global212

Bilingual education is certainly under scrutiny and derision, not unlike similar commentaries in the U.S. Only in this case Spanish is the language of power and the argument goes that indigenous speakers will not learn Spanish, will not "assimilate" into society. Sounds familiar doesn't it? Instead of celebrating the ability to know two languages, it's squelched.
While bilingual education is state mandated and textbooks are provided in the indigenous languages, not all of the languages are printed, and those which have multitudes of varieties, like Mixteco, find that only one or two or the varieties are available. For Mixteco, while there are over 40 varities in the state of Oaxaca, only four are printed in textbooks. The same goes for Guerrero, where four varieties are spread throughout the state, but only one variety is printed out in textbook form. This puts a lot of pressure on the teachers who may, or most likely not, speak the variety of Mixteco presented in the textbooks. So teachers end up recreating materials in the proper variety or not teaching it completely due to the labor intensity, to be only complicated by a lack of teacher training - a paltry state of affairs indeed.
We were welcomed with such a warm reception by the school community and the town elders. Prior to going we took up a collection and gave each of the students and the teachers a bag of school supplies. We stayed at the school for most of the afternoon, playing basketball with the kids, eating lunch and learning a few songs in our pathetically off pitch and rudimentary Mixteco.