N áhuatl mandatory in public schools in Mexico Cit y

Sat Aug 18 17:32:15 UTC 2007

Well it is wonderful that Marcelo Ebrard thinks about that. But it might just be a way to fill the Zocalo with more people. I would have loved to see other measures coupled with that one. Like a School of Náhuatl in the newly created Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México or the creation of communitary schools to prepare speakers of Náhuatl like John does, to participate in courses to form professors. But none of that has been going on. At UNAM Náhuatl is not even part of the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras and our intellectuals would not even dream of relinquishing some of their lines to have Náhuatl figure in their curricula.

So as wonderful as it is that Marcelo can think beyond his predecessors, I find the measure superficial and “impossible”.

I taught for many years Civismo, a mandatory subject in all schools, public and private… My students went to class with an attitude. The program, imposed by the Secretaría de Educación Pública was so boring even Political Scientists, Historians  and/or Social Scientists considered dreadful to teach it. So, I cannot begin to imagine how they will implement a mandatory Náhuatl Program. My experience in California is that when “speaking” Spanish was mandatory for instructors, vía the BCLAD, corruption erupted everywhere and instructors who did not Speak Spanish where trained to jump in, with only a test as requirement.

It will be interested to see how this evolves. We are talking about a school population of 8 million?

Maria Bolívar

  _____  

From: John Sullivan, Ph.D. [mailto:idiez at mac.com] 
Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2007 9:59 AM
To: Maria Bolivar
Cc: nahuatl at lists.famsi.org
Subject: Re: [Nahuat-l] Náhuatl mandatory in public schools in Mexico City

Mar��

            It's just politics. The decree started on paper and it will end there.

John

John Sullivan, Ph.D.

Profesor de lengua y cultura nahua

Universidad Aut󮯭a de Zacatecas

Instituto de Docencia e Investigaci󮠅tnol󧩣a de Zacatecas, A.C.

Tacuba 152, int. 47

Centro Hist󲩣o

Zacatecas, Zac. 98000

M鸩co

Oficina: +52 (492) 925-3415

Fax: +52 (492) 925-3416

Domicilio: +52 (492) 768-6048

Celular: +52 (492) 118-0854

idiez at mac.com

www.idiez.org.mx

www.macehualli.org

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