No pictures this time, yea I know, que fome. But, I have learned a great deal about the strikes and this is actually a cool time to be here in Chile witnessing the changes occurring here, right now. Obviously the students in the universities are on strike. They have not been in school for 3 months. The ‘colegios’ or 1st grade to high school(some are just to 8th grade as well) have been taken as well. And ‘En Toma’ means ‘Is Taken’, Tomar is to take, for those of your who are illiterate in Spanish. Ok, so for 3 months, the colleges and high schools have been in toma. That means the juniors and seniors take the high schools(well the connecting grade schools too). That means the basico students(elementary students) are not going to school as well, if the school is connected with the basicos(I know some are not). So all in all, the university students and the late high school-ers want free education in the universities. Because the education here is more expensive and is worse off than in the united states, however has the same problems we do with the privatization with the universities. After the golpe(coup) of Pinochet in the 70’s he brought in capitalists that wanted to change the system of education, they did, they privatized majority of the universities. So receiving an education is very expensive(think USA), however the degrees are worth much, like the USA(IMO) with our recession occurring. There was a referendum in the 80’s that still let this occur, but they stopped opening more private universities so the public ones could compete. Nonetheless the fact remains that a normal person cannot pay the interest and payments if they are on minimum wage here, which is around 350 USD a month, the cost for the university is around $400. So how do you pay that, even while living with your parents?
There have been strikes here before in Chile with the students, the last one was called the penguin strike, because they called all the students penguins, because of their uniforms. In fact, even in public schools the students all wear uniforms. Anyway, this has been the longest strike here in Chile, I don’t see the students giving up nor do I see the government buckling. Yes in Chile there have been other student/teacher strikes, almost 2 every year, and in Santiago especially, not the entire country. And they can look at Mexico to where their students all went on strike for 9 months and finally succeeded in getting free higher education. You may ask yourself, How in the world are these high school students organized for this? Well If you look back to my post about the forum my students had about their school government you can see why the students had many debates and talks about this, rather than it being a popularity contest. The schools are well organized from top(arica) to bottom(puntas arenas). And it should be said that my representative here told me she thinks near 75% of the schools in Chile are en toma.
However, closer to home. There are 2 universities here, and one technical school. All three are still somewhat open, being that the one public university has different classes for ‘private’ students in which if they pay more their schooling still goes on during a strike (which when they occur at least once a year, that’s smart). The other university is private and so is the technical school, so both still have classes. My students did take my school, however this was the second time they tried to take it. The first time they were refused by the carabineros/police. Here is a video of that night.
Ok so after they were refused from entering the school, 28 students were brought to detention center in the police station for the day… Fast forward a week. We have a reunion/meeting with the students/parents/teachers, it was supposed to be an informative meeting, but some parents got up and starting talking about what is going on, one attacked the principle for calling the police. Anyway the top demands of the students were at this reunion:
1. 1.The principle must resign
2. 2.Public apology from the police for being very rough.
3. 3.That no students will be expelled from participating in the protests/strikes/toma.
4. 4.No teacher will be fired for supporting the students/helping them with the takeover.
Ok, so those were the demands. The first demand was because the principle called the cops on the students. It was not his idea, he IS the principle, but not the president, if you ever went to a catholic school you would understand this. That the diocese is in control of the school, so here in Arica, the Bishop made the call(the decision, not the literal call) and still doesn’t want the students taking control of the school. Anyway, if those demands were met, the students would let the basico students in an area of the school where they could have classes(note they would still be on strike and still support the other students in the country). This is like a hostage situation. In my opinion their first two demands are unwarranted; the students shouldn’t believe that they can make the principle of the school resign. Because if they get away with that, it shows them that they have the power to change: teachers they don’t care for, and hell, it could mean they could even change the curriculum. They should not, and won’t get that. Therefore leading me to believe it is like a hostage situation with the students asking for more time…. Their other demand: a public apology from the police/principle. Well while the principle was talking to the students about being at the school the next day at 2 pm to apologize with some officers of the police force. One mom got pissed, got her son/daughter to grab all the students that were outside the gym (this was after about 1.5 hours of talking about this) to come back inside. She then decides to interrupt the principle and say ‘what about now?’ apologize to all the students now, now that they are all here, in front of the other parents, the other teachers. Messed up, and I believe, kind of embarrassing. Anyway the students should have never said anything about a teacher perhaps getting fired from this and or helping, because no one that I know has helped the students, but then again this is a small city and word could get out…
Besides, that happened last week, or two weeks ago if you are talking about the toma. I have not been in school for two weeks, and I have gone out a lot more during the week, and have been incredibly bored during the day, well at times. But like I said I don’t see both sides compromising anytime soon. There is the anniversary of the when Pinochet bombed La moneda or the Chilean “White House” in 1973, on September 11th. I think that my students are at least waiting until this date to do something/compromise.
Like I said in another post here, I am still torn on the privatization of school, but I support the students, change is good. But do I wholly believe good will come out of it? I don’t know. Their tax now on everything here is at 19%(IVA), I think that if the universities were to become free, that 19% would jump to at least 25% or 30%. I mean who else is going to pay for all of this(teachers/programs/technology)? And we DO NOT want another Greece, Spain, even in the States(45% of the dollar goes to the government). Too much government control = everyone wants a government job, meaning who is paying that 19% or 45% for the government? Who really wants to create a business and give half of your profit to the government?
