Living my dream... or just perpetuating a nightmare..?

At some point during my college years, I don’t remember exactly when, I remember thinking how amazing it would be to teach and live abroad.  When I first found out that there was a demand for teachers internationally and that those teachers get a pretty sweet gig, it became my dream to do that.  

I love travelling and I love teaching.  To combine these two things became my dream, which I am now living.  Yes, I am living my dream and it is simultaneously an amazing experience and an extremely guilt-ridden one.  

I am so happy that my daughter is being raised abroad and will be bilingual from an early age.  I love the fact that she is growing up and has grown up in a place where everything isn’t cushy and easy, but is raw and real.  She is surrounded by so much natural beauty and amazing people that all help us to provide a unique and meaningful early life for her.  She is so lucky, and I want to impress that upon her and hope someday she uses her fortunate position in life to aid those who are less fortunate.

Here’s where the guilt-ridden side comes in.  I love my life.  I love my job, my friends, my boss, the beautiful country we live in and mostly my wife and daughter.  However, there is a lot of hurt in this country.  Over half the population lives in poverty.  It has been ranked on the top 10 worst places in the world for women and children to live.  And finally, corruption and impunity rule.  However, that does in no way tell the whole story of Guatemala.  Most Guatemalans have never played a role in the story of their beautiful country.

Over the past 75 years the United States has been a major player (in a negative fashion) in Guatemalan affairs:

• 

  Jacobo Arbenz, 1st democratically
  elected President of Guatemala

  In 1944 they led and supported a coup through the CIA to remove Guatemala’s first democratically elected leader,  Jacobo Arbenz, from office.  Why?  Not a simple answer, but a corporation named United Fruit Company was worried about losing land, so they used their connections to convince Eisenhower that the President was a communist.  He wasn’t of course, but nonetheless was seen as one in Washington and forced to leave the country under threat of violence.
• This led to a series of Right-Wing military dictatorships directly supported, both financially and militarily, by the United States.  This is when violence and impunity became the norm in Guatemala.
• In the early 1980’s Reagan ratcheted up support for the dictator Efrain Rios-Montt who, according to the UN, committed a genocide against Ixil Mayans in the northern highlands of the country.  These actions were supported directly by the weapons and money given to Rios-Montt from the Reagan administration.

These are just a brief overview of the horrid negative effects that my country has had on the beautiful country that I currently live in. What if another country even tried these actions in our homeland?  How would Americans react?  

While I am living my dream, I am often torn with the guilt of the actions my country took here.  Everyday I see the challenges that Guatemala faces and so much of the negative facets of life   here can be directly linked to the coup of 1944 and the aftermath of brutal dictatorships that divided this country and created violence as the norm.  Look what my country has done.  Worse yet, so few American even know or care.  

I wonder if I’m doing any good here or just making a difficult situation worse?  While I’m living my dream, my country helped to create a nightmare of a situation in much of Central America.  The little I’ve mentioned here is just the tip of the iceberg of the USA’s negative influence in this country and region.  My hope is that in some tiny way I can inspire hope and progress in this often times forgotten, but incredibly beautiful corner of the world.

Teaching Again... (Part 1)

         In just a few short weeks from now my wife, daughter and I will be moving to the middle of the Pacific Ocean and I will be teaching again.  When I decided to take a year off and stay at home with my new daughter I was excited and didn’t think a year away would be a big deal.  In fact, I have missed it dearly.  I can’t wait to get to Majuro and meet my colleagues and prepare the second semester for my new students.  I’m very excited to meet my new students and begin our journey for the rest of the year.

           

            I feel so fortunate to teach.  Being able to have had the colleagues that I have had and the former students that I have had is a genuine blessing.  Being able to participate in the education of a generation is humbling.  It is clear that a good education makes a positive impact in the future of countries, communities and an individual’s life.  A good education lowers crime and poverty, increases tolerance and citizenship and ultimately creates better people.  Education isn’t just about finding a job someday down the road.  That is part of it to be sure, but if we give into the idea that education is only for practical purposes then we have lost what the purpose of education truly is.

“Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.”  -  Thomas Jefferson

            One of our greatest Founding Fathers is pointing to the fact here that our freedoms and in fact the sustainability of our country depends on creating an educated citizenry.  We may think that is over exaggerated and a bit silly, but history shows us that when a citizenry becomes manipulated and dictated to and loses the qualities of a good education anything resembling democracy ceases to function. 

“Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.”  -  Martin Luther King Jr.

            Education is about more than reading, writing and arithmetic.  It has to be about creating better people and better citizens.  It has to be about encouraging our students to be the best versions of themselves that they can be and to find truly where their gifts and passions lie.  If education is merely about facts and data then we have given into the silly notion that everything can be quantified.  Math and science are extremely important disciplines to learn, but we can’t treat our students like they are merely a data point on a chart.  We have to care for our students and, as one of my mentors taught me, “…every moment in the classroom can be a life changing moment for one of your students.”