This week, we'll say the theme was education. I walked into the primary school in El Encino on Wednesday morning and asked if I could teach a bit of English each week. Both teachers are giving me 3 hours a week now. My host mom, who is the village kindergarten teacher, also wants me to come teach English this week. At first, I thought it was because all the kids keep asking me to come teach, and I still think that's part of it. BUT I found out this week that next year ALL primary and kindergarten teachers are going to be required to teach English, as well and the secondary school teachers. YIKES! Can you imagine being a teacher in the United States, not having ANY foreign language background and being told that if you want to keep your job, you're going to teach German next year?! I talked to the secondary school teacher who already has to teach English. He said that to graduate from college and be certified to teach, one only needs to specialize in Spanish, math, and one other subject. He also said that there are no teacher training workshops, so if teachers don't know much about a subject, they better study that government-issued textbook hard before teaching class. Terrifying. Remind me never to become a teacher in Mexico. I don't have the guts. One of the primary school teachers showed me some software that the government gave to all the primary school teachers to teach some basics in English. He said that a lot of primary schools don't use it, though, because it's not required and because the teachers don't know English. But these programs don't really teach the language. Just some vocab. Students could learn to point to things and say words, but they aren't learning to speak.
To be honest, the books I've seen that the government has issued to all secondary students are horrible. They're grammatically, syntactically, and semantically incorrect. Several errors a page. I read a sentence that said "You're going to have to work hard to get your purposes." It took me a minute to understand that they were trying to say "to achieve your goals." A lot of sentences are direct translations from Spanish, and it's just not how we say it in English. When asked if a student likes to do something, the book teaches students to say, "Yes, I like." Another problem that is quite frequent is the difference between "in" and "on." In Spanish, the word "en" covers both of these (think how difficult "por" and "para" are for Spanish learners since we use "for" for both of these in English). "In" and "on" are often used incorrectly. Also, I was reading one paragraph about endangered species. Evidently, there is a species of "beer" we should be working hard to protect. I'm going to assume that was supposed to be "bear." TONS more errors, but I don't have time. What baffles me is why the government wouldn't have a native speaker proofread the book. It wouldn't have been expensive or difficult. DO. NOT. COMPREHEND.
Also, I've decided I'm not a fan of socialized education. Yes, Mom and Dad, I might be pro-immigration, but you can sleep safely knowing that socialized education is not pleasing to me. A lot of the conversations in the book went as follows:
Teacher: What do you want to be when you grow up, Israel?
Israel: Well, my dad's a carpenter, and sometimes I help him in his shop. I don't want to study more. I want to become a carpenter, like my father.
Teacher: Well, that's a decent job, but you should really study to get a profession. Think about it.
Or this:
Alicia: After I graduate from secondary school, I'm going to high school.
Daniela: Me too! How about you, Sandra?
Sandra: I'm getting married.
Alicia and Daniela: Seriously?
Sandra: Yes, I've thought about it for a long time. I'm sure.
Daniela: Well, congratulations, but you shouldn't do it.
I'm just not a fan of indoctrinating statements in my children's textbooks, whether they're right or not. I'd rather my children learn to think for themselves, instead of having the government tell them how to think.
Something else we talked to the secondary school teacher about was the challenges of teaching in a rural community. He asked if I had seen October Sky. I actually had in my pre-calc class junior year of high school. It's about the struggles of a few determined students in a coal-mining community in the United States in the '50s or '60s. Ironically, I had compared American coal-mining communities to Mexican migrant-dominant communities in a paper I wrote last semester. The kids in October Sky were expected to graduate and spend the rest of their lives mining coal. 75% of the men in these ranchos have migrated to the US at least once. The secondary school teacher assumed that the community in October Sky was the American parallel to these ranchos. I disagree, since the setting of that movie was about half a century ago, and these kind of communities aren't common at all anymore in the United States, but he did say some interesting things. He mentioned that after it rains, a lot of times students will ask permission to go sow in the fields. They can't miss a certain number of days or they'll lose scholarships. He usually lets them go. It's how their family survives. He said a lot of the boys are the "jefes de la casa," or "bosses of the house." Personally, I think this is another reason socialized education doesn't work and why I'm a fan of how each state in the United States has it's own education standards. Mexico and the United States are both big countries. The people in the mountains have different needs than the people on the beach. They have varying cultures, issues, and histories. They need to teach different things. Education should be tailored to the people. Not people to education.
Ok, so in conclusion: Immigration = good. Socialized education = bad. Mexican people = awesome.
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