Miguel pulls a Charles Comiskey

“There is nothing more difficult...than to take the lead in introducing a new order of things.”
-Machiavelli

Machiavelli was right. New ideas are not very readily accepted to those unfamiliar with them. And not only are people who try to introduce a new order of things given a hard time and ignored, but they are shunned; many people of their time consider them to be crazy. It is often not until many years later that they are finally given their due respect. Galileo Galilei, for instance, an Italian physicist who publicly supported the heliocentric view of the earth, was denounced by philosophers and clerics of his day, and put on house arrest. Martin Luther was excommunicated by the catholic church for saying that people should be able to read the bible themselves. One-hundred years ago, the most advanced method of training to run a marathon was to walk long distances. What did people think of the first guy they saw running? Hell, in the 1950s, EVERYONE shot free throws GRANNY style. I think we can safely conclude that people get a little anxious, and are indeed skeptical, when it comes to the implementation of new ideas.

Fast forward to 2011 in rural Paraguay. Profesor Miguel is trying to take the lead in introducing a new order of things in the local schools. Specifically, I attempting to have the kindergarten teachers in the area teach words and all of the letters of the alphabet to their students. Currently, the teachers teach the kids only the vowels a, e, i, o, and u. The whole year. Of. Kindergarten. This boggles my mind. When I was a teacher’s aid Galesburg, I saw even the most troubled kids end the year reading at least 20 words, while the brightest kids could read short books. 5 and 6 year olds minds are simply ripe for the word learnin’! And this lack of teaching words in kindergarten has a reverse snowball effect. The kids start off handicapped already, so it is no surprise that their are a lot of drop outs and unsuccessful students.

Luckily I am developing some pretty good persuasion AKA psychological manipulation skills in the Peace Corps in order to deal with situations like this. Here is the conversation I had with my kindergarten teacher today:

Profesora G “Miguel, what are you planning on doing in my kindergarten class this year?”

Miguel “Actually, I was just about to talk to you about that. I would like to talk about some objectives for the end of the year.” (Pause, allow this to sink in.) “This is an intelligent group of kids we have this year. I think we can put some high expectations on them.”

Profesora G “Si, son inteligentes. So what is it that you had in mind?”

Miguel “Gladys, I know this is something that you have never done, but I would like to try to teach them to read words by the end of the year. And all of the letters, not just the vowels.”

Profesora G “But the system has always been, we teach them just the vowels in kindergarten. We don’t start teaching the vowels until July.”

Miguel “Yes, but this is a really smart group. I think we should try to teach them a lot more this year. Why not?”

Profesora G “But they don’t teach words in Farinakue and Kilometro 14 [two nearby schools]. The system is to teach just the vowels in kindergarten.”

Miguel “Gladys, I’m going to be honest. I have seen classes, in Paraguay, where kids leave kindergarten able to read short books. I think we can just try this year, experiment a bit, to see how much we can teach them. I want this kindergarten class to be an example for all of the schools in the area. Why not try at least?”

Profesora G “We shall see what we can do.”

What was funny to me was that how she kept repeating ‘But we always do it this way. That is our system.’ Well, I am a messenger to tell her that a new system is needed, one that maximizes kid and human potential. To stay patient, I often place myself in her shoes, and think about the fact that she probably views me and my ideas as quite ‘out there,’ probably much like the first person who said the world was round was viewed by his peers.

In the early 1900s in baseball, the 1st baseman stood on first base, the 2nd baseman on second, and the 3rd baseman on third base. People thought Charles Comiskey was crazy when he had his players stand off of the the bases to cover more ground. Oh he was crazy. Crazy like a fox...

Galelio, Martin Luther, Profesor Miguel.

I can now say my name is published in a sentence with historical legends. Gotta love the internet.



Citrus fruits and avocados, baby.