Berkley Center

Background: As part of the Education and Global Social Justice Project, in July 2011 undergraduate student Codie Kane interviewed Angela Orellana Franco, a school teacher in Nueva Trinidad, El Salvador. She is a community leader, having held a set on the community directive and as a participant in the Women’s Committee. In this interview, Orellana Franco discusses the transition from popular to government-regulated schools, the role of the church in supporting education, and the need to promote the value of education to locals.

Tell me about your experience as a teacher and community member. How did you arrive at your present career?

I was born in Carasque, but my family left the area for six years during the civil war. We returned in 1986. By that point, it had become obvious that there were many kids here growing up without an education because they had no one to teach them. Our priest, Father Miguel, began to promote the idea of having literate youth fill this role. He found two people who were willing to do so. They gave informal classes until they decided to enter the guerrilla army, leaving their posts to fight. Without teachers once again, the town began to look for new people who wanted to help. Vicenta [Orellana Franco], another teacher at the Carasque school, and I stepped forward. We became popular teachers, in charge of educating all of the community’s youth. As more children joined our informal school, we needed assistance. We added two more professors to our team in 1989 and another in 1991.

From the beginning, the parish provided us, as well as the other popular teachers in the region, with training. They had encouraged us to start our own schools and thus felt that they should support us in our efforts. They gave us courses on didactics and child development. The lessons were relatively simple because our knowledge was so minimal. After all, most of us had reached a grade level that was only just higher than that of the children we were supposedly helping to shape.

Later, we entered into a more formal training process. We discussed teaching methods and lesson plans at the same time as we attempted to complete our schooling. We took basic education, high school, and, finally, college courses. Our university experience was made possible through a special program organized by the parish and the University of El Salvador. They had university professors come to a nearby village to work with us on weekends. They also got us scholarships to pay for matriculation fees, transportation, and a little food. In this way, we could continue teaching at the same time as we studied. We were incredibly appreciative of it. We knew that the professors traveled in horrible conditions to reach us and that they were witnesses to our struggle. We’re still in touch with them today.

Ultimately, we graduated with teaching degrees, but without government recognition. Though we were both certified and actively working, the Ministry of Education continued to classify us as informal, unsalaried volunteers distinct from the national education system. We began negotiating to try to change this, eventually achieving success with the passage of the Education with Participation of the Community (EDUCO) program. EDUCO wasn’t ideal, but it was our only way to reach our goal without having to seek legal settlement. It facilitated the entrance of 35 popular teachers into the official system in 1999 and the rest of the group by the end of 2000.

When we started work under EDUCO and began to incorporate the government’s education standards into our classrooms, we found, interestingly, that the program was basically an official version of what we had already been doing. The Ministry of Education had investigated our schools previously, and it seemed that they had made use of what they had found. We were told that we had to have kids work in groups, for instance, and that we should meet with students’ families. We were required to use curriculums that were almost copies of our own. We were frustrated by the fact that we had been ignored by the state because we supposedly lacked credibility, yet we had been doing the same things all along.

Recently, EDUCO ended, and the Salary Law was passed. This means that all teachers in the country work under a single education system. We, the teachers in rural areas, now get a salary equal to that of everyone else. This is a huge achievement.

I am currently a second, third, and fourth grade teacher in Carasque. This entails so many responsibilities. I am not only a professor; I am also an administrator, janitor, and accountant. I’m a parent to the students who live without their mothers or fathers.

I also struggle to teach three grades in the same room. It’s a lot of work. I have to balance the attention I give to each age group. It’s better, however, than teaching both in the morning and in the afternoon. I did that for one year and found it exhausting. Between teaching, planning lessons, and going to meetings, I never went to bed before midnight.

Describe to me the state of education in your community, Carasque, from your point of view. What are the positive aspects? What are the challenges?

Few students from this area pursue higher education. Most get their high school diplomas, but only a small number go on to college. They either cannot or do not want to continue studying. Some are limited by financial constraints. They are unable to afford travel or tuition expenses and do not come from families who have the resources to support them. Others decide to have children early. They get married and start families as teenagers. Only those who are truly invested continue further. Unfortunately, however, they find that attending college is just as hard, if not harder, than making the decision to go. They must move to San Salvador and find a way to afford housing and food in the city. If they decide to go to a private university, they have to pay substantial tuition costs. In El Salvador, there’s no institution designed to help students like this. There’s nowhere that they can go, explain their situation, and get assistance to attend school. The only institution to which needy youth can turn is the parish. Through its Desarollo Hermano Popular program, it provides scholarships to motivated students. It gives very little money, but it helps significantly. Some applicants receive transportation funding, while others get free housing. Aware of the challenges associated with continuing their education, many students don’t dare hope of studying past high school. They do not invest themselves in their schoolwork so that they never have to feel disappointed. This has a negative impact on the atmosphere in local schools.

Could you tell me more about the school in Carasque, in particular?

The primary challenge in Carasque is getting students and their families to understand the importance of education. They must recognize that school is the basis for all family and community development and that knowledge is one thing that can never be taken away from a person.

Our situation is also complicated by politics. In El Salvador, education is highly politicized. All educational materials and policy, as well as everything on television and in print, are aligned with particular political parties. This is not conducive to unbiased, quality learning. At the school, we try to shift past it. We attempt to look beyond the pretty pictures that politicians paint and get to reality. Such work is time-consuming and exhausting for teachers, but essential.

I think that our focus on truth and realism is a product of our experience of the civil war. It represents an effort to hold onto the lessons we learned during the struggle. We cannot forget our past or let it be twisted to serve a present political agenda. In school, therefore, we teach students how to live history. We want them to understand that we need to know where we’ve come from in order to move forward, particularly if they don’t learn this in the home.

In the case of the school, perhaps the most serious issue we face is lack of resources. We are told what we have to do by the government, but we are given no funding or materials with which to do it. As a result, we are forced to turn to other institutions for support. We received our library, sound system, and kitchen, for example, from regional NGOs. We have relationships with schools and communities in the United States that donate money and resources. We work with one Carasque native, for instance, who is currently living in Maryland. With the help of the young people in his town, he sends us $400 to $500 a year.

How does education here affect the community as a whole?

In the past 20 to 30 years, both the community and its education system have developed significantly. Now, it has adequate health and sanitation services, as well as high literacy rates. Its citizens are conscious of the outside world and critical about what they learn.

I hope that this positive relation between education and community life continues in light of El Salvador’s current situation. It is mired in criminality and delinquency. Its problems are associated with immigration, poverty, and family neglect. The school may represent one way to combat such issues. It can teach values and morality. It can prevent children from going down the wrong path.

In your experience, what has been the role of the Church and the parish in education in this community?

The Church has played an important role in education. The Jesuits, in particular, have been key in identifying and working to correct educational injustices. Committed to the idea that one must denounce the wrongs that one sees, they discuss with us the unfortunate realities of the local educational system.

The parish, specifically, helps provide us with resources. It has donated student uniforms on multiple occasions and computers so that we’re able to hold computer education classes. For Earth Day and Immigrant Week, it provides us with material to help explain these issues and their importance to our classes.

It also has a scholarship program, Desarollo Hermano Popular. This program is coordinated by Father Donald Valinger and the local parish priests. It is based on the idea of providing students with education so that they can return to their communities and use their new skills to drive local development.

What’s the future of education here? What’s your vision of an ideal future?

Education has a bright future in Carasque. It will improve and, in turn, provide us with the knowledge that we need to move forward as a community. My challenge, as a teacher, is to promote its importance. I must show students that they have to take advantage of all the opportunities that they are given, and that they must fight for their right to study.