¡Gracias a Dios Esta Viernes!

So it's been a long, long week here in Ecuador. At least for me anyway. I got in a long and confusing situation with my 6th grade class (which is my pride and joy) and chances are good that they will hate me for much of the semester. But like Mike says, it's not my job to be their friend. It's my job to be their English teacher. It's not my job to make them like me. It's my job for them to speak and comprehend the English language.

Sometimes, though, particularly after a rousing speech by the primary school disciplinarian, amusingly named Victor Hugo), I feel that teaching English is this terribly colonial thing to do. Like the future success of my students hinges on their ability to speak and write in English when the success of a native English speaker is not equally contingent on his or her knowledge of other tongues. This is part of the solidarity argument. Adam once described solidarity as those of us blessed with opportunity getting down on our stomachs and pulling with all of our collective might to bring up those without opportunity. Our egalitarian goals should include a lot of work for the priviledged too. It's not enough that I should teach Enlgish. I should have to study Spanish with equal effort. The combined work toward the understanding of the language of the Other is what puts us on the road to solidarity. And we're learning more everyday that solidarity with the poor is not a place that we can arrive at. It is just a place we've heard of and we're trying more and more to head in that direction.

That's the view from Arbolito...
- Meredith