Education, education, education

It's been a while! The last couple of weeks have gone well. At work I've been doing tons of presentations and class discussions on education in the United States. I've become completely accustomed to visiting a new class prepared to talk about Martin Luther King, or home life and types of housing in the U.S., or any other topic the professors ask me to prepare - and spending the entire class talking about education. Every student I'll have here is a future (or current) teacher, so they're fascinated to learn anything and everything about how education works in another culture. On the one hand I get a lot of questions about my own educational background, about the system of public vs. private vs. charter schools, and about what it takes to get certified as a teacher in the U.S. But I've also gotten to talk quite a bit about my experience (substitute) teaching in Holyoke and Springfield - which I find much more interesting than my own comfortable suburban education and background. Without fail, at the slightest mention of the fact that I worked at an alternative behavioral school in Holyoke, I'm bombarded with questions about the school, the students, how special ed and behavior management programs work, and so on. It's been an infallible spark to an interesting class discussion, and I've learned a lot from my students about special ed and integration programs here in Buenos Aires.

I've also learned a lot about teaching and education here in general. Most English teachers here don't have a stable, full-time position at one specific school, like language teachers do in the U.S. The majority of English teachers work at at least two schools - sometimes more - and many teach at schools during the day, and then give private classes at night. One of the professors at the institute I'm working at told me the English teachers have a running joke: they call themselves "taxi teachers," because they often have to hurry off to teach at another school as soon as their morning or afternoon classes are over. So the schedule isn't regular, like an 8:00 to 3:00 teaching job in the U.S., and some teachers can have 10- or 12-hour work days a couple times a week. Anyone with teaching experience knows that by the end of a six- or seven-hour work day, teachers are normally drained, both mentally and physically. Imagine having to hurry off to your next teaching job, and staying there until 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. This is a whole other level of "overworked and underpaid."

How underpaid? I couldn't really tell you what an "average" teaching salary is here, but I can say that in most cases, I made more money working as an uncertified, non-contract substitute teacher in Holyoke than most teachers make working at two schools here. Factors like the cost of living complicate a simple comparison, but still, overworked and underpaid rings true without a doubt.

Another interesting difference is that most of the students at my teacher-training college are already teaching, before having graduated. Public colleges and universities are free here - something that's unheard of in the U.S. but common in several countries in Western Europe (France, Scotland, Denmark, and others). Still, the phenomenon of studying full-time without working more than 10 hours a week (as in the U.S.) is extremely uncommon here; students have to find substantial work to pay for their living expenses while in college. So a lot of the students at teacher-training colleges are already teaching, but need to complete their degrees to become certified/qualified to continue. I have a friend who's a third-year student at my institute: his name is Ignacio, and in addition to his studies, he works at no less than three schools, teaching English to kids anywhere from 7 to 14 years old. Pretty incredible, if you ask me.

This coming week should be another interesting one for discussing education. On Monday I'm visiting a course whose professor assigned his class a short article about education (especially higher education) in the U.S. It's entitled, subtly enough, "Learning to be Stupid in the Culture of Cash." Here are a couple of the highlights: the author writes about the "impotence of American education to produce brains equipped with the bare necessities for democratic survival: analyzing and asking questions." Fair enough - but she loses me at "Let me put it succinctly: I don't think serious education is possible in America." A little overstated? Nah, couldn't be. In any case, I'm glad the professor assigned the article, because it will make for a really interesting discussion.

I'll post again soon about what else I've been up to, besides living and breathing education. I hope everyone is doing well back home. Happy May!