February 29, 2012
Osmel Almaguer
HAVANA TIMES, Feb 29 — "Students here have no interest in learning,"
said the principal of the polytechnic institute where I recently started
working as a teacher.
"Just take it easy; treat it like a way to survive, because if you try
to force yourself it's useless when you consider the immaturity and
apathy of our students," he concluded.
I suppose her words weren't a call for under fulfilling my
responsibilities. Her comments were only the result of the logical
illusions that teachers bring with them when they're new to this kind of
school.
A polytechnic is a type of school which I assume exists in very few
countries. They're equivalent to senior high schools, only that when the
student graduates, supposedly they're ready to begin performing at a
technical level in the specialty they studied.
Polytechnics these days are infamous for their high level of corruption.
That's why when a friend recommended me for the contract that I'm now
working under, I thought I'd be able to earn a few pesos as well as have
the opportunity to help people improve themselves.
The corruption in these schools — as everyone knows — includes teachers
selling tests to students. For a minimum of 5 CUCs (about $5.50 USD) a
student will pass, and for 10 CUCs they'll get the highest grade in the
class. It's also common for there to be sex between male teachers and
female students, whether or not it's grade related.
In my short experience in teaching the subject of Spanish literature,
what has caught my attention is the marked contrast between the sexual
lust of these students and their immaturity as people.
It's like watching children whose adult bodies sexual responses respond
to the externality of their anatomy and not a maturity of their minds.
Their dealings with teachers generally go beyond the limits that should
exist between a student and an educator.
Perhaps this influences the fact that most of the faculty is made up of
former alumni of that same institution, without their having had time to
gain experience, or educational or academic training.
What's saddest is that the government requires the students to be
promoted, without taking into account that the responsibility for these
learners passing depends on their own work as much as on the teachers.
If almost everyone fails a test, the blame isn't placed on the lack of
generalized interest, but on the inability of the teacher, who will see
their pay docked and will probably close their contract.
Collective experience has taught this to the students, who have also
learned to keep their teachers vulnerable to blackmail in this respect.
In other words, the individual student doesn't make an effort because
the responsibility lies entirely with the teacher, regardless of the
fact that none of them study anything at home, at least nothing other
than reggaeton, dancing, fashion and cellphones.
A teacher has almost no tools to discipline or educate their students,
not to mention their problems with parents, who only care about
complaining to the school's administration when their child is suspended
or punished.
Of course the parent´s complaints are always damaging to the teachers.
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