THE WALL . . . we don't need no . . . yes we do!

[Berni J]

Daddy's flown across the ocean
Leaving just a memory
Snapshot in the family album
Daddy what else did you leave for me?
Daddy, what'd'ja leave behind for me?!?
All in all it was just a brick in the wall.
All in all it was all just bricks in the wall.

"You! Yes, you! Stand still laddy!"

Roger Waters

Years ago, when we first arrived, we had time on our hands and asked ourselves what could we do with some of the excess.  We flailed around a bit with the local cops thinking we might have some effect on the nature of the less than stellar police work prompted by the poor table manners of the bad boys in the neighborhood.  

Shortly we were to realize that we needed some longer term thinking as enforcement was so "after the fact", passe etc  and too late to do any good.  That brought us into the orbit of the 3 local schools - 2 escuelas and 1 collegio.  And the question what useful thing could we do for the future that might have a positive effect on the "less than stellar police work in the neighborhood".  Not today of course but in the future.  WEe had some time.

We quickly discarded one escuela as the directora proved unable to communicate via email and any and all assistance we gave was fleeting and ineffective.  In 15 years since, that escuela has changed not one iota for the good.  Later we discarded the colegio after the directora proved unable to make any meaningful change - in 15 years there is still no assembly area safe from the rain, inadequate toilets and a library sufficient for 1 family  of 4 not 500 high schoolers.   

The second escuela proved more interesting.  A dynamic director had just arrived with political connections and even aspirations.  A hard worker who believed in discipline in the classroom, a commitment to the environment, a leader of women and men, a willingness to strike out where MEP feared to tread, a desire to instill culture in his young charges against the odds and history of the village and a fanatic for order and cleanliness.

Our idea was rather simple and, I might say cute.  We brought visitors into the village every day on their way in and out of SJO (seeing as we are 10 minutes from SJO except when there is a football game, during rush hours, much of Fridays and Saturdays etc etc).  We just gave every guest a polite reminder that kids in Costa Rican schools had no access to books so "pretty please put a few in your luggage".  As part of that we realized some people would be interested in a Costa Rican school as a "tourist attraction" so we invited our guests to visit the school and deliver the books to the kids themselves.  After 100's of visits and 1000's of book donations the local escuela has a splendid collection of books and, just in time, now that lending libraries are almost defunct our village kids know what one is and how it works.  They actually return books.

Over the period of 15 years order gradually appeared in the village.

I know it has little to do with turning a neighborhood school into a tourist attraction but I know also, it did not hurt.  A lot changed.  Some of the bad boys in the village in that time got arrested, killed or got on the straight and narrow getting good jobs motivated by making a young girl pregnant.  I know that police work and tactics have changed significantly.  Our key infrastructure - pulperias, roads, electricity and water supplies - are 100% better than when we arrived.  Consequences and rewards are better understood in our local culture.  And a dynamic school director (who is supported wholeheartedly by his crew most of whom are still there 15 years later) is grinding out smarter kids every year.

Which brings me to this quote from the incoming MEP director in the news today.  

After completing his first day of work, the minister said the main challenge is to produce territorial information.  "Generate a management system based on territorial information and not only on descriptive statistics that allows the data to be tied to the place where things happen. It is not so important that I know that in that region of Puntarenas there is 30 percent or 35 percent of, what is important to know is why they got excluded from the system," he added.

I do not have a clue as to what he is talking about?  I am assuming they are using an old version of Google translate?   

Berni

[Joe Harrison]

Berni, if you can provide a cite for the original statement en español, one of my students and I can perhaps change the gibberish into something intelligible during our class tomorrow.  

On library books, that's a beautiful project.  I've also "donated" several to students from my personal library over time, but not voluntarily.  They, along with the students, just disappeared.  Joe

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[Berni J]

Not the original but AM CR knows where they got it: http://www.amcostarica.com/morenews3.htm Berni

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[Joe Harrison]

A search of CRHoy and MEP website didn't produce that statement by the new Minister, so I don't know where the writer got it.  But if I interpret it correctly, he's saying that he doesn't want to receive a lot of quantitative data about how kids are progressing.  He wants to get qualitative reasons for their achievements or lack thereof.  Like, if more and more kids are dropping out, he wants to learn "why", not "how many."  Well, that's the right attitude, but the proof will be in the pudding.   joe in pavas