Education in Nebaj Published on February 26, 2010

Ed-u-ca-tion (noun) – the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.

Studying in school does not make a person “educated.” As Laura mentioned this week, the Guatemalan government doesn’t care about the education of students other than that kids are physically in school and it only values this for the political benefit. Teachers leave class at will and talk on their cell phones while “teaching.” Ultimately, if students learn absolutely nothing, no one is held accountable. Sure, teachers deserve some blame for the wastefulness in schools, but honestly, if you knew you could do just the bare minimum of work and still receive a decent salary without fear of losing your job, you’d probably slack off a bit too. Inefficient schools should be blamed on the federal government, which does nothing to oversee the education system.

Historically, in Guatemala, the preferred teaching method is something of a “repeat-after-me” format. Teachers say something and students repeat it; teachers write something and expect it written down in students’ notebooks word-for-word. The notion of critical thinking or problem solving simply doesn’t exist. Even in secondary school mathematics classes, there are scarcely problems that require analytical reasoning.

If the government does, as I believe, consciously prevent the education system from evolving, one would not be hard pressed to find a good reason to do this. Why teach and encourage critical thinking, the powers of reasoning and judgment that make up a dictionary-defined “education,” when the government has a history it so strongly doesn’t want its citizens to think critically about? During the Guatemalan Civil War, the Nebaj region faced incredible destruction. One-sixth of the Ixil ethnic group was massacred and the vast majority of these atrocities were perpetrated by government soldiers. Why encourage the population, therefore, to develop the powers of reasoning and judgment when a reasonable person would react angrily to the government? (As something of a side note, schools in Nebaj don’t offer history classes for the same reason.)

I named my class Exploración de carreras, Career Exploration. Introduced as a means through which high school freshman can be helped to think about their own futures, the class really intends more broadly to encourage critical thinking and self reflection. Asking students to define what makes an “adult,” to define themselves with a symbol, to identify the most important things in their lives.

Students in the school have acquired “general knowledge,” but I hope to bestow some semblance of “the powers of reasoning and judgment” so that one day some of my students can be truly educated.