Throughout the nearly nine months I spent in Uruguay, I had many opportunities to reflect upon the experience even as I was living it. In some cases these opportunities were more like duties, in the form of official surveys and correspondence with the Fulbright program's managers and associates. Other times, the other Fulbrighters and I would wax reflective in our conversations amongst ourselves, and in talking with Uruguayan co-workers and students we would take a step back and consider our time so far. But most often it was just me and a book or a notebook, reading or writing, and thinking about things.
Now that I'm back home, I would just like to share briefly some of the results of all this process, which of course is still ongoing. I don't want to pretend that any of this will be very profound. If I do get around to writing more substantial essays or sharing my experience in other ways, I'll make a note of it here later.
Certain moments and impressions stand out very clearly, after all the schools I visited and all the people I met--the papers blowing in the wind onstage at the last urban tribes show I went to, there in the neighborhood theater in Punta Rieles; the afternoon talking with the two students at the IBO about their neighborhoods, which is a recording I still have to figure out how to post here, or what to do with it; star-gazing with the astronomy teacher/naval pilot, who fielded the questions of a half-dozen young people about to graduate on a weekend trip to Santa Teresa.
These are the kinds of moments I cherish. They are what I imagine an education should consist of. If it weren't for their potential occasionally being realized, and the inspiration to be found in them, I wouldn't be able to honestly pursue teaching. I would stick to writing about it. Whatever is lacking in the day-to-day routine established by schooling as an institution--spontaneity, genuine interest, personal integrity--it is abundantly made up for in these moments, however rare or isolated. And the way to produce them, more of them, and more often, and to give real life to the institution that seems to do everything to smother and stamp them out, does not lie in a reform of the institution. It is not really about getting more money for education, or even about spending the available money more wisely, or any other bureaucratic change. The transformation of desultory school into real and significant learning is the blink of an eye, an immanence, a flowering of possibilities that are always there, latent--it is in a perspective and a practice within the reach of any student and teacher, and all it depends on is their relationship, how they spend the time they have in the classroom.
I say this because I had the chance to meet and visit so many teachers and students, in so many environments, and saw such a variety of approaches and results. All participated in the same culture, the same overall structures, which conditioned them from the outside. All that they controlled, to some extent, was their subjective response--what you might more simply call their personal teaching and learning style, shaping their interpersonal relationships in their class--and this is what made all the difference.
I saw the most wonderful teachers at work with their classes fully engaged. I saw experienced administrators handling critical issues responsibly and openly with their colleagues. I also sat through some harrowing, stultifying professional presentations and had brushes with disaster at the hands of disastrous public functionaries calling themselves teachers. Quantitatively, I hesitate to say which was more common. And yet in my view--which obviously is just that, representing and answering to no one else but me personally--those negative experiences are far outweighed by the positive. Because ignorance and wasted time is merely banal, it grinds you down slowly or angers you for a while, but in the times when you feel some connection and some learning taking place, those, I believe, are transcendent.
By learning, it should be clear I'm talking about much more than what might usually be called content. If students are being taught and tested on all the English in the world, in whatever context or thematic unit you fancy, but never have an opportunity to use it in an authentic situation or even to imagine that such a thing is possible for them; if they don't develop an understanding of language within the larger embrace of cultural and personal identity, having hands-on encounters with the art and literature which serve as evidence of this; if, as so many teachers complain, they really and truly don't care about their learning, then no amount of clever themes and content will matter. But if that authentic experience guides them and that regard for beauty and that love of learning is instilled in them by good models, then learning in what I consider a true sense follows naturally. They can make a thousand mistakes big and small with their English, as long as they're willing to say something. Again, it all comes down to the personality of the teacher and the students, and how they interact.
I feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to be a part of some genuine learning in Uruguay. Experiences in and out of the classroom challenged me and fascinated me, and all those people I had the chance to meet contributed in some way to my growth. I emphatically wish to return, the sooner the better, and I hope I can do everything possible to give more people in the US and abroad the chance to go and visit another country, to have the sort of learning experience that entails.
However different in other ways, our countries have in common the adherence to certain ideals which are humanly impossible for everyone all the time to live up to. We cherish liberty, and imprison our citizens; openness, and divide ourselves on the basis of race, class, religion; opportunity, and squander our resources both human and natural. But at some basic level, amid these ideals, new generations have their chance to live their own lives in the space between the broken promises of history and the bleak prospects for the future. As long as there are teachers and students willing to work together in this field of possibility and fresh insight where education makes its home, those ideals have a better chance of meaning something again from time to time.
--January 2011
I didn't mean for this to come off so rhetorical. Oh well. Please contact me with any comments. Many more reflections along these lines, from before and after Uruguay, and in no way related to Fulbright, can be found here--
newschoolnotes.blogspot.com
