D's speech and other things..
The intial thoughts I had: for a country to be competitive economically it needs entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs start businesses. They create jobs. They create new products, new services. But to be an entrepreneur you must believe in yourself. You must have enough self-confidence to take risks. You must be a non-conformist. But the schools here create conformists. Conformity and obedience is the highest value. New ideas are not valued. Most of the teachers and school directors want to keep doing things the same way they have been done for hundreds of years. How much have schools really changed in two hundred years?
One difference is it is supposedly illegal to hit students now. But in some schools in Ecuador they are still being hit. And even if they are not being hit they are being punished and threatened on a regular basis. Punishments and threats create fear. They are based on the use of fear to control people. People who are raised on fear are not likely to want to take risks. So they will not be likely to become entrepreneurs.
If you ask 100 people what the goal of education is, 99 will say it is to get a job. This implies a job working for someone else. Schools do not encourage students to think about becoming entrepreneurs. Teachers don't think outside of the box. They wouldn't be working in schools if they could. Teachers come from a certain subset of society. They come from a group of people who are obedient and who are conformists. They obey the school director's rules. They conform to society's status quo. They can not be expected to teach non-conformity and creativity when this is not part of their personality. And if it was, it was slowly destroyed by years of being in schools and universities both as "students" and "teachers." People who are non-conformists can not stand to be inside an orgainzation where conformity and obedience are so greatly demanded. They can not stand to be in an organization which is for all practical purposes a dictatorship. So the system filters out these people. The ones who are left as teachers are obdient conformists who are afraid to take risks. Therefore they can not be expected to be role models for students who have the potential to be entrpreneurs.
Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, left Harvard to start his company. But how many of his teachers would have encouraged him to do this? How many saw him as an individual? How many saw his individual potential? How many believed in him?
If a highschool student wanted to leave highschool to start his or her own company, how many teachers would support this? How many parents would?
But that is just part of the problem with our educational system and our entire value system. We think about money. But what about helping people? What if a highschool student wanted to leave highschool and help children or pregnant teenagers who have been kicked out of school because it hurts the image of the school? How many teachers or parents would support this? Or what if they wanted to go travel?
Let's think about traveling for a minute. When a person travels they gain new experiences. They learn from other cultures. Doesn't it make it more likely they will be able to get new ideas which they can take back to the country they were born in? Isn't this a good thing? Isn't it likely to help them do something which either a) makes money or b) helps people or c) both? But in this country a teenager is not free to go traveling. They can not get a passport unless their parents give them permission. And there are not many scholarship programs available for teenagers who want to travel. If you go to a typical government high school and ask who has ever been out of South America, chances are you will not find one person in a hundred. Or ask how many teachers have ever travelled abroad or lived in another country or culture. Chances are you won't find many, if any, in a typical government highschool. In an expensive private school there is a higher chance students or teachers have travelled. But is this fair? Is it good for the country to only have those with money being able to travel?
And let's think about foreign languages. Every one knows that English is the universal language now. If you want to do business with people in other countries, you must be able to speak English. Not just read it, but speak it and have conversations in English. But anyone who has lived in Ecuador knows that after 12 years of public education, an 18 year old still can not have a basic conversation in English with a native speaker. Yet again, if the parents have money, they can afford to send their children to a private school where the tuition might be from 100 to 800 dollars per month. Is this fair and is it good for the country or the world?
By the way, if there are too many things in a society that are perceived as not fair, the people feel resentful. They feel disillusioned. They start to lose motivation. They think things like, "What is the point in trying when I will never be able to change the system?" Without self-motivatated people nothing much is going to happen in a country.
Now let's think about responsibility for a while. In this country, teenagers are not given responsibility. They are told what to do, how to do it and when to do it. They are not given freedom to make their own choices. Many if not most teenagers move from one building, called their home, to another, called their school. They are told when to go and when to come back. Inside these buildings they are often treated as prisoners with no right to leave. Sheep have more freedom than many students in schools. Sheep can eat when they want and can move around the pasture or sleep at will. But teenagers are told to stay inside one small room where they are packed in tightly together until they are given persmission to leave. If they are sleepy and put their head down to rest, chances are they will get in trouble. But no one tells sheep they can't rest when they are tired. And teenagers can't walk out and get something to eat when they are hungry. But when sheep are hungry, they eat. They are not afraid of getting punished for eating when they are hungry or drinking when they are thirsty, or getting up to look for food or water. But students are afraid. They are not allowed to simply get up and go get something to eat or drink. And students have to ask permission to go to the bathroom. Sheep can take care of their bodily functions whenever nature tells them to, they don't have to ask permission to take a dump!
Does creating a nation of human beings who have less freedom than sheep make the country more competitive?
More questions:
Why did the teacher want them to talk about competitiveness? Why not cooperation?
What is a war but a big competition? Do we need more competition in the world or more cooperation?
And why do the teachers decide what the topic is?
This is another example of the imbalance of power between those called teachers and those called students. It seems pretty clear to me that those in power - the, teachers, politicians, police, parents, lawyers etc. -- have done a pretty bad job of running this country, and the world. So wouldn't it make sense to try giving someone else some power?
Let's think about this for a minute. Why not let all the students cooperate to help each other with their speeches? Why not share a list with phone numbers of all the students from different schools? Why make it a competition? Why not let them meet with each other, share ideas, put together a few speeches instead of having all the individuals work individually?
What is the goal here? Is it to improve their English, or to "win"? If the goal is to improve their English, which I think it is since it was organized by an English teacher and the speeches will be given in English, then wouldn't it be more likely that they would get more out of working together and discussing things than working individually?
Let's say for example, I helped one just one student. Let's say that student paid me. I would not accept money from someone for something like this, but my guess is that there will be more than one student paying for private help. So is this efficient? Is it in the best interest of Ecuador or the world for me to spend time with just one student? And is it in the best interest of Ecuador for this student to keep everything I have helped him or her with to themselves so they can compete and be more likely to "win"?
I started thinking about this because I started feeling afraid that if Daniela uses a lot of my ideas and my words, someone might accuse her of cheating. So I thought, why not make my ideas available to anyone? And then why not let the students get together and discuss them and come up with more ideas and examples of their own? Then they would each have an equal opportunity and D would not have an unfair advantage.
Now here is a thought. Would Daniela want me to share everything on this page with someone else? With everyone else? Or does she feel so competitive that she would not want me to share it? I will ask her. She will give me an honest answer. One reason I admire her is because in spite of living in a home and society which punishes people for telling the truth, she is amazingly honest, factually and emotionally.
Winning etc.
I am wondering, do I really want Daniela to win? And if so, why? So I can be proud of her? So I can get vicarious pleasure as her mother wants to do? Her mother wants her to win. She doesn't care if Daniela has to lie, cheat, pay someone to help her, compromise her integrity. Well, I may be exaggerating but not much. And I am sure there are parents who would have their teenagers do all of the above to "win."
So yes, I would feel proud if Daniela won. And I would be happy because she would be happy. I want her to be happy. I want her to smile, to feel good about herself. This idea of feeling good about herself is key. She would not feel very good about her self if she won but didn't say what she really believed. Or if she just copied something and memorized it. Or even if she just took my ideas without really believing in them. I want Daniela to agree with me. I want her to use my ideas. But I want her to also use her own mind, her own feelings, her own passion, her own experiences, her own life. I want to inspire her. I want to light a fire under her. I want to see her rise higher than I could have expected. I don't know what her potential is. But I want to inspire her to fulfill it. I want to see her shine. Yet I don't want to put pressure on her by saying all of this! It is a tricky situation. If I expect too much of her I could set myself up for disappointment and I could hurt her self-esteem rather than help it.
I will love Daniela and believe in her no matter what happens in the speech contest. The main thing is I want her to feel good about what she does. This is very important to her. So it has become important to me. Before I went there yesterday I would not have expected that I would get so interested in her speech. And when she first told me the topic, I had little desire to help her. But now I want to help her do her best. I want to help her think about the really important things, at least as far as I see them. Daniela and I don't disagree on much. Not on the important things. They say great minds think alike. lol. Do I have a great mind? I don't know, depends who decides what is great I suppose. Does Daniela. Yes. In my opinion she definitely does. I want to open up this mind. I want to see more of what is inside and I want to fertilize it and help it grow and blossom. Isn't this the real goal of both love and education? Isn't this in the best interest of all of humanity?
So I thought, what if she won the contest and then refused to accept the award. What if she said, thank you, but I did this for myself, not for the award. Would I accept the award? Probably not. Why? Because I don't like competitions. lol. I compete against myself, if anyone. I set my own standards. I resent others judging me. I don't want them to think they can manipulate me with their awards and prizes. Would I accept the Nobel Peace Prize one day? Sure, if I felt good about what I had done to win it. So why not a competition like this. Well, because the Nobel PP is not a competition in the same way. It is not a contest. It just is a search for someone doing good things that they were doing anyhow.
But back to Daniela winning. If she one it would look good on her resume. lol. Is this important? Maybe. I hope not so she can go to a fancy university. I really hope she never does that unless it is to learn what she wants to without being graded. To me, this is the way you use a university. You go there for specifically the courses you want. You don't stress over tests, in fact you probably don't even take them. You don't let them control you with fear of not graduating. You don't give a shit because that is not why you are going. Thus, you are not afraid of the professors. You question everything. You don't care if it makes them look stupid. You don't care because they can't hurt you. They can't hurt you because they don't have the power to give you low grades and stop you from graduating. You don't plan to "graduate" anyhow. There is no one that you want to show the little piece of paper to. Sure, it would look impressive to say you went to Oxford or Harvard or something. But is it worth it? Would you impress people more if you were actually doing something to a) make money, b) help people or c) both?
Would people be as impressed with Bill Gates if he had stayed in Harvard, then gotten a job at IBM and was now a manager there? (Assuming he could even work for someone else! I know I can't!)
So does it really matter if D wins? I want to make D famous. I want people to know who she is and what she has to say. I would like to say "She is the winner of the blah blah blah speech contest when she gave the following speech." I would like to have a videotape of her giving the speech for my website. I want her to become an excellent speaker. I want her to speak before the United Nations one day. Maybe I will never see this. Maybe I will be dead before it happens. But if I see her on the path to this kind of thing, I will feel pretty satisfied that I helped someone be what they could be. But not just D. I want everyone I touch to make a difference in the world. I want them each to take what I have shared with them and then add themselves to it and do something with it to make the world a better place. D is so far ahead of where I was when I was 17. I didn't have a clue about what was important. I couldn't speak a second language nearly perfectly. I didn't have someone who believed in me and loved me unconditionally.
So I want to be influential. I want people to listen to what she has to say. I want people to stop talking when she walks in an auditorium. I want to hug her after she has finished an emotional, passionate speech and everyone has given her a standing ovation. Yes, I do want to feel proud of her. I want to know that I made a difference in her life and I helped her get where she is. But do I need this? Do I need this to fill my own emptiness, as her mother needs her to win? I don't think so. I never want to need her or anyone else in this way. Which reminds me. D is also much more aware of her mother's motives and emptiness and neediness and controlling behavior than I was of mine at 17 or 27. So yes, she is way, way, way ahead of where I was at 17. D is a person who could be a Joan of Arc. I don't remember how old she was, but she was a teenager I think. I want to help her become free so she can begin to share herself with the world. I wonder if Joan of Arc's mother would have said, "You can't go outside and lead the people. You have to study for your school exams. This whole crusade thing is taking too much time from your studies." I wonder if her mother would have hit her if she tried to go anyhow. I wonder if D regrets telling me that her mother hit her last month. lol. Or if she is not afraid to let the truth be known. At some point I want to talk to the person known as her mother who hit her. I don't know how D will feel about this though. I think D might want to have a new place to live before that happens. She is so afraid of her mother, the prison warden. It is sad. I think her mother is an unhappy lonely person, much as my mother is. A person trying to put on a good outside appearance. What would D have been like if she had been raised in a different environment? We can only speculate. But I believe the world will be better off the sooner she gets out of there. Yesterday she had to ask her mother for permission to walk me one block to the bus stop! Then her mother told her to take her sister and the maid along! So in the whole time I was with her, we never had five minutes alone! Her sister was hanging around the whole time, or the mother or the maid. I wonder what the mother said after I left. We were laughing way too much and too loudly for the mother to think we were just working on the speech! I suppose in a way it is more fun having her live in the prison. I can always tease her about it and provoke her. But seriously, if she had her own place we could be concentrating on a) helping people b) making money or c) both. lol. She asked me yesterday how I would feel if she quit school. This caught me by surprise. She also said how would I feel if she dropped out of the speech contest. That was her first question. I answered this one, but never the second. I wasn't prepared to answer the second. Now I am more prepated. I would feel good if she dropped out of school. Very good. Especially if that was in conjuction with a) moving out or b) not letting her mother control her anymore.
I believe in her. She is smart, talented, caring, resourceful. She is a hard worker. If she believed in me as much as I believe in her, or even half as much, she would take the risk that I would not abandon her if she moved out. She would have faith that I would make sure she doesn't starve. I am actually not sure if she has one more year of school or if this is the last few months. I think she has one more year. I think I asked her if she would come to my school next year if I had one and she said, "My mother would kill me." But maybe it will happen. Maybe I really will get my school open in time for her to graduate from it. Maybe she really will help me start it. Time will tell.
Now here is a funny thought! If she were going to my school, would I encourage her to drop out of it!? Yes, if she had something better to do. Absolutely. If she wanted to go to another city for example, and start an orphange or run youth center or teach violence prevention classes, or travel around speaking to teenagers or parents. I would say, "Go for it." Absolutely. I would also help her fund whatever project she had. She doesn't quite believe me yet. But I know that I am serious. Maybe she will come to believe me and believe in me. Maybe not. Time will tell! It will be interesting to see what happens. But I can't sit around waiting. I have other things I want to do, I don't want to count on anything from her. I might not hear from her for another month or something. Till the next time she needs me. lol. Ok, so I still feel a little resentful. But we can laugh about it. I want her to feel a little guilty. Not so much to hurt her self-esteem but to take my feelings a little more seriously and not be so self-centered. lol. Ok, that was kind of a low blow. It sounds like something a parent would say doesn't it! But she is self-centered. So am I, but she is more so because she is more needy. I have one thing, one important thing, she doesn't have. It starts with an F. But she has something I don't have. It starts with a B. I don't want a "B" though. I want a "G". lol. Got all that?! So maybe we are sort of equally needy.
Yesterday she said her life was grey and her bf was the only ray of sunshine. That is pretty f'ing sad. But I don't think it was much of an exageration.