Here's excerpts from an article written by Osmel Almaguer for the Havana Times.
“Students here have no interest in learning,” said the principal of the polytechnic institute where I recently started working as a teacher.
“Just take it easy; treat it like a way to survive, because if you try to force yourself it’s useless when you consider the immaturity and apathy of our students,” he concluded…
The corruption in these schools — as everyone knows — includes teachers selling tests to students. For a minimum of 5 CUCs (about $5.50 USD) a student will pass, and for 10 CUCs they’ll get the highest grade in the class. It’s also common for there to be sex between male teachers and female students, whether or not it’s grade related.
In my short experience in teaching the subject of Spanish literature, what has caught my attention is the marked contrast between the sexual lust of these students and their immaturity as people…
What’s saddest is that the government requires the students to be promoted, without taking into account that the responsibility for these learners passing depends on their own work as much as on the teachers.
If almost everyone fails a test, the blame isn’t placed on the lack of generalized interest, but on the inability of the teacher, who will see their pay docked and will probably close their contract.
Collective experience has taught this to the students, who have also learned to keep their teachers vulnerable to blackmail in this respect.
In other words, the individual student doesn’t make an effort because the responsibility lies entirely with the teacher, regardless of the fact that none of them study anything at home, at least nothing other than reggaeton, dancing, fashion and cellphones.
A teacher has almost no tools to discipline or educate their students, not to mention their problems with parents, who only care about complaining to the school’s administration when their child is suspended or punished...
