Paso a paso

By Katherine Ferry

This week Ziquítaro became more like its former self as we knew it; as the priest promised us, the after the dance (the culmination of days of celebrating) the carnival rides and vendors vanished from the plaza and many visiting family members left to resume their lives in the United States.  By 9:00 PM the plaza is nearly silent, with only a few people taking the traditional stroll, in stark contrast to the days before when it was clogged with re-united families and the music until 1 AM.

The end of all the excitement meant that Rachel and I have resumed our classes in the schools and the church.  One of our main goals this semester is to encourage more parent involvement and to have more communication with our students’ families.  Rachel held parent meetings on Tuesday wish great success.  I decided to start the semester by holding individual meetings with the parents of a handful of students at the Telesecundaria who were severely disrupting the classes last semester.  To expedite the scheduling of these meetings, I made it clear to the two teachers that these students would not be allowed to enter my class until there had been a conference with the student, teacher, parent, and myself.  Put another way, the teachers – who usually take a break during English class - would now be responsible for supervising these students during the class period.

I am thrilled to report that I was able to hold one parent meeting and it felt very productive.  Unfortunately, it was just one because one of the students I want to meet with is already suspended, and the teacher of the others informed me that he wants his difficult students expelled and refused to pursue any other solution.  This coupled with the fact that the director suddenly announced he would be absent for part of the week (which also resulted in his failure to appear for a meeting we had scheduled with a group of community leaders) and that the school apparently keeps no list of contact information of the students’ parents, makes meetings tough to arrange.  Fortunately I’m not one to give up and will do whatever is necessary to make these meetings happen. 

In the meeting with my second-year student, I spoke with both his father and teacher first.  I talked to the father about his son’s poor academic performance and behavior.  His regular teacher complained of similar difficulties with the boy.  The father was very cooperative and acknowledged that his son did not study much.  After that we invited the student in and expressed our concerns.  I had him write a contract stating how he would behave in English class and some measures to take to improve his grades, including a set time each day for homework.  (His dad agreed to help assure that he did this.)  We all signed the paper and said goodbye on a pleasant note. 

The next day, my student came to class with his homework completed.  He even did it more accurately than most of his classmates!  He was more enthusiastic and didn’t protest when I asked him to practice speaking.  I made sure to go a little overboard on praising him – and I could see appreciated it.  After class his regular teacher came up to me and said he was very proud of the boy’s performance for the day as well.  While it’s a small step, I definitely feel we made progress.

The philosophy of not giving up on a student, which is undoubtedly very optimistic given the educational environment in rural Mexico, is a requirement of being a teacher.  My meeting with my student shows that change can come if new measures are taken.  Despite the excuses and laziness which are currently preventing me from holding more of these meetings, I intend to make them possible and give the students a similar chance at redeeming themselves.