School

I´ve been here for almost 2 weeks so it is finally time for me to write a post about schools. I´ve learned a lot about schools from my teacher who seems to enjoy sharing about her life and her country, all in Spanish of course. My ability to understand Spanish is much better than my ability to speak it. But I think that is usually the case.

In Cuenca, people of means send their kids to private schools. The elementary school that I´ve been attending is a private school sponsored by CEDEI, the organization that is hosting the SU students for their Spanish classes. I´m not sure why they sponsor an elementary school but they do. The school has students from ages 2 through grade 5 and even has classes for special education students. I´ve met a blind student and a down syndrome student there. Parents who do not have students in the school can also bring their students to the school for therapy. Every day I watch the blind student, who is in the third grade, manage his own way around the playground, which is really a big concrete slab. He goes up and down a complete flight of concrete steps by himself.

The teachers in the school that I have met are from the US and Canada. Some have been there for only a few weeks and others have been there for 1 or 2 years. Each class is assigned a National teacher and an International teacher. The National teachers are certified teachers. In fact most of them did their student teaching at the CEDEI school. None of the International teachers that I have met have a degree in education, however I have not met all of the teachers. Most have a degree in psychology. The students in the school study the normal school subjects but they also study English, which is the great contribution of the International teachers. Phil from California, for example, teaches English, gym, and art. The classes that I chose to attend were all conducted in Spanish, mostly because I wanted to use my Spanish skills. I learned about the parts of a friendly letter in Spanish!

The kids who attend the school are adorable and are quite willing to pose for pictures. I took my camera one day and had fun. This week the school received 6 new computers and the students are supposed to begin to use them next week. It sounded to me like they could use some direction in how to use the computers, but the teacher explained that he hoped to install MS Office and some learning games. While I was observing the classes, I was usually thinking about how I could enhance the lesson with some technology. I think this might be a good learning activity for SU education majors who come to study in Ecuador in the future. The CEDEI school is quite an improvement over public elementary schools. The students wear uniforms, are quite engaged, seem very happy, and have an ample amount of play time. Because of the high degree of international teachers, they are exposed to a lot. I have also seen several student teachers at the school, who come from the University of Azuy, which has teacher education programs in special education and early childhood.

Public education is in need of revision (but so is public education in the US). My teacher has been selected to serve on a panel for the new government that will investigation the state of education in Ecuador. She is most unusual in that she has a masters degree. In the past, you only needed a high school education to teach high school but she says that is changing. You only need a masters degree to teach in college. She has taught in public high school for 23 years and currently teaches Spanish in the high school, which includes grammar, writing, and literature. Schools in Cuenca have 3 shifts and students attend either morning (7.30 until 1.30) afternoon or night (6 until 10 pm). My teacher teaches in the night shift and then moonlights teaching private Spanish classes at CEDEI during the day. She has three classes of 60 students each in the high school and talks about how difficult it is to meet the needs of 60 students in a class. She tries to group students into smaller groups but even then the groups are quite large. And the demands of grading are huge. In the school, the students stay in the classroom and the teachers rotate. This means that everyone in the class takes the same courses. No differentiation for math or science or even foreign language, which is English of course. BTW, she explained that the English teacher could barely speak English herself. Needless to say there is no technology in the classroom. The administrators have computers but that is all.

We´ve talked a lot about the belief in the US that students need to learn computer skills to be successful in the 21st century. (All of this in Spanish of course) She agreed but said that at the moment if the students learned to use the computer, they would not have access to use one and that jobs in Cuenca do not demand those skills. I countered that even auto mechanics need to used computers and she retorted that cars in Cuenca are manual. We´ve laughed a lot during these discussions. What a great way to learn Spanish.