More details
All,
I need to provide more details:
I spend most of my time trying to maneuver the chaos of the "taller educativo," our educational workshop. Each week, our small team has played host to an average of 30 children ranging from age 6 to 12, four afternoons a week. Each afternoon we spend two hours spreading the love between five tables of children, all seeking help with their homework.
Something is always off. It is not the poverty, the lack of personal hygiene, the incessant noise, or the educational deficiencies. Something deeper?
I find a system that has been set up to relieve the burden of responsibility from teachers, parents, and students. In the classroom, teachers fail to teach but conspire to assign massive amounts of homework to prove they are "teaching." Parents, some unable to read or write, find comfort in our presence and have faith in our abilities to make sure their children "finish" their homework. Students, keenly aware of our naive generosity, demand "help" with their homework without so much as lifting a finger to help themselves.
But really, there is no need to point fingers... for too long.
Form follows function. We must define our function. This is the goal of the week.
Our program must be sustainable, must address the needs of the poor, and must be wary of decay that is the product of complacency and irrelevance. We will aim to equip the children of San Gabriel, Santa Rosa, 28 de Julio, with the tools to forge a new future. What that means exactly, I'm not too sure.
Any ideas?
I need to provide more details:
I spend most of my time trying to maneuver the chaos of the "taller educativo," our educational workshop. Each week, our small team has played host to an average of 30 children ranging from age 6 to 12, four afternoons a week. Each afternoon we spend two hours spreading the love between five tables of children, all seeking help with their homework.
Something is always off. It is not the poverty, the lack of personal hygiene, the incessant noise, or the educational deficiencies. Something deeper?
I find a system that has been set up to relieve the burden of responsibility from teachers, parents, and students. In the classroom, teachers fail to teach but conspire to assign massive amounts of homework to prove they are "teaching." Parents, some unable to read or write, find comfort in our presence and have faith in our abilities to make sure their children "finish" their homework. Students, keenly aware of our naive generosity, demand "help" with their homework without so much as lifting a finger to help themselves.
But really, there is no need to point fingers... for too long.
Form follows function. We must define our function. This is the goal of the week.
Our program must be sustainable, must address the needs of the poor, and must be wary of decay that is the product of complacency and irrelevance. We will aim to equip the children of San Gabriel, Santa Rosa, 28 de Julio, with the tools to forge a new future. What that means exactly, I'm not too sure.
Any ideas?
posted by Carlos at 12:17 AM
3 Comments:
Carlos,
Reading your posts, I automatically think of Bolivia. Looking at the pictures, I am back in La Paz, on the road to Copacabana, kids running up to the gringos begging for monedas or caramelos. And here I am complaining about whatever trivial nonsense is making my day a bit more complicated. I miss Bolivia and then soon after I get there, I miss the states. Go figure.
Well, what can I say? I'm in Brooklyn and I've been in the South Bronx and I've been with the teachers who have given up and with the kids who have ridiculous HW to make it seem like they are actually learning something (and they "just don't get it.") And I struggle with trying to figure out who is worse off. In the end, I don't think it's about that though; it's that this kind of inequality in education, health, expectations, etc exists. Period.
Remember talking with me about what you set out to do. Remember the feeling, the passion, the enthusiasm, the committment to change even as the kids in front of you reek, are wearing the same clothes, have rotten teeth, are 3 and 4 yrs below grade level, know nothing beyond the world that exists within a 10 block radius and let that guide you through the coming months. Do not give up. This is the type of work that (however insignificant it may feel) is the foundation of future change.
For whatever it's worth, I am here thinking of you and your experience and with you in spirit, as they say. School opens on 8.30. I am so ready to get started! I'll keep you posted- you continue to do the same.
Onward!
--Lizette
Finally some insight. Do point fingers. Don't stop pointing fingers. You're not there to make friends or have the locals (teachers, parents or kids) like you. Poverty is not an excuse for ignorance and laziness. Teach those poor shiftless little bastards to think for themselves for once in their lives, before they die on that stinking slag of a mountainside.
One love.
Wow folks! I am so grateful to have you on my side. Lizette, thank you for giving me back the focus and fire. Sang, thanks for reminding me to kick ass. Ann, you have given me fantastic ideas regarding what we are trying to teach and how to do it... Gotta go work and make them happen!
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