Expats and Mexicans alike, are watching in amazement at the nonsense (as in, making NO sense) taking place in the hallowed halls of Washington DC. And, since many of the expats are retired, we are holding our collective breath over the possibility social security checks will not be forthcoming in November and a tanking stock market that flushes our nest eggs away. Of course, Mexico is in the middle of its own mess, “educational reforms” and economic proposals that will hurt Mexico’s working class and rural populations the most.
Wall in Oaxaca city.
In a New York Times article two days ago, Carlos Puig explains the reality of the material conditions that have forced the teachers of Oaxaca to take the drastic action of abandoning their classrooms to lead massive and extremely disruptive protests in Mexico City against the “No Child Left Behind” style reforms that the Peña Nieto led government has proposed and passed. (Read a critique of the US education “reform” by Diane Ravitch, former “No Child Left Behind” proponent, here.)
Oaxaca is 500 kilometers from Mexico City, yet the real distance is much bigger. The state’s G.N.P. per capita is one-quarter the average for the country. Oaxaca ranks second-to-last among all states in infrastructure. More than half its population lives in towns of fewer than 2,500 people.
Being a teacher in Oaxaca means sometimes having to travel for an entire day to reach your school in a tiny community, teach for three days — to children of all grades — and travel back home for the weekend. It means having to deal with children who speak more than 20 different dialects.
Being a teacher in Oaxaca means operating in a different universe — and under different rules.
Banner hanging in front of a school in Oaxaca city
However, as in the USA, the incomprehensible words coming out of the mouths of the 1% and their elected representatives are mind-boggling in their obliviousness to the adverse consequences their behavior and policies cause. And, we scratch our heads in amazement… McClatchy journalist, Tim Johnson, has repeatedly blogged about the exceedingly “bad” behavior exhibited by Mexico City’s rich and powerful directed at those they consider “below” them — most recently, Las Ladies, episode 7. And, just last week in Oaxaca, most were aghast to read that an indigenous woman, in the advanced stage of labor, was turned away from a hospital and forced to give birth on the hospital lawn.
Daniel Goleman had a revealing piece in the New York Times a few days ago that helps explain where this lack of empathy the ruling elite exhibit, that results in callous social policy, comes from. He explains in Rich People Just Care Less that, by necessity, “the poor, compared with the wealthy, have keenly attuned interpersonal attention in all directions…” And that, “A growing body of recent research shows that people with the most social power pay scant attention to those with little such power” and, “In politics, readily dismissing inconvenient people can easily extend to dismissing inconvenient truths about them.”
Okay, now we know why the rich care less, so what are we going to do about it?
Part of a mural on Niños Heroes in Oaxaca city.
Mexican Peso Converter
View From Casita Colibrí 
Good post Shannon!
Thanks, Sandi. You know what I’m talking about! 😉
We gotta fight the power that be!
Like students, teachers and parents everywhere, they deserve all the help they can get!
Good post, Shannon. We’re all waiting to see how this craziness turns out. It’s kind of unbelievable. See you soon.
The craziness is everywhere! But, hopefully, you will have mosquiteros when you return, to make it all a little more liveable.
I think the comments under the Carlos Puig NYT article are much more reflective of the reality of the CNTE in Oaxaca..
One of the comments:
“This article tries to make the teachers seem like noble victims. But the reality is that many Mexican teachers have no qualifications or education, and got their jobs through nepotism or simply bribery. The national government standing up to powerful unions is the start of a positive trend that if not derailed by people like this author may actually get Mexico on the right path.”
Gail, without doubt, there are a myriad of structural problems with the entire educational system. However, as in the USA, the media is presenting a one-sided view — whipping up hysteria against the teachers — in order to carry out a political program. They are placing the blame on teachers, especially those in the poor, indigenous regions, not a system that has historically supported the corruption you cite. Most teachers, especially in the poor rural areas, are all too aware of the deficiencies. Meaningful change must bring rank and file teachers and parents to the table. As a non-citizen, I cannot and will not be involved in politics here. However, coming from a family of teachers, I know substantive and successful change NEVER comes from the top down.
Shannon, I am sure that none of the educators in your family ever had to endure working within a corrupt union mafia as is the CNTE.
The gangsters within the CNTE are concerned only with milking more for their personal enrichment from the cash cow which is the national education budget. The teachers and students are only pawns in their game of extorting more and more pesos from the federal coffers.
Long live the teachers!
Long live the students!
Long live the parents!
Down with the corrupt CNTE!!!
The recent Oaxaca Study Action Group link to:
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/teachers-education-reform-and-mexicos-left
says it all. Highly recommended.
Gail, Yes I’ve read the article and I am all too aware of the corruption and patronage. However, from decades of experience in the USA, I know the only meaningful change in labor unions must come from WITHIN the union. Government interference, be it in the USA or Mexico, is designed to break the union, not improve education.
The CNTE bosses are only interested in funneling the federal education budget into their own deep pockets. We must sympathize with the teachers who endure living and working in the gulag conditions forced upon them by their criminal ‘union’ overseers. Positive change will never come from within the CNTE but will come from the resistance of parents who will drive Section 22 and CNTE out of their children’s schools. Public sympathy once reserved for the teaching profession has been converted into seething resentment and the political establishment is responding.
[…] in 2012, Peña Nieto has proposed sweeping reforms, including a previously mentioned education package modeled after the disastrous US, “No Child Left Behind Act.” These […]