Published August 10, 2005

The second half of my three months in Valparaiso, Chile, has been filled with productive activities. I felt that I was getting off to a slow start, but the project to create new university programs for the preparation of teachers in grades 5 through 8 is now well off the ground. I was most nervous about giving my first big professional presentation in Spanish to the inaugural Chilean national conference on middle grades teacher preparation. The three day conference was held in late July here at the Catholic University of Valparaiso. My presentation, on the US approach to middle grades teacher education, was well received. I had illustrated my PowerPoint with photos of Chilean young adolescents, based on my visits to many schools here. That was intriguing to the audience of university professors. I think they were a little taken aback when I asked for audience participation...that just is not part of the routine in Chile. But they responded admirably, and I was greatly pleased and relieved when I was done. I enjoyed participating in the remaining activities, including helping to write standards for social studies teachers in grades 5 through 8 in Chile, attending breakout sessions, and meeting with the executive board of the national teacher preparation project to plan activities for the next two years.

As a result of the conference, I was invited to travel north to the desert city of Copiapo, to give the same presentation to an audience of professors and teacher education students at the University of Atacama. While there, I lodged at the home of a lovely Rotarian couple who kept me going constantly. After my presentation at the university, they took me to 5 schools in 2 days to visit with teachers and kids, and to see two teaching stations for students with visual impairments. These stations were the gift of RotarBlind, the Chilean Rotary project that Sam Vakil of RC San Marcos supports with his time and effort. And then there was the 9 PM Rotary Club Copiapo dinner and meeting, where my short talk sparked a discussion of Chilean education that went on til midnight. These late night Chilean Rotary meetings are really something.

I was pooped after all that activity, and yet my 3 days of R and R in the LaSerena and Vicuna area turned out to be active in an entirely different way, on the go to dusty small towns that have their own attractions. In MonteGrande I visited the old schoolhouse which is now a museum to the local Nobel Laureate poet, Gabriela Mistral. She was the teacher at that school. Her tomb is on a hillside nearby. Today, back in Vicuna, I visited her birthplace and a municipal museum which contains a lot of her artifacts. When I arrived, I was the only person, but very soon, a teacher and 35 fifth grade students joined me. I said hello to the teacher and explained myself, and lo and behold, she is the president of the local Rotary Club...her school is the Gabriela Mistral School in town, and I wound up spending the next 2 hours at the museum talking to the kids all in a big group, me asking them questions about Gabriela Mistral, and them asking me questions about the US. The kids recited poems for me, and entertained me with information about the poet and the museum. At the end, every one of the kids gave me the Right Cheek Kiss which is regimented for Hello and Goodbye in Chile. I was invited to their school next week for a folkloric dance day, and to Rotary for dinner next Wednesday. Sadly, I could not accept, but I will be thinking of them while I wing my way back to the US. And both nights in Vicuna, I went stargazing at the municipal observatory up on a hill outside of town. FABULOUS, seeing the features of planets and stars so far away.

Published August 5, 2005

I am presently in Copiapo in the north of Chile, having given a presentation to faculty and students at the University of Atacama last evening. This is one of the five universities in our consortium. Yesterday I went to two urban schools and today to three rural schools to meet folks and answer questions from the kids in grades 5 through 8. One of the schools I went to today was Paul Harris School. One of the urban schools from yesterday has a teaching station from RotarBlind in Santiago...headed by Sam Vakils friend Andre LaFoulan. By the way, I survived the big presentation at the national meeting a week ago, and everyone said I did well, so I will accept that decision and be happy. The invitation to do the presentation in Copiapo came from the professors who attended the national meeting...they invited me and here I am, having done the same presentation here for their large group.

Published June 26, 2005

Report from Chile
Janet McDaniel, Professor of Education, California State University San Marcos
University Professors Grant Recipient, RI District 5340

I arrived in Chile in mid-May to start my three-month Rotary University Professors grant experience in Valparaiso and Vina del Mar. These are neighboring cities about 90 minutes by bus from the capital city of Santiago. Valparaiso is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a fascinating city with old and new residences clinging to the many hillsides that overlook the important fishing and shipping port on the Pacific Ocean. Vina del Mar is an adjoining old city with a modern addition that has made the beach into a tourist resort destination in summer (it is winter here now, so quite deserted during this foggy and damp season). I am working at the Catholic University of Valparaiso, but both my office and home are in Vina del Mar (or Vina, as it is known). The teacher education and psychology departments of the university are on the branch campus in Vina.

My work is with teacher education professors in the five Chilean universities that received a grant from the Ministry of Education to reform the professional preparation of Chilean teachers for grades five through eight. At California State University San Marcos, I serve as professor and coordinator of the Middle Level Teacher Education Program, so the project here in Chile is a great match with my interest, experience, and expertise.

My first month in Chile has consisted of a crash course in Chilean middle grades education and teacher education. I have visited several public, semi-private, and private schools in an effort to understand the wide range of educational opportunities and challenges in Chile. I have been warmly received in each school, and have taught an occasional English class to young adolescents. At the University, I have become a part of the Department of Education faculty, and I have been able to both observe and teach sessions in teacher education classes.

The teacher preparation grant is getting off the ground slowly, in part due to a delay in the release of governmental funds for grant activities and in part due to uneven degrees of support for the project from the five university faculties involved. I am not surprised at the resistance, as I know from experience how prolonged and painful teacher education reform can be. The faculty members and the directors of the grant at the Catholic University of Valparaiso have been very welcoming and encouraging of my participation in this effort. They are curious about how we in the US have undertaken similar reform measures to improve middle grades teaching and learning, and I have enjoyed sharing our experiences with them. I am included in the departmental deliberations around teacher preparation, and I am looking forward to meeting with members of the five university teacher education departments next week, when we have our first grant meeting with all campuses represented. We have had to reschedule the first Chilean national conference on middle grades teacher preparation until August due to the delay in the release of funds. I am learning to "go with the flow" of events here, as the groundwork we are laying now will eventually pay off.

The project director laughingly says that I may have to go straight from the podium to the airport at the August teacher preparation conference, but we will get the conference in before I return to the US. I am relieved to have additional time to prepare my keynote address. Chilean Spanish, as the Chileans readily point out, is challenging for outsiders to understand and speak due to the rapidity of speech as well as the dropping of the last sound of most words. There are also a zillion or so "Chilenismos"--phrases and words that are uniquely Chilean. I am enjoying the experience of becoming somewhat proficient in this dialect of Spanish.

The Chilean Rotarians have become good friends to me. My hosts, Rotary Club Playa Ancha of Valparaiso, District 4320, meets each Wednesday for mid-afternoon lunch. My host advisor, Margarita Molina, is the incoming president of the club. In Santiago, Rotary Club Vitacura has adopted me whenever I am in the capital. I must say that the Vitacura Wednesday evening dinner meetings wear me out. The Rotarians gather in a hotel banquet room at 9 PM; dinner starts around 9:30; the business meeting starts around 10:30 and wraps up around midnight. Chileans run on a late morning to late evening schedule, which I normally enjoy in the US, but I droop a bit by the time the Vitacura meetings adjourn. I am in contact with several Rotarians from other Chilean clubs, as well as several US students who are here on RI Ambassadorial Scholarships. Rotary is very well-regarded in Chile due to the service contributions that the clubs have made throughout the country. The Playa Ancha club members, for example, built a free public library in the poor Valparaiso neighborhood that they serve. The library and adjoining senior citizen activity center appear to be hubs for neighborhood activity on a daily basis.