Wherever you go, go with all your heart - Confucious
It's time to go home. After returning to Bogota and spending a few meaningful afternoons processing our field experiences and discussing our guiding questions and how we are going to bring our experiences back into our schools and communities, after visiting a few more sites, eating a few more wonderful meals and doing just a BIT more shopping, it's time to go home. I am not sure I'm ready to go. I have procrastinated organizing my gear and packing my bags, and am very emotional. I have spent the past few days holding back tears. I have incredibly mixed emotions. I am eager to see my husband and family, to be back in Ludington and out on my boat, and to share my experiences with my tribe of friends. I want a real Diet Coke. But, I want to take all of it and bring it back to Colombia, or bring Colombia back to me. In three weeks, I could *almost* feel myself begin to feel what it was like to be Colombian. I think that I relate well to this culture. The people here are emotive, live in the moment and seem happier with what they have. A great deal of emphasis is placed on relationships and family connections, and there is a spirit of optimism in the people here. I'm very much like that. There are cultural differences for sure, and there are very real difficulties with life here, as I've mentioned in previous blog posts; however, year after year, Colombians are ranked as one of the happiest, if not the happiest people in the world. A country can only be as strong as its people. As a profoundly happy and grateful woman, I believe that I found the beautiful, resilient, gracious and inquisitive people here to be true nourishment for my soul. I felt at home in Colombia, when in other parts of the world and throughout every part of my life, I've often felt out of place. I know one thing for certain. This will not be my last trip to Colombia. I will be back soon. Colombia, siempre te llevo en mi corazon.
0 Comments
I cannot finish this blog without making at least one post about the wonderful food in Colombia. Colombians are very proud of their cuisine, and love to show it off. We were constantly being coaxed into trying the very BEST empanadas, the FAVORITE buneulos, the FINEST carnes. I wanted to try everything! It was wonderful - with one exception. I had a terrible cold and allowed the waiter, with my limited Spanish skills, talk me into a bowl of mondongo. He insisted it would improve my cold. It was tripe soup. Never again! I've come to the conclusion that teachers will find other teachers pretty much anywhere one goes. I read an article once that claimed that most teachers are highly effective, because it's such a demanding profession, that it essentially self-selects. Most ineffective educators leave the profession before they have the opportunity to wreak too much damage on their students, because it truly is not an easy job to have. I am not sure if the author's statements are true, as I have not taught in any other districts aside from my own, and the teachers in my district are incredibly hard-working educational rock stars. When working with at-risk students as we do, a weak teacher will not survive for long. I do know for sure that most teachers I've met are a great deal like me - genuinely empathetic, kid-loving, semi-control freaks with a keen desire to learn, and talkative! Those of us who gravitate to this profession, have an uncanny way of connecting with and relating to each other, wherever we are. My husband and family perpetually tease me about this, as I seem to have the ability to "sniff a teacher out" in the most unlikely places, which often results in long and meaningful conversations with utter strangers. I knew the minute that I saw Nancy, my host teacher, that I would like her. She seemed to have this gently warm but sassy little snap to her eyes that I immediately noticed when she greeted me at the airport in Armenia, and we fell into an easy and continual pattern of conversation that never ceased during my stay there. Nancy also brought another colleague, Melissa, with her, and the two of them and my travel partner Lisa and I chatted incessantly all the way from the airport without a moment's discomfort. During the next twelve days, we continued to meet more and more of their colleagues and the same pattern resulted - even with the language barriers - we teachers found so much to talk about that it seemed there was never enough time to finish what we all wanted to say. Our topics at first were conversation-based, but quickly diverged to just about any subject area. "Are your yearly evaluations based on test scores?" "No, but we have to pass a test to receive the next level of pay, and it's very hard." "How do you deal with unruly students?" "How much is your budget for your classrooms?" (Colombian teachers have very little in funding to supply their classrooms). "Is there a national curriculum?" "How much time off do you have?" "What is the public perception of the teaching profession in Colombia?" "Where did you get that beautiful lipstick?" "An Etsy bag? What's an Etsy bag? We have no such thing." "Tamales? You want to try tamales? My mother will make us some." "Is Colombia TRULY the biggest importer of underwear in the world?" We shared many laughs. At every school we visited, teachers were eager to meet with us and to talk. The teachers, which at the lower grade levels were overwhelmingly female, brought coffee and treats to share with us, and as we sat and talked and compared notes about our schools and educational systems aI I began to feel a bit embarrassed. Teachers in Colombia work very, very hard, with few resources, and I realized that my complaints about what I had perceived to be less than ideal resources were inconsequential in Colombia. Class sizes there are so much larger, and many teachers have multiple roles within their school or second or third jobs. American teachers work very hard too - maybe harder - because we have a great deal more paperwork and much higher accountability standards, but we also have more resources to work with. When we returned to schools or met up with teachers for excursions on the weekends, our greetings and visits became warmer and more convivial - always fully of inquiry, always talk, always laughter. On one trip, we rode up into the mountains in a jeep along with two Dutch teachers. They quickly joined into our conversation, which then became a three-way comparison of the Dutch, American and Colombian education systems. Teachers will find teachers. The hospitality exhibited by these ladies was almost overwhelming. Several joined us on weekend excursions- just because. They would bring us small gifts, and were so eager to practice their English skills with us. I was almost afraid to say that I liked something for fear that it would show up at my doorstep the next morning. On our last night in Armenia, Nancy, my host teacher, arranged a special dinner at an American-style restaurant, and to my surprise, many of the teachers that I'd met those past weeks attended, bearing gifts and hugs and even more good conversation. I now have good friends for life. I cried when I said goodbye to Nancy. I felt like I'd made a friend and little sister. She was so proud to show me her country and her life, and I was happy to learn about it. Always - teachers know how to talk to each other. My gratitude towards these beautiful ladies knows no bounds. I only hope that someday they can come to the USA to visit my school so that I can repay them for their ebullient warmth and charm. In America, we still hold faith in the principle that, though still quite flawed, we all have at least a fighting chance or succeeding in life if we work hard enough. Those in marginalized cultural settings will argue this concept with great validity; however, it is still a belief deeply ingrained in our culture. In addition, even though the public education landscape is changing in America (and that's a conversation for another day!) children in the United States still have, mostly, easy access to a free public education, taught by highly qualified teachers. Again, this is now a much debated topic in the United States, but my perspective on this matter has definitely been affected by my fellowship in South America.
Colombia has long had one of the highest rates of economic inequality in South America. The Gini coefficient, a measurement of wealth distribution, and a common measure of economic inequality, although improving in recent years, remains at .559, making it the second most unequal country in Latin America, behind Honduras. The poverty rate has shown marked improvement in recent years, especially since the FARC peace agreement, due to targeted social programs and stronger macroeconomic policies. It still remains high though, and because of the unequal wealth distribution, families must work very long hours to remain precariously afloat in the middle class strata. Many of the teachers that I met had two or more jobs and would leave their school teaching positions to teach at universities in the evening. Colombia also has a very high percentage of its population working at what is termed "informal workforce" positions; i.e, farm laborers, small street vending businesses and as taxi drivers. These jobs are unstable, without any benefits, pensions, etc. It seems that everyone except for the very rich knows that they are perpetually one paycheck away from returning to poverty. There remains in most major cities in Colombia an income stratification system. This was implemented in the 1980’s to classify populations into different strata with similar economic characteristics. The system classifies areas on a scale from 1 to 6 with 1 as the lowest income area and 6 as the highest. In 1994, it was made into law in order to grant subsidies to the poorest residents. The system is organized so that the people living in upper layers (strata 5 and 6) pay more for services like electricity, water and sewage than the groups in the lower strata. Many feel that this system stigmatizes populations and prevents upward mobility. It is argued that only those in the level 3 or above strata have any chance of moving upward economically, and that it keeps families tied to certain high poverty areas. Others counter that the stratification system allows for better planning for schools, apartments, health care and shops that lower income families can afford. There has been a great push in recent years to improve equality in education in Colombia. It is now illegal to charge school fees in the public schools at both the primary and secondary level. Access to education has increased dramatically, especially among the poor, and the graduation rate continues to improve, especially in urban areas. However, Colombia stills ranks at the bottom of the PISA scores, and there is a great deal of disparity between school quality and resources in the rural areas and the cities, and between public and private schools. O was able to witness this first-hand as I traveled into the rural regions. Public school students in Colombia attend school for only four to six hours per day and schools operate in shifts. Private schools have a longer school day. Class sizes in public schools are very large - often 30-45 students at the elementary level - and private schools have much smaller classes. Technology is also much more readily available at private schools. This can sometimes lead to a decided advantage in admittance into one of the highly competitive public universities. While public universities have very reasonable tuition, making them, in theory, accessible to students of all socio-economic levels, the students that have come from the schools with smaller class sizes, longer school days and more customized instruction, in other words, those from private schools, have a distinct advantage over their Level 0-4 (lower to middle income) counterparts. I had the opportunity to visit a small private bilingual immersion school, or "gimnasio" in Armenia. Situated on the outskirts of town, in the rolling hills, the school was a lovely little campus, with open-air buildings and covered patios. Children sat around tables with their lessons outdoors, and a sign over the coordinator's office said "Only English spoken here." Parents in expensive vehicles were dropping their children off as we arrived, while women in the kitchen prepared us coffee and pastries. The coordinator gave us a tour of the school, proudly pointing out the small class sizes and informing us that because this was an English language immersion school, they had to find higher level teachers who could teach the secondary subjects and speak English well. It was quite obvious that these children came from privileged homes. However, my teaching partner and I both immediately noticed that 1) The "excellence" of instruction was absolutely no different than what we had seen in the public schools. Instruction was still highly teacher driven, and lecture based, with much note-taking and very little teacher/student or student-to-student interaction occurring. Only the class sizes were smaller. 2) When we gave our presentations, the students were, of all the schools we attended, the LEAST engaged and interested; and 3) The English language instruction taking place was not any better than the English language instruction we saw at the public schools we visited. When I attempted to press the coordinator of the school about whether 21st Century thinking skills or student driven or project-based learning was used, he avoided answering my questions, instead steering the conversation to other topics such as the small class size, or their discipline approach of trying to understand what was going on in the child's life outside school. I noticed a distinct air of self-entitlement with the students there and found this sadly disappointing, after the welcoming gratitude we received from all of the other schools we visited. I commented on this to my host teacher, and she definitely noticed this too. It was a lovely little school for sure, but we truly felt that the quality of instruction was not any better than the public schools we visited. Unfortunately, though, because of their socio-economic stature, and the fact that Colombia still has such a high level of stratification both officially and culturally, these children will stand a much better chance of going further in life than their lower and middle class counterparts.
My teaching partners Nancy, Lisa, Jill and I all returned to our host school, Escuela Normal Superior Del Quindio, to give our presentations about our lives and cultures and to teach educational strategies to the pedagogical students that attend the school. Most of the students in attendance at the session were in their third and fourth years. At this point, it was fairly obvious to even the casual observer who was going to become a conscientious educator and who was not. Most had had about four years of English instruction, and listened intently as we presented. Some of the students, however, talked to friends or filed their nails. Nancy, my host teacher, had commented to me previously that she had some concerns that some students were in the program merely because they could not be accepted at a university, and I informed her later that I was pretty certain I could point out which ones they were!
Because most of these students would enter the profession as primary teachers, Nancy requested that I teach the students some simple English language game songs. Paige and Jill taught the students about video story telling, elbow partners, turn and talk, group discussions, and other fairly typical American teaching strategies. Colombian teacher training is quite different than the American system. Primary and elementary school teachers have less education than secondary, and technically, a preschool or primary school teacher can be as young as 19 years of age. Adults can also enter this program, so 17 years old are studying alongside 40 year-olds. This can be quite confusing. The students were surprised that I, as a music teacher, and Lisa, as a kindergarten teacher, had the same university training as a high school math teacher. A few of the Normal students were gifted musicians that played in a rock band. They performed for us, and stole the show. Afterwards, a guitar and mic were handed to me, and I had to get up on the stage and perform, much to my chagrin. When we finished, many of the young student teachers crowded around us, asking questions, wanting to know about life in America and merely just wanting some contact with Americans. I had printed business cards with my email, Twitter and Instagram handles on them, and I handed these out to eager students, along with pencils and bracelets. They were so eager and responsive! We made many new friends.
Click to set custom HTML
She will likely take it off her back to give it to you - or in the very least, buy you one just like it! Our host teacher, Nancy, is justifiably proud of La Zona Cafetera, the area where she was born, grew up, and currently lives. Working coffee farms, or fincas, dot the area, and one still sees mustachio'd coffee workers, wearing ponchos and the traditional regional sombreros sitting in cafes sipping cups of "deleeeecious" Quindian coffee, or riding in the back of jeeps, which locals usually refer to as "Willy's" A strong tourism industry has definitely been developed due to the charm and jaw-dropping beauty of La Zona.
Nancy was eager for us to see as much of the area as possible, and I continually reassured her that I came to Colombia to see the world through her eyes. She planned a host of memorable of experiences for us. It seemed we only had to wish for something, and she would arrange it! We almost had to be careful expressing our desires to her, because she would try so hard to make something happen for us, and I continually worried about the fact that she still had to balance a home, husband and full-time teaching workload. It was the end of the semester for her Normal (teacher training students) and she was struggling to get semester grades recorded. When I mentioned that I wanted to try Colombian tamales, she arranged to have a teacher friend's mother make them for us. When I complimented the wonderful flavor of the traditional cafe con aquapanela coffee she brought the ingredients and taught me how to make it. When I mentioned that I wanted to learn to make my favorite Colombian soup ajiaco, once I returned home, she took me grocery shopping to assure I'd have the correct ingredients. I needed a pedicure? I was sent to Estrella at Pelugueria Americana, where I received a beautiful pedicure for the mere sum of $10,000 pesos ($3.33). I wanted a hat for my husband, and she and her husband Andres escorted me to a part of town she felt that I shouldn't walk in by myself to buy a hat "because they had the best quality for the price there." Every morning, she sent her taxi driver friend, Cesar, to pick us up, to assure we'd be safe. I began to refer to Nancy as the "Colombia Mafia" because of her constant source of connections. There was no end to this woman's amazing feats. During our stay, I felt that we truly received a broad overview of the diversity of attractions in the area. We hiked, we rafted, we rode about the area as the locals do, on the small buses that service the region. For about $2.50, one-way, one can climb aboard and travel the region the way the locals do, climbing (sometimes rather frighteningly) winding mountain roads, stopping in small towns along the way, where folks climb aboard to either journey along with you or to peddle their homemade empanadas or handmade bracelets. I loved rolling through the countryside on our little excursions. Earlier this week, we met with a group of at-risk youth at Colombo Americano to have a discussion session with them in English about life in America. Colombo Americano Armenia is one of the nine binational centers in Colombia whose mission is to carry out a cultural liaison between two sister countries, Colombia and the United States. The center, founded in 1984, offers the community a bilingual library (English-Spanish), permanent cultural activities, counseling for studies in the United States and training in English from four years of age. The organization has branches throughout Quindio.
The particular group of students we met with are public school kids that are identified as showing high potential via leadership, academic and critical thinking abilities. They meet after school for English language and other development classes, and end each year with a camp. There is a great deal of disparity in Colombia between the private schools and public schools, and often public school children are pigeon-holed into a future based on their socioeconomic status from the minute they start school. These young people were full of insightful, thoughtful questions and comments. They were attentive, and fascinated by our presentations, and posed many, many questions that ranged from "How do are homosexual teenagers treated in the USA?" to "What are your favorite sports teams?" to "How do you like OUR food? You mean you don't have arepas in your country? How do you survive???" After our visit , we posed for a group picture and the kids said "Now....please...we want you to do the dab." How could we deny them? I'm not even sure I can adequately say what I need to in this post. Today we visited three rural schools in the Eje Cafetero (coffee region) of the department I am visiting. All of the children that attend these schools are coffee and plantain farm workers. The plantain trees come right up to the property lines of the schools. We bumped along dusty dirty roads for up to thirty minutes at a time, with nothing in site but trees and bushes. The schools are one-room school houses, all in by American standards, incredibly impoverished conditions. Most were open-air schools, with out-houses out back. The schools teach the children based on curriculum called "Escuela Nueva" (new school) that the Colombian Ministry of Education has designed for rural children. It encourages autonomy, real-life experiences and project-based learning. The children are grouped by grade level at tables, and each table has a leader. The students work independently as the teacher travels around the room, helping out with instruction as needed. Each school had approximately twenty children, and is run by an elected school council. The president and vice-president met us at the locked gate to open it, formally greet us, and give us a tour. The children proudly showed us their lessons and how they had to provide evidence of learning, how each student had a particular role, and how they led their class in various routines throughout the day. The children functioned as a family. These children are incredibly poor. These plantation workers do the work that no one else will do. The gratitude they expressed when we passed out the little gifts we brought was enormous. The teachers take great pride in the accomplishment of these students, and care a great deal for the whole child. I believe the photos in this slideshow will speak for themselves. For two days, I had the honor and pleasure of visiting with and teaching the children at the Uruguay School. A branch of the Escuela Normal Superior Del Quindio, this small pilot English language immersion K-2 school strives to have 60% of its instruction in English on a daily basis. These amazing teachers are creating their own curriculum, because resources and text materials do not exist at such early grade levels in Colombia. Although President Juan Manuel Santos has promised to pour more effort and resources into building a more bilingual Colombia, for a variety of reasons, achieving this goal is going to be a gradual and slow task. Teachers at the Uruguay school create their own teaching materials and classroom displays, and because most of the teachers are still English language learners themselves, they are essentially learning as they go along. The Colombian government in conjunction with the US Embassy, has several programs and initiatives in places to place teaching fellows in the schools to team teach with native teachers, and this has been helpful. My teaching partner, Lisa, and I observed classes on one day, and gave presentations about our culture and taught classes on the second day. I taught the students simple songs in English, gave a brief presentation on maple syrup production, and had the children taste maple syrup. Lisa and I met with the teachers and discussed what we could do to help them. Their biggest desire is to have bilingual teaching materials. I promised to see what I could do to help them. Today was my first day at my host school, Escuela Normal Superior Del Quindio. "Normal," as it is often referred to, is a K-11 and teacher prep school that serves lower middle to middle class students and is considered to be one of the more exemplary schools in the region. It has a model English language immersion program, and is in alignment with President Juan Manuel Santos' vow to improve public school education in Colombia. There is a great disparity between public and private schools in the country. Whereas private school students attend school eight hours per day, public school children only attend for five or six. Infrastructure suffers, schools have far less technology, and other resources, a methodology of repetition can sometimes be the accepted norm, and teachers are very poorly paid. Sadly, of the 500 top schools in Colombia, only 30 are public. This disparity means that a child's future depends on the level of education they are able to receive. Since the negotiation of the peace agreement with FARC last year, the Colombian Ministry of Education has made great steps trying to move the country forward, and education is of the highest priority. With Santos' announced initiative to make Colombia the most literate and bilingual country in South America, for the first time ever, the Education budget now surpasses the military budget. Colombian schools still have not met the requirements to join the OECD and it still ranks at the bottom of the PISA exams, but with fellowship programs, scholarships, investments to supply students and teachers with tablets and computers, and the development of early childhood programs for at-risk students, it is making positive steps in the right direction.
Educators at Normal have formed a cohesive team, much of it on their own initiative and on their own time, to aid in advancing the pilot English language immersion program. The curriculum is project -based, and throughout the week, we were able to review with students the culmination of some of these projects, including having groups invent "camps" to attend. Each group had to plan a themed camp - all in English. Two American fellows - paid for with funds by Santos' initiative - work at the school to collaborate and support the Colombian teachers in curriculum design and instruction. We also visited - and taught classes - at the Uruguay school, which was a model lower elementary bilingual immersion school. Approximately 60% of the daily instruction is in English. Because there is no designed curriculum at this early level for the children, the team from Normal has designed and implemented a curriculum and oversees the teachers at Uruguay. The All classroom rules, bulletin boards and posted instructional material are in both Spanish and English. Most lessons are in both English and Spanish. It is a fascinating model. The teachers are desperate for instructional materials, as nothing at this early grade level exists in Colombia. I worked with the children there teaching music lessons in English, with an interpreter at my side. We also visited Funanza, an arts immersion school affiliated with Normal. It was AWESOME!! It is the only school of its kind in Colombia and children become expert folkloric dancers. Students study an academic class load, interspersed with band, chorus, dance, Orff Ensemble, or jazz band.. Fundanza had a theatre program for developmentally disabled adults and we were invited in to meet them. One lady learned English as a child and introduced us to her friends. They insisted on many photo ops. I was also brought to tears by the 4th-5th grade choir students, who so VERY proudly sang a song in English for us. Fundanza produces a dance team of the highest quality that tours the world representing Colombian Folkloric Dance music. Some differences in Colombian vs. American education: -Class sizes are much larger! Classes are anywhere from 30 to 45 students. -Colombian children are LOUD! Exuberant, loving, cheerful, and LOUD! There is no waiting one's turn to be called on in Colombia! It's a cacophony of "Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!" Children may be talking to each other or pulling another student's pigtail, and the teacher just keeps on teaching. I had a difficult time acclimating to this different standard. -Students have a great deal more down-time than our students do, and more freedom in the hallways and within the classroom. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. -We noted a great deal more horseplay, running down halls and loud mayhem than what would ever be tolerated in American schools. Again, I need to mention that the children were nice, outgoing and polite - just LOUD. -Students and teachers are quite physical with each other - even at upper levels. The standard greeting in Colombia is to kiss each other on the cheek. Children and adults hug and hold hands constantly. It is nothing to be alarmed about here. This is Colombian culture. I like it. - The children have more breaks throughout the school day. -Most public schools are so big that children go to school in shifts! The morning shift (usually 6-12 and the afternoon shift 12:30 to 6:30) -Although the schools are being extremely creative with project-based learning projects, at the public school level, we did not witness a great deal of higher level thinking or in-class thoughtful discussion in the lower grades. However, when we attended question and answer sessions with older students, we received many, many thoughtful and "deep" questions that exhibited that they were using some very solid higher level skills. -Not a learning objective or "I can" statement was to be found anywhere! |
Julie SherlockMusician, teacher, wanderer, human being. ArchivesCategories |