I've spent much of my life thinking the US education system is a sad state of affairs. While other countries are investing in their future, as Americans, we're becoming obsolete. Underfunded, undervalued, we're slowly shooting ourselves in the foot. Even so, my time in Panama has given me a new-found respect for all that we are doing. Here's a few highlights of what education means out in my neck of the woods.
1. Hours of Instruction: School is only in session when teachers are actually there. Most teachers come from Santiago, a city a full day's travel from my site. That means they stay in the community during the week and take long weekends, sometimes really long weekends. I get it. They want to see their families and the system creates this problem by not hiring locally or providing overlapping shifts to allow for these family visits. But it's the kids that are losing in all of this.
Some of the school day is taken up by physical education, which may combat childhood obesity back home, but is laughable when the majority of kids are going to go on a three-hour hike to get bananas right after school.
Then there's the logistics of a school in the tropics. If it's a heavy downpour, it's hard to hold class under a tin roof. When the river rises, the kids that have to cross the river to get to school are staying home that day.
How can the children in my community hope to compete in the workplace when they only receive four hours of education a day on the days that school is actually in session?!
2. Facilities: If you're lucky, like those in Calante, the school is a cinder block structure. Often times, it's just an open structure with a concrete or even dirt floor. Calante is the only school in the area with electricity (solar). In general, that means no teaching aids like projectors, TV's, DVD's, computers, etc. The desks are usually something out of a black and white photo of a US classroom in the 1950's. Kidding aside, they may actually be the same desks. Chalkboards aren't much better.
Again, how can these children hope to find work in the future?!
3. Access to Education: Calante just started providing 7th grade this school year, making it a K-7 school. Many older kids hike as much as two hours from neighboring communities to go to school. Some have been waiting years to attend 7th grade because the cost of going to school afuera is prohibitively expensive.
Just the other day, one of the kids, Rodrigo, told me he was worried because the new 7th-grade teacher is going to Changuinola to report that her students are receiving failing marks. He said there was talk they may cancel middle school. Now this is where I really start to lose respect for out-of-touch Panamanians. I reassured Rodrigo that the problem wasn't with him or the other students. The responsibility lay with the teachers of K-6 that had let it get to this point.
How can these kids be expected to perform at the level as urban kids when you never gave them a fighting chance?!
4. Curriculum: The English books are all in English. If you can read and understand the instructions to do the exercise, you probably won't get much out of the exercise.
Subjects are taught as rote memorization. There is no analysis, no writers workshops, no thought to different modes of learning. No, just copying pages from the board or textbook to the notebook. Reading aloud signifies reading comprehension. This is true across Panama.
The question becomes, how can Panama compete globally when others are learning to think critically, synthesize, analyze, and create?!
5. Language Barrier: Spanish is the only language spoken in the classroom (not including broken English). Most teachers don't understand Ngabere, so they don't allow it. What it means is that many kids have trouble understanding the curriculum and so, by 5th or 6th grade, there are many that still cannot read or write. Those that can usually perform around the level of a 1st or 2nd grader back in the US.
How can you expect to educate the indigenous population when there is no acknowledgement of the language spoken in the home?!
6. Homework: We do a lot of learning outside the classroom. Maybe that's in the form of homework, reading, the internet, or even watching TV. What happens when the parents are illiterate, when there are no books in the home, no educational stimuli? In a context outside of defining traditional working roles of men and women, the kids stop learning as soon as they leave the classroom. In many cases, homework is a few minutes of work, often copying something without any analysis.
How can these kids compete when they are losing countless hours of education outside of school?!
Like most things in life, this is a process. There used to be no school a generation ago. The ministry, for all its faults, has managed to get teachers out to locations more remote than Peace Corps. There's government-issued textbooks and basic teaching supplies. And most importantly, there are proud parents and happy kids.
Education is important out here. There was a school in Calante well before the aqueduct. And for all the things I'd like to improve for these kids, there's also much to celebrate.
