First Day of Class

Today we kicked off the project with our first set of classes. In total we taught 4 classes, in which the student’s ages ranged from 7 to about 20. The classes were truly a success – which I owe in large part to my mother, a former teacher, as I used two of her tested and tried teaching tips: plenty of games and incentives, i.e. candy. The junior high classes got off to a slow start as I had hastily assumed that the kids had a steady grasp on the basics of the English language – such as the alphabet and numbers. I was wrong. Although they are currently studying English, the proctored TV lesson plans coupled with their proctor’s lack of English language ability makes for a lackluster English program. Thus, we started from the beginning; basic greetings and the ABCs.

The classes for the elementary students went almost perfectly – the only glitch being that due to the slow pace of small town life a good portion of the students waltzed into the class over twenty-five minutes late. On more positive note, the children had such vigor to learn that nearly every student decided to stay for the following class in hopes of obtaining more practice. While most of the children only knew a few words of English, a handful spoke the language quite well due to time spent in the US. One child in particular was born in San Jose and only recently moved back to Ziquitaro. As a result, his English is nearly fluent, yet he is enrolled in the classes because he and mother are afraid that he will loose his speaking ability unless he practices.

The elementary students also participated in an activity that we have done with every class thus far in which they must look at a map of the US and place a star on the state/city where they have a family member or friend. They must place a different color star on the map if they have either been in the US or were born there. Everyone participated as each student knows a plethora of people who have immigrated. Most children have nuclear family members in the US while a few even have both parents living in the US. The majority of the stars are concentrated in California and Texas while a few linger in Kansas, Illinois and North Carolina. Thanks to the star exercise it has become evident that Ziquitaro has transnational communities living in California, most notably Los Angles and the Bay Area, as well as communities in Texas, most notably in Fort Worth.

My Group of Teens Playing Number Bingo

First Entry

After months of planning Michel and I are here – safe, happy and ready to begin classes! This past Saturday we packed our mini red pointer to the brim and left Mexico City. After sitting in the City’s infamous traffic for over an hour and a half we finally reached the highway and drove the remaining four hours to Ziquítaro. We arrived just as the sun set, thus making it hard to navigate our way from the highway to Ziquítaro as there is no sign or official exit for the town, only a dirt road turnoff on the side of the highway.

We have been working closely with the town’s Priest, Manuel Vazquez Rubio, to make the project a reality. Last semester we traveled to Ziquítaro various times to work with the priest both conceptualizing the classes as well as informing the community about the project during mass and other community gatherings. In addition to supporting us with the classes he also offered us a place to stay – an offer which we readily accepted.

Although I had intended on beginning the classes the Monday after we arrived, the priest informed me that despite the previous prep work we had done things would probably take a bit longer to unfold. Apparently the townspeople had doubted that we were actually going to follow through with the project and thus hesitated to sign up. He was right. On Sunday we attended mass and once again presented ourselves to the community, yet this time we informed them that we were finally here to begin the classes and that registration would start the following day. Although I had the impression that people were interested in the classes, I was shocked by the town’s response; the first day of registration over 80 people had signed up and by the second day the number had grown to two hundred.

The more people singed up, the more I understood why the response was so positive. Nearly everyone who signed up for the classes did so for one underling reason; there is a good chance that they will immigrate to the United States at some point in their life. In addition to this inescapable reality, a few other factors were at play. For example, over half of the children enrolled in elementary school signed up for the classes because they currently have no teacher. Thus, their mothers saw the classes as an unsurpassable opportunity in which their children could have another chance at education. Many adults were interested in the classes because they either had a family member in the United States and/or wanted to help their children with their English classes.

qqqqqqElementary student registration in the church

In total I will be teaching four groups of elementary school students, one group of teens, one group of adults, and one group of kindergarteners while simultaneously teaching all three grades at the junior high. While most of the classes are extracurricular, I will be the official English teacher at the junior high (see “Town Profile” to lean more about Mexico’s rural public education program entitled TV-junior high or “tele-secundaira”). The junior high classes will ultimately be more formal and intense- a favorable factor as they are the age group most likely to immigrate in the near future.

Aside from dealing with the logistics of the classes, I have had time to ponder and explore my second motive for moving to Ziquítaro, studying the phenomenon of migration. Migration has become an inherent part of life in Ziquítaro, it is present everywhere; migration is talked about among town members as an everyday aspect of their lives - even the kindergarten teacher discusses the subject with her students - license plates from California and Texas are as numerous as those from Mexico, the young men who have returned from the states have adopted a particular hip-hop style, thus setting them apart from other town members, and while neither Ziquitaro nor the neighboring town of Penjamillo has a bank, Penjamillo boasts a plethora of stores where dollars sent from the US can be collected as well as converted into pesos – an act so common that dollars can be bought and sold at Penjamillo’s gas station (see sign in picture bellow). Migration has also paradoxically left its presence throughout the town in the form of an ominous absence for it has drastically depleted Ziquítaro’s population, thus leaving the streets empty for a large portion of the day, and further, making the sight of a complete nuclear family – mother, father, and children – very rare. While these observations are a mere sliver of what I have noted in these past few days, I will post more observations and anecdotes shortly once I have had time to reflect.

Ziquítaro's deserted streets, midday.