A TUNECO EDUCATION: SCHOOL LIFE IN SAN ANTONIO PALOPÓ, GUATEMALA

Terrence Edward Sullivan

Arizona State University

INTRODUCTION

In a global community that is growing in population and commerce, it seems paradoxical that one might feel as if the world is getting smaller and more accessible. Cellular phones allow people to contact one another at any time. E-mail affords the convenience of staying in touch with friends next door or across the world. The Internet brings images of distant places into our living rooms, and travel plans can be made in minutes with a few simple clicks of a mouse. One can wake up in the United States and be in Central America in time for lunch. The lifting of trade restrictions has opened massive new consumer and labor markets to transnational corporations. American films and music are popular around the world, as is clothing adorned with the Nike Swoosh and logos of American sports teams.

It is necessary to ask, however, if the “benefits” of this shrinking world are being equitably distributed. In fact, some might argue that supposed windfalls of globalization are doing more harm than good, that poor children in industrializing countries do not have much hope of improving their lot in life. In the United States, children are taught from the beginning that they can do anything – become a doctor, astronaut, or famous actor – through hard work, dedication and, most importantly, a good education. Indeed, school is seen as the key to success. Children in Industrialized nations are taught skills to help them compete in a world much different from the one their parents grew up in. Computer skills are practically essential, and knowledge of a second language is an important asset (in several European school systems English is taught universally). Some students are exposed to business theories in grade school while others study the dynamics of ecology and our influence on environment and climate. All this ostensibly prepares them to have a successful, enjoyable life and contribute to the general wellness of their community. But what about children in poor nations?

I studied an elementary school to gain perspective on what it means to be a student and teacher in the town of San Antonio Palopó, Sololá, Guatemala. During my research I became aware of the disparity of educational resources between the school I was studying and primary schools in the United States (and presumably industrialized nations as a whole). The following report is an ethnography of the school rather than an assessment of future prospects for San Antonio’s children, but I will try to highlight how the gap between rich and poor nations may be growing due in part to a disparity of educational resources.

SETTING

The Town

San Antonio Palopó is located on the east side of Lago Atitlán in the department of Sololá, Guatemala. The lake is surrounded by steep volcanic mountains that rise from its shores and whose peaks are frequently shrouded by mist during the rainy season. San Antonio is built on the face of such a mountain. Residential areas extend from the lake until halfway up the hill, then give way to onion terraces that stretch to cliffs just below the mountain ridge. The only way to drive to the town is via a thirteen-kilometer road that starts in the tourist haven of Panajachel, winds along thickly vegetated mountainsides and passes through the neighboring town of Santa Catarina Palopó before reaching San Antonio. Most houses are constructed with cinder blocks or adobe bricks, held together with mason cement and mud cement, respectively. They are invariably covered with corrugated tin roofing that directs water to one side of the house during the rainy summer months. The houses are built close together and there is frequently a small work area outside residences for activities such as weaving, washing dishes, and chopping firewood. The sounds of songbirds, roosters, dogs, children, hammers and power saws all mix to form a chorus of daily life in San Antonio.

The People

The municipality of San Antonio, including outlying areas called aldeas and caseríos, had a population of 12,000 people in 1999. About 93% of the town’s residents (who call themselves Tunecos) are Indígenas, and their mother tongue is Kakchiquel, the second most widely spoken Mayan language in Guatemala. Many people from San Antonio also speak Spanish, but usually as a second language (I will come back to this point later). Its illiteracy rate, at 60%, is one of the highest in the Atitlán region. Perhaps the most telling statistic, though, is San Antonio’s poverty rate: in 1999 over 83% of Tunecos lived below the poverty line. This figure, too, puts the town near the top of an undesirable list. Money is spent carefully on necessities like vegetables, clothing, and supplies for whatever line of work a family might engage in. The traditional clothing styles of San Antonio are still very popular, particularly among women and girls. They wear blouses with blue, green, and purple vertical stripes (it is not uncommon, however, to see older women with red, blue, and white striped blouses) and dark blue ankle-length skirts. Tuneco menswear consists of shirts with motley-colored vertical stripes, kilt-like garments called xercas, and open-toed shoes. Many males, however, do not wear traje because pants and shirts are much cheaper and, I suspect, more appealing – especially to teens and young men. While living in San Antonio I found the people to be very polite, but not likely to start many conversations. They are particularly reserved when talking to outsiders, as is the nature of most culturally conservative populations.

There are a few principal trades that provide earnings for most Tunecos. Weaving is huge in San Antonio. The design and manufacture of textiles with indigenous designs is the primary source of income for many women and men. Using different types of looms they weave colorful fabrics for shirts, blouses, scarves, tablecloths, bedspreads, and other items. There are two cooperatives that supply foreign stores with authentic Guatemalan-made garments, and several families operate small shops that sell to visitors. Additionally, many women travel to Panajachel several times a week to sell woven items to the hordes of tourists in that town, especially on Calle Santander. Tourism plays a much smaller role in San Antonio than it does in other towns around the lake. A few tour boats make daily stops there, but passengers are in town for less than an hour before their boat takes them back to Panajachel. There is only one hotel, and the operator says she hardly ever hosts foreign guests. Farming is a means of both food and cash in San Antonio. Terraces are used to grow onions, the town’s major agricultural export, and maize and bean fields extend to outlying areas. Likewise, fishing and crabbing are sources of nourishment and income for the men who venture out on the lake every morning in small boats called cayukos. As in much of Guatemala, San Antonio has numerous family-run tiendas that sell snacks and household items for what amounts to little profit.

Summary of the Setting

San Antonio Palopó is a culturally conservative town that has experienced less external influence than nearby places. While traditional ways still play an important role to Tunecos, young people seem less intent on becoming housewives or farmers or fishermen. They realize that such livelihoods often relegate one to a life of monotony and poverty. Getting a higher paying job often requires more education than the government-mandated minimum of six years, but many people simply cannot afford it. For them, sixth grade is the extent of their formal education. What is the experience of a grade-schooler in San Antonio Palopó? What is elementary school like in San Antonio?

METHODOLOGY

The best way for me to get a picture of life in the school was, of course, to visit it. I was allowed to attend class in order to observe daily routines of teachers and students. The procedure varied a bit with each class. I preferred to sit either at a desk in the back of the class or at the front next to the teacher’s desk; both locations had advantages. While sitting in the rear of the room I didn’t have to turn around to watch the students’ behavior, and the children, in turn, tended to pay less attention to me than if I were sitting in front of them, though they still had a habit of spinning around to see what I was doing. If I sat next to the teacher I could observe the students from the opposite direction with the additional benefit of being able to talk to the instructor while the kids worked on assignments. There were a couple times, however, that I sat in a student’s desk in the front of the class that was also facing front (i.e., with most of the students behind me). It was somewhat difficult to watch the kids from this position and I could not talk to the teacher, but I was still able to record what happened.

There were several elements of the classroom environment I noted during this in-class research. I was interested in relationships between students and teachers, students with other students, and teachers with other teachers. The student-teacher relationship is obviously the most important so far as the school’s purpose is concerned. Healthy, stimulating interaction between both parties is essential for an interesting and successful learning experience. If the teacher cannot draw the attention, interest, and respect of students, there is no motivation for pupils to put effort toward in-class assignments, homework, or attending school in the first place. In a place like San Antonio, where the students do not have sports, computers, or textbooks with colorful images, it is essential for teachers to pique students’ interest in order to keep them excited about school. On the flip side of the coin, a bored teacher may not be a very effective one, but if they succeed in making students eager to come to class every day, they will find their own job more enjoyable. The children need to maintain a positive attitude as well to encourage the teacher to continue whatever it is that works. Thus, everybody benefits when learning is more an adventure than a chore.

The second type of relationship I studied, student to student, is an extremely important part of school life. From pre-school through graduate school, our classmates are an important group of people with whom we can empathize and share ideas. Children, however, do not rely on classmates as much for educational reasons as they do for social fulfillment. For example, while a group of college students might get together on their own time for a study session, a crowd of fifth graders hanging out after school probably will not discuss what they learned in social studies that day. For them, going to school can be as much a social event as it is a learning one. School provides them with an opportunity to meet new people and build communication skills around a diverse group of peers. Not surprisingly, I noticed marked differences along gender and age lines. I will discuss interaction among boys, girls, and between the two groups.

The last type of relationship I set out to study is the one that exists among faculty members. This one was the most difficult to observe simply because I did not spend much time in the presence of two or more teachers. However, I was able to get a sense of the relationships between teachers and their supervisor (the director), and I will detail my observations to that end as well as the differences of the director-teacher relationship in the morning and afternoon sessions. The observation of teaching methods was also an important part of my research. I do not have a background in teaching methods or theory, but I noted different approaches that instructors used during classtime. While each teacher had her or his own style, I noted some common themes and will provide analysis of similarities and differences.

I also participated in games and activities, much to the students’ enjoyment. These were helpful for several reasons. First, it allowed me to interact with the kids; it was nice to get some personal involvement with my subjects instead of just observing them. Second, the children felt more comfortable around me after seeing that I was not just a strange, note-taking gringo. The activities helped break the ice (somewhat), an important step in a conservative place like San Antonio. Third, the teachers were grateful for helping them teach and entertain their students. It was the least I could do for being allowed access to their classes. Fourth, I enjoyed playing with the students. It is important for a researcher to enjoy fieldwork, and these activities kept my days fun and interesting.

I had originally planned to conduct extensive interviews with instructors, but this proved to be too optimistic because of the time restraints on my project and the teachers’ schedules. Many teachers arrive in San Antonio right before class starts and return to their hometowns immediately after school ends, so finding time to interview them was nearly impossible. As I mentioned previously, I tried to take advantage of recess and class time to talk to the teachers, but they wanted to know as much about me as I wanted to learn about them. Only through a formal interview could I ensure a discussion that would not revert to music, international soccer or my family back in the United States.

I also wanted to talk to the kids about their lives and plans for the future but this, too, was not to be. If the adults of San Antonio tend to be quiet around strangers, the children are practically silent. Holding a conversation with Tuneco children was not an easy task, especially in the short time span I had in which to build rapport. I had a few young informants, mainly relatives of my homestay family, that were extremely outgoing and eager to help me, but most other children preferred not talking to me, even when I gave them a casual “Buenas tardes.”

DATA

Describing the Scene

Before I present my findings I will describe the location where my research took place. The school is located in the north part of town, where the road from Panajachel first reaches the thickly settled municipality of San Antonio. The school is slightly uphill from an Evangelical church that separates it from the road. Stairs lead from the street to the school, passing the church that lies in between. The school building is shaped like a rectangle that is missing one of its widths, sort of like a rigid horseshoe design. The front of the school (the side that faces the road) is a mustard yellow color with the word “ESCUELA” spelled out in black and white letters made of contorting animals. The interior of the “horseshoe” has two different shades of green: a lighter color that resembles pistachio ice cream is being replaced by what one of the directors described as aqua green. The clash of dark yellow and two different greens easily makes it one of the more unique buildings in a town of small, plainly colored structures. It has three wings on the west, north, and east sides. The west side has two stories and the north and east wings have three stories. The classrooms are accessed via open-air hallways that run along the exterior of the building. The three wings form a schoolyard that opens to the south, where students enter through a gate in a chain-link fence. The schoolyard is paved and has two basketball hoops, one at both the north and south ends. Standing in a hallway on the inside rim of the building, one looks into the courtyard.

The inside of most classrooms are the same green color as the building’s exterior. The windows are located near the ceiling, and I wonder if such a design is to keep students from gazing out the window during class. The classrooms have fluorescent lights on the ceiling, but these are frequently turned off in favor of natural light from outside. Some lights were not working during my visits, but most of the time the teacher purposely left them off (I don’t know if this was personal preference or a way to keep electric costs down). In any event, students did not seem to have problems with the lighting, even when it was cloudy outside. Most classrooms have a colorful poster on the wall that lists which students are assigned to cleaning duty each day. Children in lower grades sit at small tables that fit two or three students, while older pupils use standard desks with an armrest on the right-hand side.

A Day in the Life

There are two sessions per day in San Antonio’s grade school. The sessions are completely independent of each other, each having its own director and teaching staff. The director of the morning session is Vicente Perez, a middle-aged man who is about five feet seven inches in height with a full moustache and a couple gold-capped teeth. He usually wears khaki pants and a casual shirt with the top one or two buttons undone. The afternoon director, Odilio Chavez, is a giant for this region at six feet tall. He has a thick black moustache and curly hair that has grown out in such a way that it usually looks a bit unkempt. He dresses a bit more relaxed than his morning counterpart, sometimes wearing a T-shirt and jeans. The early session, which goes from 7:30AM until 12:30PM, is comprised of grades one through six. It has around 500 students, according to one teacher with whom I spoke. The afternoon is for first through fourth graders and has about half the number of students that the morning session has. It runs between 1:00PM and 6:00PM.

Although the student body and faculty of the two sessions are different, they basically follow the same patterns. Although school officially starts at 7:30 and 1:00, instruction does not commence until twenty or thirty minutes after those times. One or two subjects are usually covered before recess at the day’s mid-point, i.e., 10:00 and 3:30. Recess lasts for thirty to forty minutes. In the morning many children leave school during recess to grab a bite to eat at home, but during the afternoon almost all students stay at school to play. The morning classes resume instruction immediately following recess, but the afternoon students get a snack to hold them over until they eat dinner at home. The snack is a four-pack of shortbread cookies accompanied by hot milk. The cookies come in packages that identify them as part of the Ministry of Education’s lunch program. After taking a few minutes to eat, they get back to work. During the rest of the day they do one or two more subjects. The last thing the morning students do before going home is have lunch. A couple students would go to the school kitchen and bring the food to the classroom in giant cooking pots. They had pasta with a side of rice on the days I was around for lunch [During my research period I sat through an interesting meeting in which parents of the afternoon students voted to have lunch served to their children as well – further discussion and analysis will come later.]. Over the course of my observation period the teachers taught an average of about three subjects per day. The average amount of time the students spent in the classroom was about three and a half hours, but they were not always working when they were in class. The teachers frequently took leave of the room for one reason or another, and the students saw this as an opportunity to talk to each other or come over and watch me write in my notebook. Even when some teachers were in the room they would let students talk when they were supposed to be working on an assignment. Thus, as a rough guess I would have to say that the average student spent about three to three and a half hours per day actually doing work in class. They had to do homework as well, but I am not able to assess how much time was expected or spent doing it.

Student Behavior

Before class began there were always groups of children playing in the vicinity of the school: in the street, outside the schoolyard, in the schoolyard, or in the hallways outside the classrooms. Boys were very fond of fútbol and used the basketball court as a soccer field. While a match was being played there would frequently be a group of boys watching from the sidelines. On one occasion I saw twenty-five young spectators watching a game of four-on-four [The scene reminded me of the soccer matches in front of the San Antonio police station on Sunday afternoons, where dozens of men gather to watch their friends play.]. Girls never paid much attention to the boys’ loud contests and preferred to congregate away from the soccer match (where they were liable to get hit with a ball or run into by a player) to talk or chase each other around. Other boys watched the goings-on from the hallways that effectively form long balconies overlooking the schoolyard. They would sit with both feet dangling over the concrete fifteen or twenty feet below, occasionally throwing a lollipop stick or pebble at unsuspecting people on the ground. The teachers did not yell at the boys or discourage them from sitting in such a precarious spot. In the United States, where a school can be held financially responsible for injuries caused on the premises, no teacher would allow students to casually sit on a ledge as if it were a park bench. I have noticed, however, that children in Indigenous communities (and maybe Guatemala in general) as compared with school children from my US hometown are allowed a great degree of autonomy as they play. Seemingly dangerous activities, such as hopping on the back of a delivery truck as it drives by, or setting off powerful firecrackers in a town square, are apparently acceptable for even very young boys to engage in.

Inside the classroom the children were more subdued but the social activity continued. Sometimes the teacher started off with a song or fun activity to help the pupils get into a school-oriented frame of mind. At the beginning of class most students were very quiet and attentive. This was particularly true when I introduced myself to the students. Inevitably, though, a few would start talking to each other as the teacher got into further detail about the topic at hand. The chatter was not overwhelming or even very loud but it signaled that the first students had lost interest. When an assignment was given after the opening lecture, the students’ babble got louder and they began moving around to talk to friends sitting elsewhere. It is interesting to note that the students to whom I am referring were almost exclusively boys. Girls were much less talkative, and when they did talk it was usually no louder than a whisper. They also stayed in their seats, unlike the roaming boys who seemed to make their way from one desk to another like door-to-door salesmen. Teachers did not make a fuss over students’ intermittent chatter during their lectures, nor did they demand silence when a constant murmur filled the room during in-class assignments. Only a few times did it get a bit loud when the teacher was in the room, but when the class was left unattended (usually once or twice a day) any attempt to keep the volume down was forgotten, at least by the boys. They sat on desks, stood on chairs, roughhoused, and ran around the classroom if the teacher was absent for an extended period of time. The boys in a first grade class even took their activity into the hallway, then came running through the door when they saw the teacher returning. When the teachers disciplined talkative or rowdy classes they usually did so by telling the children to behave because there was a visitor (me) in the classroom. They raised their voices a bit for emphasis but kept their cool and never screamed at the students or sent one out of the room to serve as an example to the rest of the class.