You get a smock, and you get a smock, and you get a smock: Equality in Argentinian Public Schools

Buenos Aires is like a utopian dream thus far. When Santiago was described to me as a European city, I pictured Paris: cafes on every corner, beautiful European architecture, civilization. (What I got was graffiti on every building and a lot of stray dogs. But that’s beside the point–I’ve come to love Santiago for what it is.) Now, though, I do finally have that European experience in our two-week comparative excursion to Argentina. I have spent this last week drinking pretentiously small cups of black coffee and eating medialunas in cafes with names like “El Gato Negro,” perusing used bookstores and buying works by Paolo Freire or Rousseau’s translated works on pedagogy, taking boat tours of the rivers around El Tigre, getting into Fitzgerald-esque speakeasies by telling a secret password to a bouncer and putting a pin-number into a phone booth with a secret door, and nibbling miniature dulce de leche cookies (alfajores). It’s as though I’m on a two-week vacation, especially because, although we are attending classes and seminars and school visits, we don’t have any real work until our research projects begin on November 2nd.

Our hotel for our first night’s stay in Buenos Aires. 

Boca Juniors: possibly Buenos Aires’s most well-known soccer team, known for its fans that could probably be put on the same level as the Crazies in terms of their passion. Like, it’s actually dangerous to go to games because they get so rowdy and violent over futbol.

La Boca, a now-touristy port neighborhood of colorful buildings and tango shows.

El Ateneo, a famous bookstore in Buenos Aires located in a renovated theater. 

El Tigre: an hour’s train ride outside of the city, where the porteños go to soak up sun and walk along the river banks. 

The other utopian aspect of Argentina’s society lies in its public education system. In comparison to Chile especially, it’s like a dream. While Chile spends 3% of its GDP on education, Argentina spends 6%; where Chileans have trouble accessing the higher education system, Argentinians can go for free, without applications or entrance exams; while Chile still does not implement effective bilingual education programs, Argentina promises education in the mother tongue for all. We have only visited 3 schools so far, and therefore I cannot make any firm conclusions about how this system actually works–I can only explain the aspects of education that have caught my eye.

1. Sexual education: In Chile, it only exists nominally. In reality, heavy influence from the Catholic Church means that it’s only really taught in a biological sense. Here, condoms can be found in some public schools–and it’s talked about. In one secondary school we visited (this means about 7th grade to 12th grade by US standards), the school has a nice, neat nursery, free for use by student mothers. This brings up further questions, though. If sex ed is such a thing here, why were there still so many pregnant and nursing students in this single high school? The sex ed teacher explained to us that, for many of these mothers, their babies were not accidents. Having a child in that community means that the neighborhood cares for you and protects you. Culturally, they wanted to have a baby. Just…things to think about.

2. Music appreciation: Even schools that are the poorest of the poor have music programs, it seems. Buenos Aires in general has a huge culture surrounding the arts, from tango shows in the streets to theaters on seemingly every corner in the city center: artists are respected. Last week, we visited a reentry high school for those who had dropped out. The school has a normal high school curriculum, but also includes workshops to learn skills in the television and radio industry, photography, graphic design, and music. We spoke with students who had only been playing instruments for a few months, but had already started bands and realized their dreams of becoming gran concertistas or music producers. In Chile, a member of our group had interviewed the principal of a school, who said, “How many Van Goghs are we killing by not offering arts classes?” It’s true. And it’s very applicable to funding cuts in the US, as well. How can students realize their passions and talents if they never have a chance to learn once those are? (Side note: one boy, Chuckie, told us, “I want to change the world with my music–like Justin Bieber.” He then went on to explain that he wanted to use lyrics that respected women and didn’t just talk about drugs and sex, so I guess that kind of outweighs his previous comment about the Biebs.)

3. Collective memory: La Ley de Educación Nacional, implemented in 2006, requires collective memory to be taught in public schools. Unlike in Chile, where there are no specific curricular requirements about teaching about Pinochet, leading to a lack of understanding about the human rights violations of the time, Argentina wants to teach its students about the country’s past. We haven’t studied this fully, so I can’t explain in detail, but it does suggest that their is a greater focus on justice and rights.

“Forgetting is prohibited” 

Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo: Mothers whose children disappeared during the Videla dictatorship (1976-1983). Every Thursday, they march in front of La Casa Rosada (the pink version of the White House) in order to increase awareness and stand as a reminder of what took place. Many school groups had taken field trips to watch while we were there. 

4. Equality. Every student in public elementary schools is required to wear a guardapolvo blanco–essentially a white smock, or more like a white lab coat, that is worn over your clothes to take away reminders of socioeconomic differences. Rather than showing off a new t-shirt as opposed to someone else’s ragged one, students are reminded that, at our core, we are all the same. Another aspect of this can be found in Argentina’s lack of tracking or course selection. Unlike in the US, where you can choose AP English over the normal course, or choir instead of Spanish, in Argentina, everyone takes the same classes. This fosters a sense of collective work, as opposed to individual success.

But, for me, this seems to create more problems than it would benefits. Difference should be celebrated, not ignored–and while the reminder of equality should be more present in our world than it currently is, that doesn’t mean you should force the advanced kids to sit in a class that’s too boring for them, or expect a student with less academic success to be able to pass the same class as the future valedictorian. Argentina has a huge problem with dropouts, mainly due to the issue of sobreedad in schools: because all need to pass the same classes, if you fail one, you need to repeat the entire year, meaning that you end up with 17-year-olds in freshmen courses. I don’t blame them for choosing to quit school, considering school has essentially quit them. We shouldn’t expect everyone to be able to do the same things with the same ability. Yes, we should have high expectations for all, for this will lead to achievement; and yes, we should foster group work, such that the advanced kids can teach the ones who are a little behind, fostering leadership skills and full comprehension for all. However, I know that I belonged in choir in high school, while others belonged in autoshop; I needed to stop pursuing science and start taking extra English courses, while others needed to take sports medicine and AP Biology. That does not say anything about dividing us as a class or creating separation–yes, tracking does create some problems in terms of the “smart kids versus the dumb kids,” but selection of courses also allows you to function at the level you need to, gaining the support and attention that you require at that point in time, and to focus on your own unique interests and passions. We’re all different. We should work with those differences rather than pretending they don’t exist.

Bread, Cheese, and Indigenous Rights: A Week in Temuco

(note: written Friday afternoon, published now for lack of internet)

Hey there. It’s been awhile.

I’m currently in a paradise called Chapod, a 7-hour bus ride south from Santiago. My host mom, Clorinda, is washing dishes. My host father, Octavio, just put on his Yankees hat to go outside and check on the piglets and chickens and lambs that roam free on their small property. In an hour or so, the Chile-Colombia World Cup selection game will start, meaning that the entire family—Clorinda, Octavio, daughter Gemima (Gemi), and son Patricio (Pato)—will gather around the rabbit-eared television and probably drink some mate and eat a little pancito. I don’t know how this sounds to you, but, to me, this is the best way I could ask to spend a Friday night. I wish that I could begin to explain the lifestyle that I’ve learned over the past week here in Chapod, but I could probably write for hours—and nobody wants that. So here is a brief summary:

1. Mapuche: The largest indigenous group in Chile. The Mapuche people put up the longest resistance to Spanish rule (hundreds of years), and actually succeeded in gaining recognition for its borders from los conquistadores. But then independence happened, and also Pinochet, meaning that the Mapuches have been oppressed and repressed for hundreds of years under the Chilean government. They have been stripped of their land, the right to their own language, the right to their own nation and identity. They live in poverty in discrimination, and their culture is in great danger of extinction due to the loss of language and the spread of Evangelical Christianity. The Mapuches live in harmony with the land, believing themselves to be a part of this Earth, rather than its rulers. And yet, they are losing the nature that surrounds them due to the tree farms and hydroelectric plants that have flocked to the region.

Palin, the Mapuche version of field hockey. 

2. Mate: Dad, this is not pronounced like the Australian term for friend. Mah-tay is a kind of tea, and I’m sure it has a long history and a long explanation about what it really is made out of, but all I know is that you pack it into a large mug and drink from a metal straw that filters out the leaves. Each time you’d like to take a drink, you fill the mug to the brim with just-boiling water (about 4 sips worth), then refill to pass it to the next person. This requires sitting together, probably in a circle around a table, until you’ve gone through an entire teapot full of water: which means that you really get to know the people you’re with. My host parents are in their 60s and 70s, and participate in this mate ritual 2 to 3 times per day: it’s adorable watching them sit together around the wood-fired stove (the only source of heat in the house) and pass the cup to each other in silence. There is a familial closeness here in el campo (the countryside) that is irreproducible in the hectic, competitive world of the United States.

3. Pan: In other words, bread. There is literally always pan available, and it is always fresh-baked in a wood-fired oven. The only incentive for me to climb out of my warm bed every morning is to eat pan slathered in homemade strawberry preserves and cheese; every evening, my roommate and I walk home quickly in hopes that it will be waiting for us on the table. That being said, a favorite topic of conversation this week has revolved around how much weight we’ve all gained since arriving to Chile. Other foods that have to do with this topic:

Calzones rotos –My host mother takes the same dough she uses to make pan, forms pretzel-like shapes, and pops them             into boiling oil. Essentially, we eat funnel cake for breakfast and dinner.

Tortilla – The same dough used to make pan, but baked over an open fire.

Sopaipilla – The same dough used to make pan, but made into small flat pancakes…and popped into boiling                               oil. Essentially, we eat doughnuts for breakfast and dinner.

Sopaipilla in process. 

 

Learning from the expert. 

 

Our finished product–actually, I’ve got to admit, it was better than our host mom’s, and she’s been doing this for 60 years now.

4. Machetes: Yes, mom, I used one. Our group helped to build a ruka behind the local elementary school (in other words, the traditional home of los Mapuches, now used mainly for cultural education and tourist purposes). This required cutting bamboo (coligüe) on our host family’s property using machetes and handsaws. Also, I’m proud to be one of the only members of our group who could successfully hammer in a nail (thank you, Daddy).

 

5. Culture: At a school visit yesterday, a high school student asked me, “Is there culture in your country?” I had no idea how to respond. In my mind, the United States does not have a single, unified culture: life on the East Coast is different from life on the Best Coast, just as life in Northern California is distinctly different from life in Southern California, just as Carmel is different from Monterey. Culture is constantly changing, influenced by other cultures and global events and general generational change: it is not static or immutable or, in my mind, definable. And yet, one of our cultural guides for this week gave us a list of four key parts of Mapuche culture: religion/spirituality, Mapuche history, the Mapudungun language, and the sense of connection to the land. Without these, according to Don Juan, one cannot continue to be Mapuche. But, if that is the case, how can the community of Chapod, which is almost entirely Evangelical Christian, also be Mapuche? Can those who move to Santiago still call themselves Mapuche? And who, really, has the right to say that certain parts of a culture can change, whereas others cannot? What is “good” or “bad” within a culture? The Mapuche culture is in danger of being lost forever, or at the very least falling into the trap of folkloricized tourism. We’ve visited school after school attempting to come to the rescue through various intercultural education programs. But time passes. How can we stop the world from turning? Who has the authority to stop it? I don’t have the answers. I’ve never really paused to think about the importance of culture before. But, food for thought.

6. Bucket showers: I took one. And while I took one, the largest spider I’ve ever seen stared at me from behind a hose. Living in el campo is not glamorous. Our bathroom is essentially an outhouse without a light, meaning that I can’t see what bugs or spiders are hiding behind the toilet. Sometimes, the power shuts off. Every morning, I brush aside chickens and roosters to walk out the front door. I don’t want to be “that girl” who says that living with less finally taught me some lesson about humility or nature or something like that, but…it happens. When I took a shower, my host mother filled a single bucket with warm water, and I felt as though it wouldn’t be nearly enough—it would fill maybe a fifth of a bathtub. And yet, I used about a fifth of the bucket. I’ll probably get back to Santiago and take a lengthy hot shower after this week is over, but still: we can all make do with less.

 And, as I write this, I want to make sure to not stereotype life in el campo as bucket showers, or outdoor bathrooms, or bugs, or farm animals. Because life in el campo is much more than that. It is family values. It is vast expanses of land, a perfect blend of California eucalyptus and North Carolina forested hills. It is church on Sundays and no alcohol and learning how to make Mapuche ceramics in indigenous language class. It is hot tea and coffee, and a struggle to blend the life of the city of Temuco with the tranquility of pastures and rivers. And it is changing, rapidly, as the world continues to globalize.

Host family from left: Patricio (Pato), Octavio, Andrea, me, Clorinda, Belen, Gemi, Dalary, y Lloli. 

I realize that this is the longest blog post I’ve posted thus far, and it does not even mention my weekend in Valparaiso (picture San Francisco + European cobblestone streets), or my week observing classes in El Colegio de Niñas Benjamin Vicuña MacKenna. Apologies for my inability to be concise.

But get ready for another long one once I get back from Buenos Aires.