A Picture and a Bag of Rice

My last week in Caraz flew by in a blur. I facilitated two more workshops (one in Lima and one in Caraz) and visited two teachers’ classrooms to coach them (one a pre-k teacher in a one room school house in the mountains, the other a 1st grade teacher in Caraz).

There seems to be a belief among many ( but not all) of the Education Department here that teachers do not desire these learning opportunities, so why would the Education Department go out of their way to help organize them? I, however, was impressed by the passion and enthusiasm of all the teachers I worked with to improve their practice.

As I have been planning this trip since November, Kelly, the Teach a Teacher coordinator, has been working for months with the local education offices to invite teachers to our workshops, obtain a projector to use, and to reserve a space to hold the workshop.

We soon found we had no projector, no space, or no teachers!

Her sweet neighbor, Anna, informed us the day before the workshop in Caraz was to take place that the teachers at her children’s school never received the invitation from the education offices to the workshop. When she and Kelly visited the school to talk to the director and ask if he would announce the workshop to the staff, he told them that they should invite the teachers themselves. So Kelly, Anna, and I went around the morning of the workshop to each teacher’s classroom to invite them.

When we went to the city offices to get the projector that Kelly had reserved we were told that all the projectors in town were broken.

Kelly is a force and wouldn’t let these setbacks stand in our way. We visited the school in town to see if we could borrow the school projector but the school director said no ( even though we were using it to provide a free training to his teachers). We then went on a wild goose chase through town trying to hunt down a projector and finally found one through a man running for regional president ( he gets my vote).

Kelly and Mac volunteered the hotel/ restaurant they are building on their property for the venue. I prepared drinks and baked scones as refreshments for the teachers. Kelly’s neighbors pitched in too- helping Kelly, Mac, and I carry tables and chairs down from their house to the hotel (And as if things weren’t crazy enough, about 15 minutes before the workshop started our new friends who had gone to retrieve their friend’s body from the mountains returned wanting to say hi rest, and eat). Despite the teachers finding out about the training that morning and all the last minute preparation, we had a nice turnout of around 15 teachers.

One of the many things I found interesting as I got to know some of the teachers better is that there is no formal training process or certification required for teachers including attending college. Basically, many teachers show up to their classrooms the first day and are told to “Go for it!”

When I visited the classroom in Caraz, I looked through the one reading supply for students- workbooks (and each family buys their own child their workbook despite extreme poverty in this area). Within the entire READING workbook there was not one story!!!! Classrooms do not have libraries. It makes sense why many teachers were asking me what to do for students that hate to read.

In the pre-k classroom I visited, students devoted a portion of their morning everyday to marching practice (as in “Attention! Forward March!”) No one has explained the significance of this to me in a way I can understand yet. And while in the classroom there was evidence of learning the alphabet, they were learning the letters and their sounds in isolation, not spending any time showing the students the connection of the sounds of letters to their sounds in words. Side story about driving out to this school – most people don’t have cars, and so people get around town and up and down the mountain in cars and vans driven by people who just pick up people on the side of the road ( kind of like hitch hiking but you pay). To get their money’s worth – and gas is expensive here- they will pick up as many people as possible. On my way down the mountain I hitched a ride in a car about the size of a Honda Accord. At one point I looked around the car and there were ELEVEN people in it. Don’t ask me how. I’m still not sure how that worked.

With all the above taken into consideration, it’s no surprise in many towns there is a low literacy rate. I noticed on my initial bus ride to Caraz there were many of the same small pictures painted on the walls of buildings. The pictures could be of a sun, a letter, even a person. I later learned that these pictures stood for candidates running in elections. Since many citizens cannot read, they vote in elections by picture. Many candidates will hand out bags of rice to people with their picture logo attached at voting venues. They can get the rice by voting for their picture.

All my experiences working in the schools and with teachers over the past two weeks have reminded me of one of my favorite quotes:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

It’s a small group of teachers who were determined to make it to a training they learned about the morning of after a hard day’s work to learn how to improve their practice. It’s two Americans who have chosen to make Peru their new home and have become involved in changing their community for the better in so many ways. It is generous neighbors who pitch in at the last minute to make sure that over 20 chairs and tables will get moved outside in the heat up a hill. It is one teacher who attended my first training and set up an additional training for me to hold in Lima where over 30 teachers drove in , some from over 9 hours away (managing to get two Ministry of Education members to attend as well- take that Department of Education- teachers do want to grow professionally!). And it is every teacher I encountered in my travels who wishes for more and better for their students and has come to the Teach a Teacher workshops with an open mind and heart.

There is too much at stake in life to base important decisions on a picture and a bag of rice.

Call me corny, but it’s moments like the ones I have experienced recently where you realize God is in the details. And I do think its possible with thought, commitment, education, and compassion we can change the world.