Ten years after graduating elementary school, I’m just now realizing that the word “inadequate” doesn’t even begin to describe the recycled Thank You cards my mom made me give to my teachers at the end of the year.  It’s truly amazing to me that the fatigue I feel after running to the top of a mountain at 9,000 ft altitude is only a fraction of the exhaustion that comes over me after just an hour of trying to get a table of 4-year-olds to color with crayons.  I don’t know if it’s because I’m white or because they’re extremely uneducated or if there is just a general lack of chemistry between me and small children… It’s a little better with the older ones, but it’s still fairly draining to spend an entire day teaching 10 to 13-year olds how to spell their name.  They literally don’t know how to use the alphabet.  They can write anything they can copy (and I’m convinced they could draw the Mona Lisa if they had it in front of them) but they have no idea how to write or draw anything on their own (it’s a metaphorical microcosm of Peruvian society—masters of imitation, amateurs of innovation).

Today, I put the class in teams of two to make letter posters (ex: Aa, “arbol”) and had them present to the class for a competition with the incentive of a new notebook for the winner.  I made a rubric and gave each of them a score grade based on effort, presentation, listening, etc.  They did a decent job and the activity took all day, but I think the competition encouraged more bitterness and jealousy than motivation…

On a theoretical level, I’m a firm believer that education is the only thing that can save this country.  I just hope that someone else out there wants to step up and do the educating.  So I raise my glass to you, teachers around the world, may your prosperity be as abundant as your patience.