Job Discussion Forums

[MELEE]

Okay several people have pmed me wanting to know more about a comment I made this morning in another thread.
Every year (yes every year) the school teachers in the state of Oaxaca go on strike. Usually it starts May 15th, teacher's day, and lasts about two weeks or less. The teachers camp out in the zocalo in Oaxaca City. They make a mess of things there and cost the buisnesses in the Historic City Center, a major tourist attraction in a place that lives on the tourist dollar, a lot of money. They use the streets as their bathrooms and often vanalize the walls. Sometimes they close the toll booth on the highway coming in from Mexico City, costing the state even more money.

This year the strike started a little later, May 22nd. And has dragged on longer than normal, the teachers have blocked more streets than normal (50 streets in the center of Oaxaca) They've closed more highways, marched all over the place and wreked more than their usual havoc. The people of Oaxaca have had enough. A group of municiple presidents got together and made a decree to the governor, demanding this be brought to an end. Parent's are at their wits end, not knowing what to do with these little people in their house who are normally in school , and students looking to move on to the next level are without the paper work required to do so.

So the Govornor decided to do something. This morning an attempted was made to forcibly remove the teachers. It seems to have resembled the dirty wars in the Latin America of the last century. The Jornada, says a police officor was shot. My local radio station says it was a teacher who was shot. The representative of the teacher's union made a statement claiming police brutallity, police looting, and several of his "companieros" disappeared . Helicopters dropped over a hundred tear gas canisters .

Now, late afternoon, the teachers "have maintained control" over the zocalo. Teachers have stepped up all over the state and closed down highways connecting all the population centers with the state capital.

[Samantha]

Wow! Thanks for that report. That is shocking.

[lamarin]

I recieved this report in Spanish forwarded to me from a friend of mine living in Oaxaca City. Unfortunately she didn't say exactlly who wrote it or where it was first published. Sounds awful.

ACCI�N URGENTE

REPRESI�N DE LA POLIC�A ESTATAL Y MUNICIPAL LA MADRUGADA DE ESTE MIERCOLES 14 DE JUNIO AL PLANT�N MAGISTERIAL INSTALADO EN EL CENTRO HIST�RICO DE LA CIUDAD DE OAXACA. AL MOMENTO SE TIENEN REGISTRADOS EL FALLECIMIENTO DE 2 NI�OS Y 2 PERSONAS ADULTAS.




EN ESTE MOMENTO SABEMOS QUE LA POLICIA FEDERAL PREVENTIVA ESTA ENTRANDO AL CENTRO DE LA CIUDAD, DONDE LOS MAESTROS HAN RECUPERADO EL ZOCALO Y ALGUNOS OTROS EDIFICIOS.


TENEMOS REPORTADOS VARIOS HERIDOS DE GRAVEDAD, 12 DETENIDOS, VARIOS DE ELLOS DE RADIO PLANT�N, UN PERIODISTA GOLPEADO. LA SITUACION ES GRAVE PORQUE HAY REPORTES DE CIENTOS DE PERSONAS DESAPARECIDAS, ALGUNOS DE ELLOS QUE SE ENCONTRABAN EN EL PLANT�N.

DESMENTIMOS TAJANTEMENTE LA VERSI�N DEL GOBERNADOR DEL ESTADO, EN RELACION A QUE LOS MAESTROS ESTABAN ARMADOS AL MOMENTO DEL DESALOJO. MIENTRAS EL GOBERNADOR DECLARA ESTO EN MEDIOS NACIONALES, TENEMOS TESTIMONIOS QUE HABLAN DE LA REPRESION, PERSONAS DESAPARECIDAS, ENFRENTAMIENTOS Y GOLPES DE LA POLICIA EN CONTRA DE LAS PERSONAS QUE SE ENCUENTRAN CERCA DE ELLOS.

POR LO QUE EXIGIMOS SU INTERVENCI�N URGENTEMENTE PARA QUE SE PRIVILEGIE EL DIALOGO Y CESE TODA ACCION VIOLENTA. AL GOBIERNO FEDERAL PARA QUE ATIENDAN EL LLAMADO QUE HACEMOS DESDE OAXACA PARA DETENER ESTE ENFRENTAMIENTO QUE HA INICIADO DESDE LA MADRUGADA, Y AMENAZA CON DESBORDARSE Y VULNERAR LA VIDA DEL ESTADO.



14 de junio, Oaxaca de Ju�rez, Oaxaca



ATENTAMENTE




SERVICIOS PARA UNA EDUCACION ALTERNATIVA A.C.

[hlamb]

Check out this link for a BBC story in Spanish about this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/latin_america/newsid_5081000/5081638.stm

Some people say up to three people are dead but government officials dispute that.

Keep us updated, MELEE, if you hear anything more.

[ls650]

Thursday AM: Here's a fairly current news report. http://www.mexiconews.com.mx/18754.html

I live on the Oaxacan coast, and so watched about half an hour of live TV reports from the capital last night. The report above seems to be fairly accurate in describing what happened.

[delacosta]

The educational system badly needs to be reformed in Oaxaca-and the sooner it's done the easier my job will become. This higer education project that a few of us on this forum are involved in would make a lot more sense if all levels of education were involved. It would be logical to include the lower levels of education in a higer education project-whereas here the thinking seems to be if you build it they will come-and they do.

Young people are hungry for education in this state, but, for the most part, have been drastically shortchanged. I'm not exagerating, and I've said it before, we get students who can barely read or write. Students who hold a pencil like a child holding a crayon, students who admit that they have never read an entire book in their life.
So now we have the buildings and profs and lots of willing students to fill them. The money is being spent, and it's a lot of money! We have five years to provide a university education to students who have no idea how to learn, no discernible study habits,etc ( never mind that they can't read and write in Spanish, the English profs have to somehow get them to do so in English! ). So in the bodies come, and out the bodies go. Everyone gets paid and hopefully the kids learn something. I guess they've been kept off the streets for a while and haven't had to risk the trip north. Overall it's a good thing. If they last here for 5 years they've certainly picked up some discipline.

Now wouldn't it make sense to start preparing them form the get go?

But this is Oaxaca and the teachers union is a nasty hornets nest and I wouldn't blame anyone for not wanting to involve them. I have heard truely jaw dropping stories from people who work in the prepas-the **** that goes on is unbelievable. I had a student a few years back that (badly) failed forth year English with me, I don't know how he made it that far but he was by far the worst student in the class. He finished school and didn't do his thesis so he recieved 'pasante'. Next thing I hear is that he returned to his pueblo and got a job as a, now brace yourselves, Englilsh Teacher ! Because he was in with the union.

I lean towards being pro union myself, but if ever a union needs to be busted it's this one. I f there is ever to be any kind of reform in this state the thugs that run things have to be removed from the picture. This kind of crap doesn't belong in the education sector.
And hey, speaking of thugs, why it's Ulises Ruiz! Here's a pretty apt sumary from today's Universal
http://www.el-universal.com.mx/estados/61559.html. This guy's real tight with the local PRI families where I live. A band of rabid dogs.
What's going to happen in this state? My wife's family says that the federation should let Oaxaca implode, let them eat themselves, let them close all the highways, airports,etc. Who really cares? The rest of Mexico?
Oaxaca and all it's insanity never even makes it to the papers. THe ONLY reason anyone is paying attention now is because of the election.

[MELEE]

This is the BBC's latest in English, for the Spanish impared.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5082778.stm

There seem to be contradictory reports, on the radio this morning the "head of city services" in Oaxaca City was giving his report on the clean up. Said they have 800 workers cleaning up the centro had picked up all the garbage and were in the process of washing the Atrio, Alameda and Zocalo and would be finished by the end of the day. All other reports seem to indicate the teachers are still there. So how are they cleaning?
The Gov claims the head of the teacher's union is some sort of Che wanna be who has been dreaming of this day since he was a teenager. The head of the teacher's union says the govenor is an oldstyle PRI ganster (that seems pretty true).

Last night on my drive home I heard three different reports give recaps of the day in Oaxaca City. It was so sad, it broke my heart and brought back terrible memories of what its like to have tear gas dropped on you from a helicopter (Chile '93). The thing is about 52 POLICE officers were treated for gas inahation. The police were dropping it on themselves!. I really thought Latin America had moved passed this stage in its history, but as Atenco and Oaxaca will tell you Mexico has not. It breaks my heart.

As of today, the highway to Oaxaca from my town is blocked. The radio says all the roads to Oaxaca are blocked. Talks are supposed to be going on. I'll see what they say on the 3pm news

[MELEE]

Hey Costa and others.

Here's my radical off the wall idea.

CLOSE THE NORMALES. No more Normales!!! Let the students currently enrolled finish if you want, but no new intakes. Instead open Lic. in Education at the UABJO and why not, in our system too. The teacher's union controls the Normales and from then the students start to develope the mindset of "teachers against the world". Wouldn't it be better if they were mixing with the rest of the population in the universities?
And of course the "Modesto model" would develop a different sort of teacher, don't know if it would be a better sort though.

[Ben Round de Bloc]

That might work in Oaxaca, but closing the normal superior here would cause lots of problems. At the university where I teach, there's a Facultad de Educac��n, where students can earn their Lic. en Educaci�n. There's also a program within that facultad where students can earn a Lic. en Ense�anza de Idiomas Extranjeros (a 5-year program.) Point #1: The way our university is physically arranged with different facultades spread out all over the city, students from one facultad don't do much mixing with students of other facultades. Point #2: Although it's a state university, so the students basically pay no tuition, it's still an expensive 4 or 5 years of time and money to get a degree in education in order to earn next to peanuts after they graduate.

Graduates from the normal superior here don't seem to have the attitude of "teachers against the world." Maybe that's a trait of the particular normal school in Oxaca rather than something common to all normal schools. I don't know. Just a thought.

[MELEE]

Tim,
Not every state in Mexico has the "magisterio" union. I'm not sure quiet how it works. But I know Michoacan and Oaxaca are both under the Magisterio system.