some Spanish. Another of the three students in North Carolina was an exchange student from Germany; the Mexican students asked him to speak some German for them. He did. They giggled. Then all six went around telling a bit about themselves, and asking questions about the others. They talked about music, movies, traveling. They did not stop smiling.

Our school, Mexico Nuevo, was buzzing with talk from the three students who transformed into privileged beings for that 30 minutes of conversation with el otro lado.

Gena Thomas is a women’s coop laborer and faith-based coffee shop co-manager with her husband. For more on her experiences, check out her blog. For more on tech tools in Latin America, check out Amanda Patterson’s “Translation on the Fly.”

La cueca, the Chilean baile nacional, is a ritualized mating dance between rooster and hen. The lady prances back and forth waving her handkerchief (pañuelo) coyly; the huaso (Chilean cowboy) takes manly strides, trying to entrap her with his own pañuelo. There are lots of complicated patterns and steps with names like vuelta, media luna, redonda, escobillado, zapateo, etc. Done well, it is quite beautiful.

When a few of my students and colleagues asked me to dance cueca in the September 18^th assembly, my up-for-anything volunteer mentality prompted me to agree. I told them if they could teach me, I would do it.

In the States, if someone had handed me a hanky and a funny dress, and instructed me to mince about batting my eyelashes, I would have laughed my head off. Battling that reaction was the most difficult part of my three cueca rehearsals. It wasn’t just a matter of getting over my self-consciousness – or even of reminding myself that cueca is normal for Chileans. Rather, the key was to appreciate the beauty of the dance – the theater of it – and to take pleasure in playing my part. My students would be tickled to death no matter what I did, so I thought I’d try and do the la cueca justice.

On the eve of the big day, I found myself practicing cueca at home alone, with my host-family’s black lab following me around trying to steal my pañuelo. As I caught glimpses of myself in the mirror, waving my hanky and stomping my feet, I had a hard time keeping a straight face.

But I got my giggles out in time. The dance went well and I was proud to have pushed through the embarrassment – I even got some good feedback. One of my students reported her mother’s reaction as “La gringa se defendió”  – which I translated to myself as “Warn’t half bad.” I’ll take it.

Nereida Heller is currently volunteering in Puerto Aisén, Chile with the English Open Doors Program. For more about her experiences, check out her blog. For more on dance in Latin America, check out Kent Green’s “We Dance If We Want To (so why don’t we)?” and “Cultural Portals” by Gena Thomas.