15016: Jhudicourtb: RE Krashan on Education (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JHUDICOURTB@aol.com

"So, by changing the educational system to one where all children will learn
and can excel, ultimately transending class lines, you are engaging in a
revolution, that will ultimately transform the society.  That is why Friere
was originally thrown out of Brasil and why literacy was not on the
government agenda before Aristide. "
I think that Krashan did not finish her sentence.  She should add "and
education continues to be off the government's agenda"
Building schools has little to do we changing education.  The only time there
was a revolutionary agenda for education in Haiti was when Joseph Bernard was
minister of Education under Jean Claude Duvalier and the government (and
international funding sources) wanted the whole system (including private
schools) to start  school in Creole.  Some members of the bourgeoisie went
ballistic about that but the materials  and work produced by the Institut
Pedagogique National during the years between 1978 and 1984 are still the
best educational material on the market for Haitian children.  The IPN
curriculum is also still the only official government curriculum.  The
Aristide-Preval administrations have produced ZERO.  All their energy goes
into turning off fires and defending the government.  From 1985 to the
present there has been NOTHING they can show for themselves except putting in
practice some of the goals of the Bernard reform:  the sixth grade exam is
offered in both Creole and French.  The end of Ecole Fondamentale exam at the
10th grade has become institutionalized; they also test Creole reading.  All
schools following the Haitian program MUST teach reading and writing in
Creole.  What are teenagers supposed to do when they reach sixth grade at the
age of 16 or 10 th grade at the age of 25.  There are no programs beyond what
was planned by the Duvalier government and the Aristide government's silly
Alfa programs are completely misguided.  Graduating 71 year old  primary
readers may feel good for the government but the true reality is that half
the population is under the age of 18 and government programs should be
directed at the 12 to 25 year olds who need work skills other than restavek
and gason lakou.
If you do that the person who is president in 2055 won't need Alfa-betizasyon
for the elderly.  The people in power during the Aristide/Preval government
have been extremely conservative.  They want everything to stay the same as
it was.  They have no new ideas and no revolutionary vision of the young
educated Haitian.  They want the new generations to look just like the old
one: parrots or JAKO REPET.  Go watch Aristide's speeches; that's how he
educates his people.  He says: "repete apre m:  "ane sa Haiti pral 2003 fwa
pi bel" (repeat after me: this year Haiti will become 2003 times more
beautiful).  That is such a disgustingly backwards way of treating the people
of Haiti.  This government has no concept of what a thinking Haitian youth is
like.  I do.  Every day I see young people who have been discarded by Haitian
schools come to the states and become brilliant because in Boston we have a
few very outstanding teachers in programs called "literacy" using Freirian
methods with children who are at the middle school age but can't read.    In
Haiti our children remain wasted.