RARAMURI / SPANISH BILINGUAL EDUCATION
Bilingual/Bicultural Programs for Indigenous Populations
There is an obvious close correlation between the number of years of formal schooling of the economically active population and their incomes; the effect of poverty varies in accordance with the level of schooling. Even though education has improved by leaps and bounds in Mexico, we cannot deny that we are living in a society with a very low average in years of schooling which is exacerbated by the also inferior quality of that education in public schools. Migration is therefore a source of survival for millions of Mexicans with little education and it has become the face of poverty. The “sending” areas typically lose their best people from a human capital point of view and the productive capacity of those sending areas is thereby reduced in the long run.
It is overwhelmingly clear that in an era of information and knowledge, high quality formal schooling is an inescapable requirement of productivity and international economic competitiveness. As mentioned above, there are many communities in the different states in Mexico that are traditionally “migrant”, i.e. their inhabitants have a long-standing tradition of going to the United States and working there at least temporarily in order to make money for themselves and their families. In these towns, the school drop-out rates are very high. Of course, this is not due only to emigration – it is also because the students and their families do not have the money to continue in school, the home language is one other than Spanish (one of the many indigenous languages spoken in this country), their academic achievement is inadequate because they lack encouragement and support at home, they are not motivated to continue studying because their friends have jobs and are making money, etc. For many of the young people in these places, going to the United States is far more attractive than staying home. In addition, there is the intergenerational poverty transmission phenomenon which makes the children of parents without schooling follow in their footsteps. These kids have few options: work to support the family, become delinquents, or study. In the majority of cases, they choose one of the first two.
The many indigenous migrants that come to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico – whether with the intention to cross the border or to make a new and ‘better’ life for themselves here - have helped to create a unique community. According to the INEGI (National Institute of Geographic Statistics), 42 Indian dialects are spoken in Juarez. One of the most common is Tarahumara, and most Rarámuri (used interchangeably with Tarahumara) children that go to school speak Tarahumara at home and Spanish at school and with each other. The INEGI reports some 16,000 indigenous bilingual speakers in the city. Carlyn James, who heads up the State Tarahumara Agency, says that it is very important to the Tarahumara to stay close to their roots. For the women it is difficult to stop wearing their traditional dresses and many do not. However, the men have to forget about wearing the tagora (white loincloth) if they do not want to be ridiculed by others when they go to work. It is sad to see that many Juarez citizens do not consider the Tarahumara an asset to cherish and neither do they seem to appreciate the way the Rarámuri try to hold on to their culture and traditions.
To most Mexicans, the Indians do not speak languages, they speak dialects; they do not have art, they have crafts; they do not have spirituality, they have superstitions. It is a common belief in Mexico that indigenous languages cannot be written. But the more than 60 languages and well over 300 dialects spoken by the different ethnic groups of this country have their own composition systems, literary creation, narration, stylistic elements, and versification. They are so rich that it is a real shame they continue to be associated with ignorance and backwardness. I believe that this mentality would change dramatically if at least some of the study of the predominant indigenous languages in each region of the country were compulsory for all Mexican students, be it Purépecha in Michoacán, Totonaco , Huasteco, or Náhuatl in Veracruz, or Rarámuri in Chihuahua
Schools as such are not part of the Tarahumara culture; they are foreign to the communities, an imposed culture. Even today, this creates contradictions and confusion. The study of the native language is not compulsory and even today there are cases in which schools prohibit the use of the native language. The Rarámuri have no formal institutions of education for their children. Knowledge and culture are transmitted by the family and the society and both parents and the community authorities are responsible for the education of their youngsters. However, the parents, and older brothers and sisters, are the principal educators with regards to culture, trades, and the skills needed in daily life.
In the schools established by different religious groups and the government – state and federal - improvisation with regards to teachers and materials persist. The contradictions between school education and home education have resulted in the loss of traditional community and cultural values, lack of possibilities to continue the studies, and massive emigration to the cities by young men who become low-paid construction workers. These are some of the negative effects of submitting students to the teaching of a language and a culture different from their own without the benefits of a proper bilingual program. Most Tarahumara schools do not fulfill the needs of the students and the teachers that do have the profile required by the Education Ministry often do not have the cultural profile needed by the community. Most Rarámuri elders believe that schools are alienating the children from the Rarámuri culture because at school these children learn a different way of life and they forget what their ancestors have taught them. However, here I would like to mention that a large percentage of the indigenous population is bilingual or trilingual; for example, Rarámuri-Spanish, Odami or Tepehúan-Spanish; or Rarámuri-Odami or Tepehúan and Spanish.
IN THE CITY:
To find out about the educational issues I went to see a bilingual primary school located on the road to Casas Grandes and another one on the outskirts of the city on the slopes of the mountain. Both schools are simple block buildings with smooth cement floors and the students have desks and a ceiling fan which keeps them relatively comfortable. A lot of Tarahumaras live around the schools in “paracaidista” settlements. This means they built their (mostly one room) houses on land that is privately owned without permission and knowing that they might be run off. However, each settlement has its own Governor (settlement elder) and traditional community organization. The school teachers at one of the settlements have children from two different grades in one classroom and grades go from Kindergarten through fifth grade. Most of the Rarámuri parents will consent to sending their children to school only on the condition that they learn Spanish; they are not really much interested in whatever else they learn. For example, one of the Tarahumara I spoke to was the Governor’s wife who had no idea if her children had passed to the next grade and who was only aware of the fact that they learn Spanish, reading, and writing. Tarahumara children are mostly left to their own devices and discipline as we know it is virtually non-existent. If a child wants to leave the classroom in the middle of a class, he/she does so and nothing is said. Teachers do not know how many children there actually are in a class. Sometimes there are 30, sometimes 20. The best policy for them is not to say anything because if they do, most likely that child will not be back. The fact that the parents are not very involved in their children’s education is, of course, understandable because of their circumstances – they would not know what their children should learn in the city but do know that they need to speak Spanish. As for assessment, at the two above-mentioned Rarámuri settlements, the teacher decides unilaterally whether a student is ready for the next grade. This is in part due to the fact that the standards set by the Education Ministry cannot be enforced in these schools because of the cultural differences.
For most children, it is very difficult to learn to read and write in a language they do not know without the support of the first language. Most of them speak the same Tarahumara dialect at home, but, if they were born in the city, they do not know how to read or write it. However, inexplicably, at the school I visited, children only have a few planned classes per week in Tarahumara, though it is obvious they need much more than that (see some of their work in my photographs). A few of the teachers are Rarámuris themselves and are from different towns in the Chihuahua Sierra. They wear traditional dresses – home-made wide skirts and ruffled blouses – so as to show their pride in their roots and to instill in their students a desire to “defend the customs of their tribes.” One would think that this would be reason enough for them to teach the children in Rarámuri, but they obviously do not know about the benefit this would have and the harm that is done to children who are made to understand that the mainstream culture is “better.” Both schools attend to mestizos and Indians who live in the area. The children learn songs in Spanish and in Rarámuri and participate in traditional Sierra Tarahumara games.
Krashen (1996) believes that conflicting views toward bilingual education are due to several factors. Opposition to bilingual education is most pronounced when an extreme view (only native language instruction) of bilingual education is presented. The parents are very much aware that their children need to speak Spanish in the city in order to survive. When parents are asked about using both languages or are asked about bilingual education in general, responses are much more positive. The reactions from parents depend very much on demographics (gender, length of residency in the city, income, and education), Spanish language proficiency, home language use, and attitudes toward bilingual education. Raramuri is the predominant language spoken in the greater majority of the homes, while both languages are spoken in only a few of the homes. None of the families speak only Spanish at home. Raramuri is the most commonly spoken language of the young children and Spanish is the major language of older children. Most children speak both languages; however, their parents, especially the women, do not. Most parents feel that if children are not proficient in Spanish, they prefer a bilingual classroom to a Spanish only environment but even if their children are proficient in both Spanish and Rarámuri, they would still prefer a bilingual setting to a Spanish only one. Most parents seem to be afraid their children will lose their culture, values, traditions, and customs unless they return to the Sierra, which for most of them is impossible. They believe that the only way for them not to lose their children is to maintain their culture and language and at the same time they know that losing them is almost inevitable.
Program Model and Curriculum Model: There is no specific program model and neither is there a curriculum model. Each Rarámuri teacher does what they think best and it is obvious they have little or no knowledge of the theory and methodology of bilingual education. They loosely follow the Education Ministry’s program adapting their teaching to the particular circumstances. Their main concern is that their students learn to speak, read, and write Spanish. That said, in general the students are taught in both languages – side by side – when necessary (see student work in pictures). Children acquire Spanish from the time they are very small as a survival language. The children I spoke to (see pictures) were all fluent bilinguals which is the norm. An interesting fact is that they even spoke Spanish to each other except when they were fighting. Arguments were in staccato Rarámuri!
According to the INEGI, there are some 140,000 Indians in the State of Chihuahua and the number is increasing. Though the largest community in Juarez is that of the Rarámuris and the Tepehuanes, contrary to popular belief, the most used dialect is Náhuatl, followed by Tarahumara and Chinanteca (spoken by people from Oaxaca). Among the Indians that have come here from different parts of the country there are Pimas, Rarámuris, Tepehuanes, and Guarojíos. Of these, only the Tarahumara have kept their principal traditions; most others soon lose them after they arrive in the city. Among the 42 languages are Chinanteca, Tarahumara, Mixteca, Zapoteca, Popoluca, Huave, Huichol, Náhuatl, Mazahua, Otomí, Pima, Tzoltzil, Mazateco and Maya. This diversity of languages makes bilingual education very difficult as it is impossible to find qualified teachers that speak those languages. Most bilingual schools in the State, therefore, are Tarahumara.
STATEWIDE:
The “Secretaría de Educación Pública” (SEP -State educational department) and the “Instituto Nacional Indigenista” (National Indian Institute) are only now making a serious attempt to prevent further decline of native languages and cultures. They are implementing new pilot bilingual /bicultural programs in order to educate indigenous children living in the Sierra Tarahumara. Because of the attention these programs are getting, they are often better than those in the cities. The curriculum is supposed to be developed on the basis of the cultural and linguistic characteristics of the Tarahumara. However, even though there is an official federal policy with regards to bilingual/bicultural education, this does not mean that this type of education is widely available and neither does it mean that it is effective. Good schools are few and far between. The SEP published an official report called “Fundamentos para la Modernización de la Educación Indígena” (Foundations for the Modernization of Indigenous Education) which contains the general goals of the program. These are:
1. At the end of six years, children will be fluent in all four skills in two languages: they will be able to understand, speak, read and write in both Spanish and their mother tongue. By doing so the indigenous languages of Mexico will be rescued, preserved and developed.
2. A writing system for the Indian languages should be promoted.
3. Indian languages should be used as a subject and a medium of instruction - the old practices of teaching literacy have proved to be ineffective.
It is obvious that these goals are rather inadequate not to mention vague and do not take into account the myriad of additional issues that exist with regard to bilingual and biliterate education. As expected, the programs could not be related to all the indigenous groups in Mexico and have for the most part failed. However, it is not all bad news; in the last couple of decades, the Mexican educational system has slowly become more decentralized and this has given state educational departments more control over local schools. Administrators and educators in the area of indigenous education see this as a positive trend. They can now provide initial, basic educational services to indigenous communities as well as teacher training. It is now also possible to assess the needs of each local and indigenous group and design programs accordingly. This is still done in a kind of helter-skelter way, but it is improving steadily. For example, the aforementioned bilingual/ bicultural programs for indigenous populations of the Sierra Tarahumara developed and put into place by the Coordinación Estatal de la Tarahumara are now in their fourth year of implementation. Concerted efforts have been made to overcome the difficulties this implementation carries with it. Relevant cultural contents have been included in the curriculum and the Tarahumara language is, at least theoretically, employed throughout the pre-school year and the first three grades.
A standardized form of the Tarahumara language has been developed to overcome the difficulty of the various dialects and this has also allowed for the development of materials in Tarahumara. This has helped, but it has also added to the difficulties. The standardization is not understood by the Tarahumara populations who, due to their fragmentation, prefer to use their own dialect and are sometimes not even aware of the fact that other dialects exist. The languages are oral and, generally speaking, community members do not feel the need to know how to write. It is therefore advisable – as we have seen in many of our BLED courses – to introduce the study of the Spanish language gradually emphasizing the functional verbal expressions of both languages. Unfortunately, this is still more the exception than the rule.
There is also now a basic written vocabulary which contains the different varieties, and teacher training courses have been provided for indigenous teachers and non-Tarahumara teachers working in the school systems in indigenous communities in the Sierra. I found an article which mentioned that “in order to reverse the low prestige of the use of the Tarahumara language in class, as well as the stigma attached to bilingual teachers, indigenous bilingual teachers now receive a higher salary than the monolingual Spanish teachers.” The programs that have been successful and that are more culturally relevant have made indigenous parents more comfortable about sending their children to school and when the teacher is also Tarahumara, this is even more so. However, there are still many problems to solve and the programs have a long way to go. The number of bilingual teachers is far too limited to cover the actual need, and it is uncertain to what extent the bilingual/bicultural program is being implemented by individual teachers. An in-depth study of teachers' attitudes and practices in the classroom would be necessary to define the impact of the program on the education of the Tarahumara student.
The Tarahumara of the Sierra face intense encroachment by the majority society. In order to maintain their language and culture, genuine bilingual/bicultural programs are a must, but they must not be seen as the sole solution. The language must be strengthened in daily family and social life and the Rarámuris must be given the opportunity to be economically self-sufficient and independent from outside society. I do not want to sound jaded, but this, as we all know, is utopia in Mexico. Taking small steps and having minor successes is more realistic.
“Chabochi” is what he Tarahumara call the white men and ‘mestizos’ of the cities, outside society. But they themselves are fast becoming Chabochi and few actually maintain their traditions once they live in the cities, no matter how hard they try. Even though there is the occasional Tarahumara university graduate who goes back to the Sierra to transmit his/her knowledge, this is not enough by a long shot and in reality most schools in the cities as well as in the Sierra are, as Enrique Servin, a researcher from Juarez, calls them “Chabochi factories.” The children enter monolingual in Tarahumara and leave monolingual in Spanish. Mexican poet Carlos Montemayor has said that Mexico cannot be considered a multicultural country without the continued use of and contact with indigenous languages. The teaching of these languages must begin in elementary school or even before and produce truly literate citizens who understand their rich cultural heritage in their own mother tongues. Let us not forget that the Tarahumaras have an absolute right to preserve their social values and traditions, even in the twenty-first century and even in this global world.
I found one true success story with regards to bilingual education in Uringuitiro, Municipio de Los Reyes, in Michoacan. Having found this one, I am hoping that means there are many more. Even though my analysis concerns the Tarahumara, I do want to include this story as an example of what can be done when there is a real interest in the education of the people. I obtained the information from an article written by Jaime Marquez in the Universal newspaper of October 13, 2006 and did a quick web search to corroborate the information. The Benito Juarez School in Uringuitiro went from being a “punishment” school for new teachers to a national model for the teaching of indigenous languages in Mexico. Its methodology is unique and can be summed up as the formation of “coordinated bilinguals.” In this poverty stricken, dusty town, the official language is Purépecha, and it is not until the third grade that children begin to learn Spanish by means of a method which is now the model for the teaching of native languages on an international level. Everardo Cano Flores is the principal of the Benito Juarez indigenous school in Uringuitiro, 220 kilometers west of Morelia in the Meseta Purépecha. “This is a true bilingual school,” he says, “Spanish is the second language because here the mother tongue is Purépecha.” According to some experts, over 60 Amerindian languages are spoken in Mexico and there are over 350 dialects with an enormous diversity of grammatical structures.
However, there is no intercultural bilingual education to speak of due to the fact that in practice there is really no educational model to teach these languages. According to a study done by the Instituto Científico de Culturas Indígenas – ICCI – (Scientific Institute of Indigenous Cultures), this would require “coordinated bilingual” teachers, i.e., teachers who can understand, speak, read, and write the indigenous language as well as the Spanish language and who are, in addition, educated and trained to teach these skills to the Indians. In Uringuitiro there are eight such qualified bilingual teachers who live in and are part of the community and who begin – in the first and second grade - by teaching the children – in Purépecha – about subjects related to their community; planting and harvesting, music, celebrations, weddings, food, the environment, plants, and animals. Once the children are in the third grade, parallel instruction is initiated in Spanish.
In the third and fourth grade, children learn to read and write in Purépecha as well as in Spanish. Every day, the children – 100 in Uringuitiro and 80 in San Isidro – speak and write in Spanish for one hour and the rest of their class time they speak their mother tongue. One of the classrooms contains 10 computers with Uantakua (language) software which is based on an intercultural bilingual support webpage elaborated by the Purépecha children and which includes elements of their choice in their own language. The method also involves the parents who learn, teach, and transmit to their children their knowledge of daily life in their own language.
The method of teaching indigenous languages employed in the primary schools of Uringuitiro and the neighboring village of San Isidro has become an alternative didactic proposal that has attracted the attention of bilingual teaching experts from the United States to Chile, Canada, and Brazil. In addition, the principal of the San Isidro school, Gerardo Alonso Méndez, was invited to Bolivia to present a paper on the results of this method, and teachers from both schools have often been invited to teach workshops on the application of the system in the states of Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Yucatán. Despite the lack of money, materials, infrastructure, etc., the teachers have accomplished what many thought would be impossible, not only as far as academic results are concerned, but also in regards to the children’s self confidence and self esteem. In these two towns, there is no place for discrimination and stigmatization of indigenous languages. When the children finish the sixth grade, they are “coordinated bilinguals” because they speak, understand, write, and read both Purépecha and Spanish.
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