Educators in Mexico had sought to wipe out indigenous language (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Educators in Mexico had sought to wipe out indigenous language

By Ted B. Kissell, tkissell at VenturaCountyStar.com
November 19, 2006
URL:http://www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/county_news/article/0,1375,VCS_226_5155956,00.html

Difficult as it might be for them to adjust to U.S. schools, Mixtecos
and other indigenous Mexicans are used to facing educational barriers,
among other indignities, in their home country.

Like most such groups, the Mixtecos didn't get to choose their own name.
The term Mixteco comes from Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs — itself
still spoken by some 1.6 million Mexicans — and means "People of the
Cloud Place." Mixtecos call themselves "Ñuu Savi," or some variation of
that term, which means "People from the Place of Rain."

After centuries of near-total neglect of those "Indios" who maintained
their indigenous language and traditions, the Mexican educational
system established in the 1920s, after the Revolution, officially
recognized that these languages existed and declared that they needed
to be wiped out.

Called "castellanización," or "Spanishization," this policy called for a
system of Spanish-only schools in indigenous communities that would ease
the assimilation of these poorest and most marginalized of Mexico's
peasants into the Mestizo culture.

According to Sylvia Schmelkes, head of the Department of Bilingual and
Intercultural Education for Mexico's federal education system, this
educational model gave way, roughly in the middle of the 20th century,
to a different approach.

"Teachers started to work with the indigenous language as a tool to help
them achieve speaking Spanish," she said. By the 1970s, Schmelkes said,
a separate system of bilingual schools was created, whose objective was
"to achieve an integral bilingualism, a fluency in both languages."

"But many teachers still follow the old philosophies," she said.

When compared to mainstream Mexican schools, the system of bilingual
primary schools in indigenous communities is still separate and
unequal.

Fausto Sandoval, a teacher in Oaxaca who lives and works in his home
community, is a Triqui, a group of some 30,000 people whose towns are
surrounded by Mixteco communities, and who speak a language closely
related to Mixteco.

"There are schools in indigenous communities," Sandoval said. "In the
majority of them, there's an indigenous teacher. The problems begin
with, how do they teach, in what language do they teach, and in what
language are the books?"

The biggest problem, he said, is teacher training, or the lack of it.
"The majority of teachers come in without any training to be teachers,"
he said.

According to the most recent statistics from the Mexican government, 35
percent of teachers in the state's indigenous schools have no more than
a high school education.

Others have teacher training, but no specific training on how to teach a
bilingual curriculum. Very few have gone to a "Normal Bilingüe" to be
trained in running a truly bilingual classroom, the stated mission of
all indigenous primary schools in Mexico.

— Ted B. Kissell

Comments (4) | Trackback (0)

Copyright 2006, Ventura County Star. All Rights Reserved.