Educational inequality in Ocosingo, Chiapas, Mexico.
Education
Education has been and will remain important in our lives, over time there have been various changes to improve each of the subjects taught in school. Students who attend primary school must meet several objectives that arise during the course of this level.
Education is controversial because despite all the projects that have been implemented to improve the results have not been as expected. I believe that teaching is not entirely open to new possibilities of change, commitment, responsibility, dedication and above all in the little initiative to make a transformation in their educational practice.
The education
Education has been and will continue to be important in our lives, over time different changes have been made to improve each of the subjects taught at school. Students in primary education must meet various objectives that are set during the course of this educational level.
Education is controversial because despite all the projects that have been implemented to improve it, the results have not been as expected. I believe that the teacher has not been fully open to the new possibilities of change, with commitment, responsibility, dedication and especially in the little initiative to carry out a transformation in their educational practice.
The primary school must contribute to the best human coexistence, promoting the strengthening of each of the competences that the student develops in their daily life, for this reason that our work is fundamental in the education of the child, we have the immense task of putting in practice the different tools that help to achieve their best development in the skills to be developed.
Primary education is one of the most important school levels, in which different skills, values and attitudes are developed, which it is intended to achieve in the course of the six educational years. The student is the main beneficiary of education, so it is important that the teacher prepare every day and know the purposes of each of the subjects that make up the school curriculum, applied with the teacher's own adjustments in their educational practice.
Inequality in education
Despite the efforts made to increase coverage and improve the quality of education, it is possible to verify that the social disadvantage of the most vulnerable and marginalized groups is not always compensated by education. The gap between rural and urban areas and between schools of different socio-economic strata are significant and tend to widen in some places.
The curricular proposals do not reflect the conception and vision of the world of these peoples and in many cases, the mother tongue is used as a mere vehicle to facilitate the learning of the dominant language and culture. If to this it is added that in rural areas many schools do not provide full compulsory education, it is easy to deduce that children and young people from indigenous peoples are at a clear educational and social disadvantage.
ECLAC (1998), people who come from households with limited resources usually study 8 or less years of study and, in general, do not exceed the condition of worker or operator, while those who grow up in households with greater resources usually study twelve or more years education and work as professionals, technicians or managers.
Although one of the greatest advances in the region is the increase in coverage in basic education, its universalization has not yet been achieved and problems of equity in the distribution and quality of the educational offer persist. The legal obligation has not been a sufficient condition for all school-age boys and girls to have access to basic education and to complete the years of schooling provided for in the countries' regulations.
Although the percentages of absolute illiteracy have been reduced, there are still thousands of illiterate people in the region, the lack of educational services accessible within a reasonable distance of time; greater number of incomplete schools; greater pressure from families for young people to work, and less qualified teachers. With some exceptions, there are no incentives in the countries for teachers who work in rural areas or difficult contexts.
Description of the primary school where I work and problems caused by inequality
In the case of rural areas, the social effects of modernization cause not an inclusion or education for all, but rather a social inequality, through an exclusionary model, in which rural and urban life are generalized, the rural sector is given has left out his opinion of not being able to adapt and integrate to the new modernization.
My work center is located in Ranchería La libertad, Municipality of Ocosingo, Chiapas, it is an eminently rural community, of Tzeltal origin, the members are not alien to the new modernity, they also suffer the attacks of this world order regardless of the economic conditions in which they are. All the inhabitants are of low economic resources, consuming parents and children (coffee, beans and tortillas on most days of the weeks). The community lacks a medical clinic and every illness is not cared for by anyone, no family has enjoyed living a day with electricity because this service does not exist in the community, there is no road other than a small path, which it is a limitation to be able to have easy communication with the surrounding communities.All kinds of services are lacking except for the primary school, which does exist.
I work at the “Agustín Melgar” elementary school, the group is a multigrade organization (Unitario) and is made up of a total number of 28 children (17 boys and 11 girls), between the ages of 6 to 14 years. The problems that have been detected during the course of this school year in the classroom are the following: low academic performance, deficiency in reading and reading comprehension, shyness when dealing with an audience, absenteeism in classes, poor diet, total ignorance in handling electronic equipment, etc.
All the students are eminently rural and extremely poor, the inhabitants know the efforts and struggles to live in better conditions and are organized to manage resources that meet the needs of the population, however; their requests have not been heard by those who govern the municipality.
The academic level that the children have is low, the new educational reforms that are intended to be applied at school are out of date with their reality, and with absenteeism in class the situation worsens. Likewise, I consider that my teaching practice was not oriented at all well, because in my daily practice, in a certain way, I was subject to current plans and programs, carrying out activities that were not very oriented to provide an education liberating from oppression.
My new institutional-oriented pedagogical model proposal
A) My new way of teaching in primary school
I consider that man is sociable by nature, and it is also verified that it is in society where he develops his true nature and the strength of this must be measured by the strength of society and not by the strength of the individual in particular, therefore; It should be noted that it is not possible to continue with that predominance of individuality that is currently reigning in educational processes, the role of education and the direction in teaching should be oriented towards forming a sociable subject.
The school and teaching must assume a new role, its mission, its place of existence and development, is society. Not only because social relations are the destiny of schooling, but because society determines the type of school and the form of teaching. They are the substrate on which they settle. Society is for Marx "the true resurrection of nature."
Educating is a demanding task that requires strong discipline, intense activity, and planned effort. Individualistic spontaneity, voluntarism, psychological recipes, the free manifestation of the subject, elevated to teaching criteria, are pure educational deviations. The secret, the first and essential principle, the first teaching practice, is to introduce the individual, whether he likes it or not, into a positive social experience, an important social experience. The true subject is the agent of the development of the "collectivity", an integrated organism within which individuals can achieve human fulfillment.
B) The role of the teacher
The teacher as a guide in the teaching-learning process of the subject, in which he receives from her his authority, his meaning and his function: 27 for E. DURKHEIM (1975) «It is not from the outside that the teacher should expect that his authority, is of himself; only an intimate conviction will provide it. He must believe, not in himself, of course, nor in the superior qualities of his intelligence or of his heart, but in his work and in the transcendence of his task.
The master's degree has intervened in my way of thinking for the better, since what I wanted to work on is finally now finding its clear direction, from the conceptual and theoretical to the practical. It is time to stop producing more of the same, a transformation of educational practice is required, lay educators are required, who can and should experience a feeling very similar and human to this. He is also the organ of a distinguished moral person who is superior to him: society.
The perspective of society focused on the teacher did not express the meaning of the teaching function in such a radical way as at present. Its function in the classroom and what happens in it, such as teaching and learning, the disposition of teachers and students, is not the result of private attitudes and decisions, of a simple intersubjective communication between individuals, of a debate, or of an order of preferences, but rather manifests and meets the demands of the social order to which they belong. No one has the authority to say or express what they want, but all authority comes from that supreme body that is society.
C) What is intended to be achieved in children as subjects with the new instituting educational model
- Subjects with revolutionary ideas (Carlos Marx), critical of their reality and far from individuality Subjects with love for caring for the environment Dynamic, didactic and creative subjects (Paulo Freire and LS Vigostky) Subjects capable of maintaining a human sense with Good moral values (Silvia Esmelkes). Subjects with an appreciation for sport and culture (dance, music, painting). Subjects with a love of reading. Literacy taught from the theory of Paulo Freire with the generating word.
The teaching-learning process must be dialectical, that is, it must have coherence between the contextualized teaching activities, the goals and the permanent evaluation of a formative nature. In addition, a cooperative environment should be fostered where the critical reflection necessary for negotiation, creation and recreation of meanings of scientific and community knowledge is presented, through democratic and fair processes where the student freely expresses their acquired knowledge.
The process of appropriation of knowledge must provide instruments for critical reflection that allow to transform reality and transform oneself. This is generated when the student has a conscious purpose and assumes his role as a knowing subject in the didactic contract where the goals, purposes, interactions, etc. must be defined. They are established in the learning community to acquire and negotiate scientific knowledge with community and contextualized knowledge.
The school group must become a community of self and co-learning as a result of socio-diversity (interculturality and multiculturalism) and the sense of communality.
Respect the heterogeneity and the diverse interests of the subjects and, therefore, the need for a heterogeneous education that satisfies the set of needs of each subject and of the various cultural groups as a conglomerate of community interests.
The school dialogue must embody an interactive dialogue between the various educational actors fostering educational processes to turn the classroom into true spaces of confrontation and debate typical of the exchange of socio-cultural views, for this there must be an environment that allows respect and integration of values, ideas, traditions, from the perspective of diversity and plurality.
The new teaching with value: Teachers are one of the important links between socio-cultural values and the child, since they constitute the main transmitters of teaching, hence the coherence between values and their behavior depends, between what the teacher demands and children do.
The school has an important role in the formation of the human being, since it complies with norms and they are followed through the teachers to strengthen the ethical and moral principles that the child brings from home, to channel and correct their weaknesses, since the The role of the teacher is to be a mediator and guide and give their knowledge, for which it should be noted that the school has a fundamental role in the transmission and education of values, for this reason it is necessary to make a connection between the teacher and the student so that there can be a true education in values.
D) Evaluation
The evaluation is a process that must be given constantly to know the progress that is being made in the teaching-learning process of the students, it must also allow us to know in what aspects we are wrong, which part of these results corresponds to us as teachers, we must reflect and analyze the mistakes made to use new strategies in order to improve in these aspects, adapting them to the new needs that arise.
"Evaluation is important and useful, from the perspective of the philosophy of quality, it is evaluated with the result, but not by the result." It is not possible to evaluate people simply by their final performance, as measured by standardized learning tests. It is necessary to consider what steps have been followed to improve these results and not to verify the results themselves ”(Schmelkes, 1995). The new educational practice under a new model oriented to the student's learning, suggests to the teacher the non-evaluation of written tests as a qualification of their knowledge acquired during a certain period, invites them to reassess the teaching practice under a continuous evaluation oriented on their skillful performance, practical, dynamic, didactic and humane.
The qualitative evaluation gives us the possibility of taking into account the attitudes, values and abilities that children develop and the quantitative one prioritizes the work carried out and falls back on assigning a number, however; It is not a question of being solely subject to that quantitative and qualitative educational practice, or at all times, going to the qualitative side would be the most appropriate.
Bibliography
- AVANZINI, Guy. "Models or not models" in Immobility or innovation at school. Oikos-tau. Barcelona, Spain. 1985. pp. 241-250.EZPELETA, Justa. Educational models: notes for a questioning in teacher training notebooks. ENEP-Aragon UNAM. México, DF 1980.RODRÍGUEZ Neira, Teófilo. Theories and teaching models. Possibilities and limits. Editorial Milenio. Barcelona, Spain. pp 26-70 and 243-266.FREIRE (1921), the pedagogy of the oppressed.WILLIS (1933) BERNSTEIN3 (1824) DEWEY. THE EXPERIENCE. P.25.E. DURKHEIM (1975) Silvia Esmelkes.Carlos MarxL. S. Vigostky
