Why Education in Mexico sucks! (written by a Mexican)

[Jzmackenzie]

Outstanding article in today's _NY Times_:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/opinio....html?_r=0

OR type this in:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/opinio...ading.html



My US/MX "living on the border experience" was 1996-2008. Volunteering in the Guanajuato school system began in 2005.?We have lived and volunteered in the campo the last five years.

Everything this author said is true. The children copy words, all day, that they do not understand. They just take a word and write it in another place, they do not read the word, they read and copy the l-e-t-t-e-r-s! Their teachers are sincere, but extremely poorly educated, living in poverty themselves, and not well supported by the department of education. Usually, school books are left in the classroom because the roofs leak inside campo homes so books are not "trusted" to travel into children's homes. The 5' long library shelf (one shelf) has books that can only be used in the school during recess period.

In five years of living in the campo, I have seen one man reading the bible and one child reading a book. The latter is now our 9-year old employee who waters our yard 8 hours a week. His educated Dad wants him to learn and yet, Dad is now in detention in San Diego for trying to enter/work illegally in the US, instead of being here tutoring his son. He lost his job when the mine closed. Most people over 30 in the campo dropped out of school after 5th grade - they have no access to books. The author is right; they cannot read.

However, keep this in mind. We moved to GTO to build a rural library. I wrote a book for US teachers on how to appropriately teach Spanish speaking kids or adults. Over 8 years of academic research and over 25 years of working with Latinos went into the book. In 2011, that book got a Best Book of 2011 award in the nonfiction category. In 2012, it won the coveted Ben Franklin Book Award - Gold in education, Silver in professional technical. Finally, it also was awarded first place book for a humanitarian?project. The vow was to use the book sales proceeds to build libraries. However, we spent $20K writing, publishing, and marketing the book (including giving away 300 copies that resulted in enormous praise from Latinos). We have yet to sell 30 copies. Therefore, there are no "proceeds" to build a rural library on donated land in two villages.

Half of the Latino students in the US do not graduate from high school, over 40% of the US speaks Spanish, and yet, an (inexpensive $2.99 as an ebook) award-winning book of solutions has not sold. Therefore, I have to conclude that another issue is that US teachers are not committed to teaching Spanish speaking children how to read either. Regardless of where the kids are attending school, it seems to be a waste of time. The Latino kids, in both countries suffer, from a loss of reading ability.

I think that Education + Opportunity = Self Sufficiency

What do you think?

Jacquie