Teaching French politics in Guatemala

A move to France just over the horizon, I'd clicked on a link about French presidential elections- I should know what's going on there, after all.  After wading through an article with references to people I'd never heard of who belonged to parties I wasn't familiar with, I felt pretty much as clueless as before.

And that's when it hit me- this would be a perfect article to use with staff.  I'd been wanting to do a professional development session modeling how we, as teachers, can make difficult text easier for students to comprehend by pre-teaching key concepts and aiding them in strategy use.

A few weeks later, we all clustered around our conference table as I passed out the article, letting them struggle through it on their own, just as I had, to start.  I asked them to rate their own comprehension, which was low, just as I'd intended.

And that's when things got fun.  I pulled out my photos of the 5 key candidates and arranged them on the board in a spectrum from left to right. I gave a mini intro to French elections, and then outlined the shared reading process we would do, filling out a concept map as they discussed with a partner.  There was a buzz of conversation all through the room, people laughing about Hamon (calling him jamón which is the Spanish word for ham) and slowly picking out the connections between candidates and how they benefited and disadvantaged one another.

Apologies to anyone who actually knows French politics
for any over-simplifications or outright errors

I walked between partners, helping them pick out key phrases in the article to answer questions, and loved seeing as light bulbs went off, and people summarized connections in their own words.  We wrapped up rating comprehension levels again, and, just as I'd hoped, this time almost everyone gave themselves a substantially higher score.  They'd seen the hard work that can go into both comprehension, and creating the right supports to aid comprehension.

It wasn't really my intention to teach French politics, just to use it as a platform for teaching how to support comprehension, but it struck me as funny, a room full of Guatemalans, heads bowed over their article, taking the hard work of comprehending French presidential elections seriously.  And then, to my delight a few days later, one of my coworkers mentioned "we were talking about a corrupt politician here in Guatemala who paid his family for work they didn't do and I thought, 'just like Fillon in France."  Hopefully they understood the subtext, but at the very least, my comprehension activity worked.

Pray for Venezuela

Tomorrow, Venezuela is holding presidential elections.  While I can't call myself an expert, my month in Venezuela was fascinating and eye opening.  Maybe just because there were recently elections and their elected leader was in critical condition outside the country, or maybe because political beliefs are so strongly held in Venezuela, I heard many people's opinions on Chavez and his government.

A car outside a restaurant "Chavez, heart of my homeland"

I heard the good stories- The Chavez government was building a house for my friend's mom (and I saw it with my own eyes, had a cook out on the front porch, helped clean the dust from finishing the walls). They were providing school books for the kids (those were taken out and showed to me too. And, this is a bigger deal than it sounds.  In much of Latin America a "free" public education isn't so free since parents typically pay for school books and 2 different uniforms, costs that can be difficult for families struggling to get by).  One cousin of my friends is as pro-Chavez as they come, involved in a government position of some sort.  And I saw the popular support Chavez had.  His image was plastered everywhere, homes had posters of him on their walls, cars had messages written on them in support of him.

Chavez's face is ubiquitous on billboards 

But I also heard the bad stories.  The way trash pick up was always a problem now that the local government wasn't Chavista.  Funds from the state no longer funneled down to the local level since their political parties weren't the same, with the goal being to make the opposition party look bad and drive votes back to Chavez.

"Faith in Father God for Chavez" sign on a car in a small town.

 There were also stories about the new parallel university system.  It was churning out graduates in 3 year programs.  You want to be a doctor or a teacher?  Just go to the new boliviariano universities, and after graduation you had a guaranteed job.  Maybe it sounds good on the face of it- higher education for more citizens at a low personal cost, a booming job market.  And those are the facts that the government manipulates to show success.  But the truth isn't always so pretty.  A school teacher told me how she had a student teacher in her class who was barely literate, but who schools would be forced to hire since all graduates from these state supported universities are mandated to be hired by state run institutions.  The doctors can be just as bad- I heard one horror study about a "doctor" who graduated from one of these institutions who didn't recognize symptoms of heart attack in an elderly patient and sent her outside to wait to feel better after administering a muscle relaxant shot.  When she didn't feel better the doctor gave her an echocardiogram, but apparently didn't know how to read it, because still seeing nothing wrong she was told to wait outside again.  Only when the cardiologist arrived in the morning was the problem identified and she was attended to.

"Forward, forward, commander.  The people are with you.  Love is payed with love"

 But one thing everyone had in common, those who loved Chavez, those who had voted for him despite not supporting him in all his policies, and those who opposed him, was the acknowledgement that he was a strong and charismatic leader.  They worried about the vacuum of power their country would fall into when he died.  And now he has died.  And Venezuela is holding elections.  Chavez's hand-picked successor and former vice president, Nicolas Maduro, is not seen as a very strong leader.  Henrique Capriles, the opposition candidate, actually had a fair amount of support in the last election, and I have friends in Venezuela who strongly support him.

"Chavez with Alexis"- campaign slogan for the Chavista governor Alexis of Mérida state.

All I know is Venezuela is a beautiful country, full of wonderful people and rich in resources.  There is so much potential and I don't want things to spiral into chaos.  I have friends there.  So please, join me in praying for their elections tomorrow.  Pray for a government that will be honest and not corrupt.  A government that will care for the poor, but not neglect liberties.  A government that will wisely use the resources that they have.  Pray that God's kingdom will come and his will be done, in Venezuela as it is in heaven.

The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will. Proverbs 21:1