Jim Cooper. "Down on the Island": Helping

The summer of 2013 I worked as an assistant teacher in the public school of Manti, Augusto Cohen. Before giving the elemental kids one of their diagnostic tests, the teachers made a mini reunion with us, the teachers assistant, and told us that if any of the students had trouble doing any exercise we have to “help” them. But if they don’t get it after all we had to tell them the correct answer. In the eight chapter of the book “Down on the Island”, Jim Cooper talk to us about his years teaching on the island, Puerto Rico, and one of the biggest problems he encountered here, “helping” or cheating between students. Cooper present this term as an idea of cooperation between teacher-student and student-student, without any competition in their curriculum. 

            Cheating in the schools of Puerto Rico was, or is, not considered a bad thing because it is viewed as a social, and a cultural cooperation. The student had been hearing since the first grades: “Starting in the first grade in Puerto Rican schools, teachers tell students to look at their neighbor’s paper if they don’t known the answer”(Cooper 80).  Therefore the children were taught and raised with this way of thinking. Helping each other in the classrooms is something that defines them, that is part of their identity. Through out this chapter Cooper tells us about two methods of learning, the competitive and the cooperative. The competitive way is the one that Cooper was familiar with in the States, it is the one in which the students are willing to be better than anyone else in their classroom and better than anyone in any other school. Even though Cooper was determined that cheating in the classrooms was something that he could never imagine or maybe accept, we can infer by the tone of the author that he at the end was convinced that the way the students cooperate with each other has its pros in the training education of the students.

            Cooper writes about Puerto Rican’s academic view and how it is different from the American’s cultural view. I think that both methods are needed to develop a good education system. A balance between the both is necessary for the student to acquire the good things that both methods can offer. Cooperation and competition is something that we see and experience in Puerto Rico every day and this book gave us the opportunity to understand that this is something that comes from way back in our history. Therefore I think this balance is what makes the Puerto Ricans so unique from other cultures: respectful, kind, friendly, professionals, and intelligent people.    

Jim Cooper "Down on the Island": Teaching English

 During the 70’, under the government and supervision of  Rafael Hernandez Colón better known as “Cuchin” , there was propaganda around the island in almost all the public schools that said more or less like this “English No, Spanish Yes”. Language in Puerto Rico had always been a delicate theme because of our status as a colony of the United States of America. Jim Cooper on his book “Down on the Island” introduces us the controversy seen in Puerto Rico back when schools were trying to teach English for the students to learn it.  “Teaching English” is the seven chapter of the book and it touches various main points that in this days we continue seeing in our public schools and in collage. One of the things that amazed me and at the same time maked me laugh out loud when I discovered it, was the issue with the syllabus and Cooper’s wanting to discussed it with the director of the English Department, Dr. Beckwith. While I was reading all his complaints about the syllabus I was just thinking: “Come on Cooper change it and don’t tell anyone, I have professors that don’t follow a bit the syllabus”. And then I discovered that some of his friends did the exact thing that I was thinking… then I realized that we continue having the same problems since 1954. 

While reading this chapter I discover some clear examples that I could related to some of the subjects we are discussing in class: the communication model and Jamaica Kincaid’s book. For example if we analyze the discovering made by the same Cooper about the way of thinking of Dr. Beckwith:  “I learned later that he was one of the many continentals then on the island who didn’t believe Puerto Ricans were capable of learning anything anyway”(Cooper, 69). We can compare this quote with the Antigua’s tourist and the English way of thinking about the poor capacity of the “Africans”, the black people, to govern a country or do something good just by themselves. Also this quote makes us think that all the previous comments of Dr. Beckwith to Cooper were all made with a double meaning. He wasn’t expressing his own invention of reality and because of that Cooper was so confused with the original syllabus, he knew that it wouldn’t help the students in the process of learning English at all. Another point were I was able to read between lines was on his narration on March 3, 1952. On that day the people of Puerto Rico were able to vote for their own Constitution and he took that day as a holiday and went to relax in the beach. Most Puerto Ricans take those “holidays” to do the same thing that Jim Cooper did. Maybe the message that he want us to perceive was that most of the people living on the island didn’t know how this new Constitution would affect them or what changes would be occurring.  After reading this chapter I discover that even though “Down on the Island” was written according to some experiences lived by Jim Cooper in 1954, there are a lot of things that we, Puerto Ricans, continue having problems with. So I think that this book gives an excellent background and base not only for English teachers but also to any other course teachers. 

So close yet so far: Puerto Rico and Antigua

“A Small Place” by Jamaica Kincaid is a book that talks about the past and present days of Antigua. While reading it, it reminded me a lot about our own country, Puerto Rico. Both places have a lot in common: both are a tourist destination, are islands surrounded by similar ones, at a point both where a colony, both have trouble of identity, and external and internal racism. Jamaica Kincaid was born in Antigua as Elaine Potter Richardson, but later in her life she changed her name because her family disapproved her writing. This is something that makes us think that maybe her family where still afraid about the retribution that the English could do because of her words or maybe they have a colonized mind.

Something that Jamaica despises about the tourist that came to visit Antigua is their attitude of ignorance toward the history of her country. The way the tourist enjoy the island, the way they use the water unaware of her scarcity or to where the contents of their lavatory will end, and also the ignorance of the tourist toward the poverty that her country is suffering are some of the things that Jamaica repudiates and scream out loud in her book. Similarly some of us, Puerto Ricans, feel the same way when tourist come to visit our island or even worse when we go to United States of America and they don’t know where we are located on the world map, even though we are colony of the United States since 1898. Puerto Rico is a country that had been a colony over 520 years; fist a Spanish one and actually a North American. This is one of the main reasons why Puerto Ricans have identity problems, also like the citizens of Antigua felt when they were an English colony. After reading some pages of Jamaica’s book immediately I put myself in the situation as a tourist, and the first place that came to my mind was Dominican Republic. The way so many of us act in those all inclusive hotels, ignorant of our surroundings, the poverty of their country, and the unpaved roads that some of them had to walk miles to get there to serve us, are some things that just thinking about them now makes me sick. Another thing that Jamaica Kincaid mention in her book and relate to us is the external and internal racism. The citizens of Antigua suffer both types of racism, an example of external is the one clearly visible to everyone, the tourist and locals in the Mill Reef Club and the constant humiliation made by the dentist-doctor to the Antigua’s citizens. An example of internal racism is the continuous subordination the locals, the “minority”, felt with the English; like when the Queen came to visit. Here in Puerto Rico maybe the external racism is not that clear to some of us, but still present in some small towns like Loiza, that is a hometown for a lot of black people; even though this island is compose of a mix of cultures and ethnicities. On the other hand Puerto Ricans feel subordination towards the U.S people: either in sports or in the daily life.  Jamaica Kincaid speaks furiously of the corruption of the government and the passivity of her people. But her real anger is toward the English who colonized Antigua, and the only way she can express her anger is writing about this theme, so that in some way she could feel free.

           

References: 

• http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/cal/summary/v025/25.3gauch.html
• http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/smallplace/summary.html
• http://postcolonialstudies.emory.edu/jamaica-kincaid/
• http://www.centrocultural.coop/blogs/nuestramericanos/2009/10/27/el-caso-de-puerto-rico-de-colonia-a-estado-libre-asociado-parte-i/