Good Kids

Many of San Pancho’s teenagers attend the closest public high school in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, a village 10 miles away. No school bus picks them up; they wait along the highway for the same “Pacifico” buses everyone uses. I taught English for a few years at their school, CETMAR #6 (Centro de Estudios Tecnologicos del Mar). So when I spot kids in uniform, I feel as though I know them and offer them a lift.

My students were good kids. “Hasta nobles/almost noble,” said one of my co-workers about some of them. They had their issues, of course, but in my experience, disciplining themselves in the classroom was rarely a problem. A few reasons for this come to mind.

First, they knew each other really well. Coming from neighboring small towns around the Bay, they chose a major, e.g. marine mechanics, industrial fishing, accounting, were organized into co-ed groups of about 40, and were given a space to call their own (teachers were the rovers, moving from room to room). The group then stayed together for all their classes throughout the three years of high school.

(Shameless book plug alert!) As I described in Remember the Sweet Things, “the affection they felt for each other was palpable; the help they gave one another on assignments impressive. No one was ostracized; loners self-selected to remain aloof. In my three years at CETMAR, I never witnessed a deliberate unkind act in my classroom---these kids bore with or laughed off the loudmouth, the mentally challenged, the too-cool-for-school, the deaf-mute, the prima donna with the only cell phone who had permission to be excused every twenty minutes ‘to take a very important call.’ “

Second reason for strong classroom discipline: The group elected a leader every year and gave the position teeth. This was not a popularity contest---the group expected its leader to motivate performance and maintain order. So did the school administration. Usually a top student served as group leader. If teachers had a problem with a student, they could ask for help from the group leader who might also provide a more complete picture of what was happening in that kid’s life. Appropriate, I think, in this Mexican relationship-centered world, where who you are counts for as much as what you do.

Third reason: It cost something to stay in school, and you value what you pay for. CETMAR students paid for transportation, lunch, classroom supplies (jugs of water, chalk, enamel board markers, erasers). They even paid for their handouts and tests(50 centavos per sheet). So to fool around and waste this opportunity for an education was to also waste someone’s hard-won money. My students, predominantly working class kids, seemed wise enough to appreciate and act on this fact of their life.