I have hesitated to write my next blog…for far too long. I had the opportunity after meeting the coordinator/director of all high schools in the state of Yucatan to visit the smaller Mayan telesecundarias – schools that are taught via televised sessions, as well as tiny village schools that serve a large area of the campo.
I spent a day with an amazing woman (Ivonne – interview to follow next week) and visited two small schools (federally organized) and two medium sized state –run schools (the schools I have discussed up until now are run by the local University).
I am very glad I had the opportunity to leave Merida and experience these schools. In many ways, they were much what what you might expect in the jungle… (which is more like the pine barrens than actual jungle to be honest).
In the state schools there were 40 plus students in all the classes. Some classes were actually cancelled when we arrived (even though the director of all high school in the state requested the observations!). I sat in on a very unfortunate lesson in which the teacher teaching English taught the pronunciation of the past tenses incorrectly (I have swum-ed with dolphins, Have you ride-ed with horses).
In the small satellite school I spotted numerous English errors on the blackboard and watched a teacher sitting at their desk while students worked in workbooks for 40 minutes (a planned activity for my observation). The two small rooms held 15 students of varying ages (from 15 to 30!). For the most part they are children of migrant workers from other states.
However, there was a few bright spots. I met an amazing teacher. He ran the room like a season pro. He explained, he had props, he worked with groups and he finished with reflection and small game that the high school students were very excited about! At the time, I had no idea this was his first year teaching, he was that good! Meet Brisbane (like Australia!), a Mayan teacher who works in a small satellite school in Mococha (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mococh%C3%A1_Municipality) a small aldea of roughly 2,000 inhabitants. Brisbane is proud of his Mayan heritage and teaches Mayan to the students (a little mini-lesson closes out our interview below). He is also dedicated the community service projects (communitarian development).
How long have you been working as a teacher?
My name is Brisbane, similar to the city in Australia.
Well I’m only I’ve only in my second semester, it’d be my first year.
Only?
Yes. I just started, I’m a newly graduated from the education faculty of autonomous university of Yucatan, commonly known as UADY.
I am surprised! I thought you were a teacher for many years.
Many years? No, I’m a newly graduated, however I am 27 years old and when I got out of high school I didn’t continue studying, I started to work in the national council of educative foment that is dedicated to give classes in small communities, here we need a determined number to open up a school, that the public education secretary asks for, I think it’s 21 students, less than that and the school won’t open.
But there are very small communities, with 15, 14, 10 students and then the council of educative foment takes charge, I was working 4 years there, back then the figure was called “communitarian instructor”, now it’s called, if I am not mistaken, “communitarian leader” I think that has also given me some experience and then I got into education faculty of the UADY to study.
Please tell me about the students who benefit from the school’s help.
Well, the tele-high school is a model with few years here and the students which are the most benefited are from the communities, as in the case of CONAFE of the small communities that don’t have the chance to attend the bachillerato school, which are the state high schools in Mexico, they are the most benefited because the closest here is another community called “Vaca” and they would have to travel from here and that is an expense for their families and many times they don’t have the possibility to pay the bus fare or to pay a rent there, especially because all the kids are still underage, they are under parent’s custody The tele-high school allows that after studying, they have to do something that benefits their home and parents. I have kids working here with me, in ranches, kids that work with doctors, helping in restaurants, working the farms.
What is your job after classes?
Well in reality, I have another job, but only on the weekends, I travel to another place called “Oshcutxka” but I don’t work as a teacher there, I’m a barman, a bartender in a restaurant for the 3 weekend days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and I come back on Monday. During the week I don’t work after classes, I stay here in the village. I only go to work on weekends.
Perfect. What are your future plans? Regarding education, work.
I like evaluation a lot, I want to study a Master’s in education evaluation and I don’t have the chance for some reason, I would like to study a Master’s in educative innovation but I think I don’t want to study in Mexico, I’d like to go to Chile or Panama to study it, some of those places.
Or to USA?
Well it could be, I really like the way, the educative system of Chile above all, the things they’ve done in education, I like it a lot, especially in evaluation, for example regarding teacher’s portfolios, they have more than student’s portfolios, it’s said they are pioneers in this, the cross information, the videotaping of the classes that are an evaluation mean for the teachers, I like that part.
Also I haven’t heard a lot from USA regarding evaluation, not because it doesn’t exist, but simply because I haven’t set myself to check it out.
If you could change any things at this school, what would you change?
Well, I’d change in the specific case of informatics, I’d like it that each student would have their own computer, it’s complicated because it’s personal computers that are shared, it’s cool and nice but it doesn’t allow each of them to focus on the subject, the one who is more in the back can’t fully see or maybe doesn’t take part as much and I would like that to be different, that each of them had their own computer.
Regarding infrastructure it’d be awesome to have our own school, here they keep our stuff, they store the tv, some books we have, it’d be really cool to have our own school, I think those are the 2 things I would change.
What are the most important matters in education for you?
For me the most important matter in education, outside the subjects, the themes, it’s the generation in our students of a critical, reflexive and analytical thought, I think in this era of globalization it’s something our students need, besides knowing math formulas, Excel books, that they can read a text, watch a movie, discern it and make their own conclusions, I think it’s one of the things that is most important in education, of course the thematic is important, but the generation of this competence of critical analytical reflexive thought in them, is for me, most important.
That regardless that they continue studying or drop school because they don’t have the possibility for some reason, that in life they could have this thought, that any problem, situation that they face they could reflect on it, analyze it and make decisions according to it.
Do you only teach math?
No, I teach other classes, like Mayan, which is the language here, I teach informatics, I was playing a bit ago with the kids because I teach school kids and I also give communitarian development with the second grade students, fourth semester and with them I also do the reading and redacting workshop, that’s basically like language for us, punctuation signs, spelling, grammar, texts, that.
Does school have 3 or 2 grades?
It’s 3, in theory, in tele-high school, it’s first, second and third year, it’s 6 semesters that are studied, but since it’s a new school, we only have from fourth semester and second semester, the kids who are in second semester now were the first ones to get in when the tele-high school opened here. We don’t have sixth semester yet, that would be next year.
Any other thoughts about education, school?
I like teaching, I like evaluation but I also like to teach, it’s very satisfying to see the students making progress, when they discover things on their own and especially that some teachers, I think, remain in their role, I at least sometimes joke with my students, sometimes I scold them because they do things they shouldn’t do and sometimes we are relaxed.
I try to be close to them because the fact of knowing their situation, outside of the school as well, it helps me to better understand them, to know which strategies would be better for them. In the particular case of the first grade kids, I have about 5-6 with divorced parents and if I didn’t know that I wouldn’t know how to tend for them, I also have several students that work.
In the case of the fourth semester, I have a student that tattooes, he does tattoos on the body and I have another one who is a musician and sometimes he arrives sleepy and if you are not aware that he needs to work to support himself and to be able to buy some things needed for the final projects, then you’ll think he’s a lazy kid. When it’s not like that, the reality is different and I think that’s also important in education, to be close to our students to understand them a bit more. Far from justifying some things, which is not the reason to get to know them, but to understand and to know in which ways we can help them so that they can make progress and improving each time in said learnings and in the development of the competences that they need.
And I like the Mayan (language), they don’t speak Mayan, No? No, they are learning but they don’t speak it, because actually I have migrant kids, they are not from here, Yucatan they were from Cozumel, Quintana Roo and they came here 2-3 years ago because their parents had a job opportunity and they came here to study, at some point they attended another high school but once this was opened here they thought “why not to come here?” and so they do.
So there is a lot, a background of my students, there are things that must be understood and comprehended, but yes they don’t speak Mayan, but they try hard, they like it, it’s one of the subjects they like a lot.
Yes, I visited Canicab 2 weeks ago and there’s a community center for Mayan language?
In Yazkukul there’s also a center, a cultural center, I think it’s a Canadian girl, I know this because from the communitarian development project, which is a subject I have with the fourth semester kids, their final was to make an interview to present a successful communitarian development project and the teacher that’s there, they know him, he also taught them and they went to interview him because it was only a library.
Just a library, there were books, the teacher had to go live to the community to be able to implement this, and they give sewing workshops, which are what we call here “Shokobichuich” “Shok” is to count and “chui” is to sew, it refers to that they do count the stitches, the kind of embroidery is to count the stitches so it comes out well and there is another one which is the common embroidery on a machine, they teach that there, also Mayan language workshops, stories, they are thinking about having a chorus, it’s part of a project that they are trying to implement in these months, and I know this because they are making this project and in the revisions, they tell me and ask me how to redact their report and so on.
So yes, we try to bring up the Mayan culture, the language especially because it is a language, there are many dialects in Mexico, which aren’t languages, are dialects and those tend to get lost easily because they lack articles, they don’t have pronouns, instead in the case of the Mayan language, it is truly a language, it has verbs, articles, pronouns, substantives, adverbs and there are things in Mayan language that aren’t existing in Spanish nor in English, for example the classifiers.
Let me tell you, in Mayan “jun” is 1, “Ka” is 2, unitary number, but when we speak, we must put something that in Spanish we call classifier, which indicates, Mayans were very specific with things, so if I am talking about trees, the classifier is “kul”, if I want to say “a tree” , I say “jai kul che” , “che” means tree, “kul” is only to indicate that I am talking about plants or trees.
If I am talking about people or animals, I have to use the classifier “pel”, the number remains the same, “jun” but I have to, I don’t say “jun kul” because I am not talking about trees anymore, I say “jun pel” because I am talking about people or animals and the same happens with very specific things, like round things, which is “jun uol]”, the classifier is “uol” or with long, cylindrical things, like a banana, in Mayan it’s “has”, I would have to say “jun” which is the number, “sxip” which is the classifier and “has”.
So the Mayan is very specific, it has very cool, nice stuff that aren’t in Spanish or English. We have in Spanish, Facebook is a substantive, we’ve made a verb out of it “Facebooking” which is the fact of being on Facebook, in Mayan for a long time it existed that you can convert substantives to verbs, not only to conjugate verbs in the different tenses, but also there are substantives that can be used as verbs.
So there are different things in the Mayan, and that is why we try to bring it up, they like it a lot and I like teaching them, but it takes a while, because something that the Mayan has is that it has the glottal, and unlike the apostrophe, for example in English the apostrophe only indicates, it changes the meaning but not the sound. If I say “Waldo’s house”, “the house of Waldo”, but in Mayann it’s not like that, it’s not the same to say “pek” as to say “pec”, it has the glottal and it’s not the same to sa “ak” than saying “aq”, the sound changes the meaning totally, “ak” is a turtle and “aq” is a creeper or a type of weed. And it’s different things.
And even with us, we say a lot of thing and many things have double meanings, we say a lot of playful words so there is a difference with Mayan, because we can say things we didn’t mean to say, I will give you an example a bit grotesque, but so that you can understand what I mean:
“It’s not the same to say “izin sen kana” which are 3 words, than saying the first 2 together “izinsen kana”, apparently is the same, the first izin = already, sen=a lot, kana=tiredness, “I am already so tired”, and when you say them together it means “I had sex upstairs/up/above” so it’s totally different things due to the glottal.
Only because of this the meaning changes radically, so sometimes we can say things and this happens to them because they lack practice, sometimes they add a glottal where it doesn’t belong and they say another thing or they take it out and also say another thing. That’s part of the Mayan, we can say things we didn’t mean to.