Saber

Every wednesday I teach English to third through sixth grade in my small, mixed grade school. We have two classrooms one of which is used largely as an exhibit for the thousands of dollars misued by the ministry of education. It is filled with perfectly good, relatively new desks, filing cabinets, books, and chairs.
The other classroom hosts pre K through sixth grade, slightly shy of twenty students and one meastra/director. I teach eleven of those students English one hour, once a week.
Yesterday we had a presentation a very small dialog. All grades had to do it memorized. The dialog was:

1: What time is it?
2: It is (whatever time)

2: What time is it?
1: It is (LITERALLY WHATEVER TIME)
Third grade only had to do it once.

We had been practicing for four weeks. When it came to the day of, I gave them more time to practice, corrected pronunciation, and revised their written dialogs. The scoring was out of twenty points, five (FREE) points for the written dialog, five (basically free) points for enthusiasm, five points for preparation, and five points for pronunciation. I was ready to grade their presentations and leave comments on slight pronunciation mistakes, knowing the biggest would be "et es" instead of "it is" in the question. I had heard every group practice and was confident the scores would be pretty good more or less.
Then the meastra began to undermine me. First she told third grade they didn't have to write the dialog they had already written out once before, causing all of them to lose five free points. And then she announced for the kids to take their notebooks to her before presenting, I told her I would feel more comfortable grading the dialog (considering I speak English). She just said okay and ignored me. The third graders presented first, it was bad, they're always not very good, they do not study because their older siblings do all their homework. She asked me how they did, outloud. I was standing on the other side of the classroom, still sweating from running around the oven of a classroom, answering questions, revising spelling, and tweaking pronunciation. The ceiling fans that we could not use, because turning them on would depleate the energy in solar panel battery in five minutes, another testament to the money management of MEDUCA hung motionless as I tried to think of a way to reapond to that question without completely embarrassing the students that just presented.
"En verdad, no fue muy bien."
Laughter, I had not succeed.
Two sixth graders followed, using the trick known worldwide of waiting to volunteer to present until right after somebody butchers it. They presented, one did notably better on pronunciation and enthusiasm then the other, they both had clearly practiced. The meastra asked again how it had gone.
My reflection mocked me in the large unused flat screen TV in the corner that on the sunniest of days could only be turned on for half an hour, unfortunately it had to be too sunny to see the screen well. I searched my mind, I said, "I don't feel comfortable discussing the grades of students outloud."
"Ah, okay."
"But Maki did better."
The presentations continued, she continued to grade them, no longer asking my opinion. I know she gave them all high grades probably in proportion to how they perform in other subjects. I stood there, and I suddenly felt like some huge joke, that small kid playing doctor being humored by it's parents, "WOW SUZY I FEEL MUCH BETTER!"
I stood trying to hold back tears of frustration and embarrassment as soon as the last group left, I hurriedly forced out, "Me voy," and rushed away before I could heat any sort of protest.
This had never happened before, I always co taught any sort of science activity without grading it, but I always took over for English and gave the grades.
The truth is that the meastra looks better if her students are receiving high grades, so she gives them high ane often arbitrary grades. Last year the entire school was on the Panamanian equivalent of honor roll. I go to the tienda and it takes twenty minutes for whoever is working there to add up $.35, $.60, and $1.10.
The meastra doesn't understand that high grades do not mean that students are learning nor guarantee any future success. She doesn't understand or she doesn't care.
Education is one of the most powerful tools we have, to better not only our own lives and the lives of others, but legitimately the world.
I hate those stupid pictures people post of Facebook all the time with (completely un) groundbreaking (usually not) facts, but I saw one the other day that said, "What if the cure to cancer is locked inside the mind of somebody without access to an education?" While that is highly unlikely and kind of an extremely simple way to think of research science, the more educated people we have in the world, the more likely we are to advance science on all fronts, from infectious disease prevention to climate.
By denying education to somebody not only do we deny that person the ability to improve their life and socioeconomic status, we deny the world a shot at a new perspective or approach to our problems. Education doesn't mean westernization, I am talking about literacy, problem solving, mathematics, abstract thought, and critical thinking skills. Education should focus primarily on teaching students how to learn, not on teaching them how to get high grades.
We need to advocate for better education worldwide. Just because there's a school, even a well funded school, does not mean that there is a chance to get an education.

Now I just have to figure out how to discuss what happened with my meastra.