Day #21, August 15

Departure day. I woke up early even though I went to bed so late. Nerves, I am sure. Finished packing and closed my suitcases. Miguel and Marce took me to the airport and waited until we boarded the plane.

I had a wonderful experience with these people in this country. I have learned a tremendous amount about the value of relationship in education. I am sure that as I continue to process my experiences I will discover even more lessons I have learned. Thank you to Fulbright for this wonderful experience!

Day #20, August 14

I started the day by going shopping. Marce took me downtown and I saw the shopping district which I actually enjoyed. It was a closed pedestrian walkway that ran about 8 blocks. I bought a bunch of souvenirs to bring back for friends and family.

We went back to Marce's school where I said farewell to all the teachers and classrooms. Marce took pictures of me with all the classrooms.

After bidding farewell to all the students in the morning and afternoon shifts, Marce took me out to eat. We went for a typical Argentinian parrillada. It is like Fogo de Chao, the Brazilian restaurant in Chicago, but much better. We were served a continuous stream of meats right off of the grill. We ate off of a cutting board that we shared. What a delicious treat!

In the evening Marce put together a WONDERFUL party. She invited all the people who I had met while in Cordoba. About 25 actually showed up. Her mother made empanadas. We sat up until 3 AM eating, drinking, laughing, and even dancing. Nestor showed me how to dance cuarteto. It's just like Mexican merengue. I got it right away. Nestor looked surprised and asked me, "Apoco eres de aqui?" (Are you from here?)

Day #19, August 13

Today we will be tourists. Marcela and Miguel took the day off from work in order to take me to some towns in the hills outside Cordoba. We first went to Villa General Belgrano and the small village next to it, La Cumbrecita. These towns have a very Germanic atmosphere because of a group of immigrants that arrived during World War II. What I was told is that a German war ship was sunk off the coast of Argentina. The young sailors on the boat were imprisoned in a camp near Villa General Belgrano. After the war, the boys were sent back to Germany but because many of them had Argentinian girlfriends or wives, they returned to live in Argentina. Ashamed of the past, the Germans lived very private lives. In fact, few knew of their existence. They made their living selling German sausage and cheese. About 20 years ago, after getting so many requests for their German foods the towns decided to capitalize on this ethnicity. The two towns now look like Bavarian villages and are lined with German restaurants and gift shops. Their main festival is Oktoberfest.

I found both villages to be quite charming, La Cumbrecita moreso than General Belgrano because it is less touristy. The countryside is spectacular - forests covering dramatic hills. We went to see a waterfall, but there was barely a trickle of water because of the season.

Driving back to Cordoba we stopped in Alta Gracia. There we saw another estancia of the Jesuits as well as the boyhood home of Che Guevara.

Day #18, August 12

I began the day at the Jardin de Niños República de Siria. It shares the same name as Marcela’s school because it was built in the same neighborhood just a couple years after Marce’s school was built. Less than 50% of the students feed into Marce’s school because of numbers. Marce’s school can only take 50 first graders and this jardin puts out over 100. The principal, Betty, received me and gave me a tour of the facilities.

The building consisted of three large classrooms and a center atrium which serves as an assembly area. The school also has a large outdoor patio. Two classrooms had 5 year olds (28 students in each room) and the third classroom had 4 year olds (25 students). There was one teacher in each room and no assistants. Each classroom had a library (medioteca). Books were sent home with the parents on a regular basis so that students would be read to. I saw one boy with Downs Syndrome in a room and another boy with obvious behavioral concerns in another. There were no supports for these students at the moment. Betty said that specialists came in periodically to work with the students and their teachers.

One project that was especially interesting involved parent involvement. It was called Matemáticas Jugando. The program was implemented in one of the 5 year old classrooms. Parents were trained to develop and make games that reinforced math skills. The parents were trained in how to teach the students to use the games. A group of parents came in to school to teach the games to the students in small groups. This is what I observed. Seven mothers came into the classroom. Each would lead a specific math game (bowling, fishing, throwing dice, matching dominos, etc.). The students were divided into small groups. Students could not be in the group their mother was leading.

I walked four blocks to Marce’s school. We left to the government offices as we had a meeting scheduled with the provincial Ministro de Educación. The Ministro, Walter Grahovac, could meet us right at 12:30 (our scheduled time), so he had us wait in a fancy meeting room with coffee and water served to us.

Walter received us at about 1:15. He was very reserved and cold at first. It didn’t help that Marce started the meeting negatively by complaining how she is lacking resources and that I told her she is lacking basic tools necessary for education. I did say that, but she shouldn’t have brought it up first thing in this meeting. I tried to focus on positive things I had observed in the schools I was visiting. Walter soon warmed up and began talking about his plans for the future and how he would try to rectify all the deficiencies in the schools. Marce spoke of how valuable she viewed her Fulbright Exchange with the USA and suggested others should participate. Walter, a member of the Socialist political party, was glad she had a good experience and was open to future exchanges. He thought Cuba would be a good country to do educational exchanges with. Walter ended our meeting after 1 hour and 15 minutes. I was surprised he gave us that much time.

Marce commented that it was interesting that Walter was the Minister of Education. Prior to moving into that position, he was president of the provincial teachers’ union. So, while teachers are expressing displeasure about wages and work conditions and threatening to strike, they won’t do anything to make their leader look bad. Conflict of interest?

After visiting with Walter we went to another small school in a very poor area. The school building was new inspite of being small. The principal received us and explained that she was in charge of 180 students. I went into a classroom to observe Perla, a reading specialist, team teach with the homeroom second grade teacher. The class was doing a unit on "brujas" or witches. The teacher was going to read a book to the class about a little witch, but a little girl quickly raised her hand and said she wanted to read. The teacher agreed and pulled out the witches hat that she was going to use and put it on the little girl. The girl read us the story and the teachers were in disbelief because she had never read so well. Perla is working in this school because of a special grant. She specifically works with language arts, integrating it across the content area.

Day #17, August 11

My day began at the Escuela Osvaldo Jorge Leon of which Marce’s friend Nancy is principal. This is a school in a vulnerable neighborhood and receives lots of PIIE funds. These vulnerable schools are referred to as escuelas urbana marginales. I was immediately struck by the 10 foot chain link fence topped off with barbed wire surrounding the school, giving it the appearance of a prison compound. Schools tend to be a favorite target for thieves and this school has a lot of resources that would be of interest to thieves.
Nancy gave me a tour of her school – two buildings, one for primary and one for upper grades. Each building had an internet-connected computer lab, a library, and a lunch room. There was also a large SUM, or multipurpose room, that allowed them to have physical education indoors on rainy or cold days.

They work looking at their curriculum to see that there was flow from one level to the next. This is what we are beginning to do through the GAPEC project with Roosevelt. I could envision broadening it to include the APCC Head Start and PK that feeds into our kindergartens. Nancy also had nine maestros de integración, one for each of her special education students. These teachers were to shadow the students throughout the day. I’m not clear as to whether the teachers were fully endorsed or just aides.

It seems like the only way schools get extra funds is if they apply for programas, and in order to qualify for this, schools need to be low income. Nancy has many resources because she applies for every programa that is available. She runs the risk of overextending herself and her school by becoming a “Christmas tree school.”

Marce picked me up at 11:00 and we went to the Sabin School in a villa. The principal’s name is Cristina. We met her the other day in the inspectora’s office. Sabin School interested me because of their attempts to do bilingual education and because of what they are doing to empower minority cultures. There school is made up of Quechua-speaking students from Bolivia and Peru and Guaraní-speaking students from Paraguay. Cristina herself knows some Quechua because her father is of a Quechua-speaking family in the Northwest corner of Argentina.
Cristina has not yet found a Quechua-speaking teacher for her school, but classrooms do post words in the language. She has solicited the help of a social agency with a Quechua translator to help her connect with the parents.

Day #16, August 10

I returned to Mirian’s school this morning. I observed in several classrooms. The morning teachers seem to be much more creative and passionate about their work than the afternoon teachers. This was confirmed by Mirian and her vice principal when I shared my observations with them.

At 10:00 a mime gave a show for the entire school in honor of the school’s 102nd anniversary and Dia del Niño (Children’s Day).
Mirian called for a taxi to take me to the bus terminal at about 11:15. I decided to use the washroom one last time before leaving and got locked in. There was a little excitement as they tried to get me out. The taxi driver wasn’t happy about the wait, but he got a good tip out of the deal.

I returned to Córdoba, arriving at about 7:30 PM. I took a taxi to Marce’s house. We were out the door again at 8:45 on our way to the Radio Nacional offices. We, along with two other Argentina Fulbright Scholars, were going to be on a radio show discussing education in our two countries. Nestor is the host of the political program.

It was interesting to participate in this program. The hour flew by. Nestor focused on the problems with the Argentino education system and the three women spoke about their experiences in USA schools. I got a chance to talk about Chicago School Reform. I wanted to emphasize that the USA does not have all the answers to the problems in education, but we are working hard to find the answers. I also added that I was able to learn from my experiences in Argentina schools, particularly about the need to remember the human aspect of education. It’s not only data collecting.

Day #15, August 9

I took a taxi to Mirian’s house and we drove to pick up Monica, another principal. Monica took us to see her school in another villa. This villa is the equivalent of our housing projects, but in much poorer condition. The people build the homes themselves: some out of cardboard, some out of scrap lumber, some out of brick. The families living here are the third generation living on public assistance. They live in these villas and if the government decides to use the land for something else more lucrative, they uproot the families and move them somewhere else. Sound familiar?

This school was very depressing to see. It is a relatively new building, but has nothing. Every door and window had a huge padlock on it. We met a woman who works for the school as a porter. She followed us around removing padlocks and putting them back on after we had seen a room. Some doors had to be soldered shut because of thieves breaking in to steal. A flagpole stands in the little school patio, but not flag can be hung because the rope and clips to raise it have been stolen. The neighbors are afraid to say anything against the robbers and the police are “blind” to what is going on. Monica says that the children “shut off” about the time they turn 10. Some are younger. How can education take place in this sort of setting? I'm not sure Monica was attempting to educate or just attempting to survive. How will the cycle be broken?

We returned to Mirian’s house for dinner. Her mother cooked Italian for us – cannelloni and spaghetti. Victor’s parents also joined us for dinner.

Later in the afternoon Mirian invited a group of about 8 principal friends over for dialogue. It was an excellent conversation, comparing our education systems and hearing them compare their own schools. A gentleman who coordinates the city’s museums was also there and was very interested to hear how the Chicago museums connect with the city schools.

I returned to the hotel and went to bed hoarse after such lively conversation.