aprendi a quererte y a veces entenderte...

Since leaving school I've been working with Alissa, the Project Aprender Canada coordinator in Chile. My job so far has been quite mind-numbing: I have been compiling mid- and final project evaluations, from volunteers as well as school administrators and project mentor teachers. Lots of tables and graphs, typing, translating, and turning the whole idea of this crazy project over and over in my mind.

Project Aprender Canada is only in its second year. It's still very much a personal project, something that started when Jon (fellow McGillian) met with Fernan ("the godfather") and talked about the possibility of sending McGill kids down to work at the schools run by Corporacion Aprender, of which Fernan is a board member. On a micro level, its about being the first gringo these kids have interacted with: help develop oral skills, provide incentives to learn English, broaden their cultural horizons, act as a positive role model. It's about "si se puede" as much as it is about driving home the point that English is real and useful. English is part of a national education policy in Chile -- which, when you consider the position Chile sees for itself in the world, should hardly be surprising.

There's more than a hint of social justice to it, too. Everything about the way this country works keeps the incredible social inequality in place. In Santiago's nicer neighbourhoods, kids attend schools that are perfectly bilingual. Those that have access to real language education are the ones that already have resources. My kids, in Puente Alto, are not necessarily poor -- at least not most o f them. They're from working families, but they all have cell phones, walk around plugged into their mp3 players, and a decent number (if they can make the grade for the public system) will go to university. But when they apply for an award or a job with a kid who went to Santiago College or Instituto Nacional, they are at an instant disadvantage. Just seeing that they went to a school in Puente Alto, no matter what their marks, can slice their chances. English is a skill that is really valued in the job market, something that can help them get out of the Puente Alto funk.

Obviously, in two and a half months we dinky Canadian uni students are not teaching anyone to speak English. But the fact that we come so far is a boost for the status of English at the school, and hopefully the effects of our sojourn will be felt later. We tried to make learning English fun and more relevant. Aside from my silly warm-up games, I filled my hour-and-a-half classes with listening exercises to things like "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt -- possibly the most-recognized English song of the season. In my beginning English class with the mothers, we started with "Hello, Goodbye" by The Beatles. They loved it...and it was fun for me, too.

There is no doubt in my mind that what we did outside of the classroom was far more important than what we did inside. It's really about the times we sat around fiddling with guitars and singing, talking bands and the Montreal music scene. It's about their questions about Canadian food and winters, and what people in Canada think about Chile. It was their constant marvel that we were friends with Julia and Jon (the volunteers from last year) and that we all got together in Canada. It was talking student mobilisation and gossiping about other teachers. It was about bringing me cuchufli and alfajores (cookies) to try, or burning me a CD by Los Prisioneros, the 80s protest band of choice. It's about the dozens and dozens of new additions to my msn contacts, the e-mails, the requests to post comments on their fotologs.

I learned so much from them. But did I actually teach them anything?



On our last day at school, a group of kids threw us a surprise party, where we were showered with confetti and gifts. The title of this entry comes from a card I got from one of my grade ten girls.

Aprendi a quererte y a veces entenderte, she writes -- I learned to love you and sometimes understand you.

I love it - the fruits of my labour at Colegio Obispo Alvear, put so simply. I always knew I couldn't open my mind for those kids and dump out all my English knowledge in 10 weeks. But I could open my heart and see what happened.

I think it worked out.