Reaction Paper on Jaim Etcheverry's presentation

We were undeniably there - From left to right: Patricia Romano, Jesica Suparo, Carlos Lizárraga and Raquel Soria


When Dr Jaim Etcheverry started his presentation, I felt at ease. The pace of his talking and the rhythm of his voice were captivating. From the beginning to its end, the talk was great. He said things that caught my attention, and some others in which I couldn't agree more.

When he said he would start with a parable, I thought he was going to do something like a mass, where the priest starts reading something from the bible, and then comes the whole sermon. However, I was nicely surprised when I realized that he had changed the parable to make it fit in the main topic of his lecture.

With this parable, I remembered all the things that we have been learning in some of our subjects at teacher training college. Lesson plans, projects, contents, etc were all known to me, but in his words, they sound like a real burden for the teaching practise.

My classmates and me were the youngest people in the audience, which left me with a big question mark in front of my face. I started wondering about the big amount of people who would have been benefited for such incredible, real, and rough comments on Argentinean education system.

All in all, he didn't say many new things. It was the way in which he said everything that was really shocking. I mean, we all know about the divorce between the institutions of family and school, but it's like one of those secrets that everyone knows, although no one does anything or even speak about it.

Personally, seeing education as a way to dimension our own possibilities, was adding one good aspect of it in my life. In other words, for me education is essentially needed and I have never considered it in the way Dr Jaim Etcheverry put it.

I couldn't agree more with the fact that schools have become an accreditation agency, in fact, this was the main reason why I resigned my job two months ago. I tested my students' knowledge and put them the marks that they deserved. In some particular cases, I decided to gift them an opportunity by not giving them the absolute failing mark. Anyway, the head of the English department, in alliance with the school's principal, decided to change almost 80% of the marks of the two courses in which I was in charge. The worst part is that I found out about this criminal act, because of my students' naiveness when they thanked me for giving them a passing mark on their reports even when they had a plain one in the two tests they did.

Another shocking thing is the realization of a black future without education. The fact that we won't be able to live our lives in a safe environment due to others' ignorance and fearless attitude is anguishing. As I always say, my biggest worry is related to the world in which my son will have to live. It's not only caring and being concerned about our future, it's pre-occupying, and actually doing something, for the sake of those younger than us.

It was a great talk. In fact once more, we as a group at teacher training college, have been using our power to ask for more useful education. For example, yesterday we gave one of our teachers some suggestions in relation to a subject that we have during this term. We asked for a better quality in the material used, in this way we will improve our knowledge.

Although Dr Jaim Etcheverry said that he prefers to be quite optimistic regarding our future. At some point I see educational improvement as nothing different from an idealistic utopia. On one hand, because of governments' lack of interest on the topic, and family's tendency to be on the fast lane. On the other hand, because if we want to change the system as it is, we have to start by modifying people's minds. Education takes time, and sadly enough, day by day we find less people willing to accept those conditions. I tried to stand against the system, and the system ended up closing one of its doors to me.