According to SEP (n.d.), as an attempt to integrate the disadvantaged children Mexico’s schools, the MES enrols children with disabilities to regular schools.
Children with some level of disability are now integrated in regular schools in Mexico;
this is an attempt to promote inclusion. I think it will be challenging to have children with any kind of disadvantages, but at the same time is exciting for me to learn how to can make a difference for them, we still haven’t learnt this in TTI (S6).
Nevertheless, most of the TTI students pointed out that they don’t feel fully prepare and confident to respond to children with especial education needs. When the TTI students were asked if they feel prepared to cope with children with special needs, one out of six responded positively, the rest feel very insecure about how they would perform.
The former suggests that accepting children with disabilities in regular schools, without training the teacher adequately is also a form of exclusion.
I don’t how to handle a pupil who suffers autism or ADHD and I don’t know how to handle children with Down syndrome, and that is scary because I’ve been in schools that have children with those needs (S5).
TTI students don’t get fully trained for this because we have a separate program for special needs education. To support the teachers in regular schools with children with special needs, there is a maestro de apoyo (support teacher), who is in charge of
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assessing the children with special needs and to prepare an individualized pedagogic strategy (TTI2).
Although the support teacher is fully trained as a teacher for special needs, not all schools have access to their services. As TR1 points out, the support teachers are normally allocated in big urban schools, therefore many of the rural teachers are on their own when it comes to children with disabilities.
What we can do if we are in the need of special care is to call our supervisors, and they would tell us how to handle it (TR1).
Statistics from CONEVAL (2016) showed that almost half of the population in Mexico live in poverty. Living poor entails other disadvantages, especially if living in remote rural locations.
Most of the students in the public education system come from families with limited economic resources, and for some of them sending their children to school represents a sacrifice.
All the teachers agree that teaching in rural schools represents a big challenge, they lack resources and means. In addition, all teachers pointed out that teaching in rural schools right after the TTI is an unexpected encounter with reality, because they are not prepared to face the challenge accordingly.
There is a lack of education coverage still. In Mexico many children must transport for long distances to study, this is not affordable for many people. The system does not provide the infrastructure; the system is not fair to those who have less (TR1).
I was not prepared at all, once you start teaching you realize how much you don’t know.
Children are very conflicted by their lifestyle sometimes, some of them have parents who are not interested in their education and the dynamics of those families are complicated.
It is a challenge to get positive results with those children (TU1).
As stated by the SEP (n.d.), most of the poor live in rural communities, and some of those speak another languages or dialects. Nevertheless, those schools are not fully equipped by the MES, consequently the rural children get fewer learning opportunities.
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Throughout the unstructured observations this study collected relevant evidence on the school’s conditions and resources. Figure 5.1. shows a comparison between the urban and the rural schools’ conditions.
Figure 5.1. A comparison of the school’s conditions and pedagogical materials
According to (TR1) the rural schools have been deprived for decades and teachers get used to the limitations in those schools. Most of the teachers agree with the fact that the resources in rural schools are limited and this not only represents an issue for the children but also for themselves.
Teaching in rural communities is challenging, it is common to have students with low performance, absenteeism and in many cases desertion. The school coverage is poor;
some of the rural schools only provide an education offer from 1st to 3rd grade, and some lack materials and proper classrooms (TR2).
The rural school The urban school
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I have seen schools that don’t have concrete floors or decent bathrooms, and I mean recently, not 20 years ago. I don’t picture the possibility of having access to computers and proper pedagogic materials for those schools (TR1).
In addition to the former, INEE (2013) suggests that deficient teacher preparation is even more pronounced among those teachers who teach in remote rural or poor areas, they are generally beginning teachers with little classroom experience, and exposed to teach in multi-grade schools. The TTI teachers agree that allocating recently graduated teachers to rural schools contributes to the low-quality educational opportunities. In addition, any teacher wants to work in remote rural communities, this translates in unmotivated teachers and in teacher rotation.
Once you graduate as a teacher, you are assigned to a rural school, you start your career there and once you become a more skilled and experienced teacher you can apply to change schools, hopefully to an urban school. All teachers want to work in urban schools for obvious reasons, the urban life and schools with better conditions (TU2).
The problem with the teachers in rural schools, is that they see working in rural schools as a temporary situation, to obtain “a ticket” for better opportunities in the future, which means to jump to urban schools. It is hard to make teachers commit in the long term in rural schools (TTI1).
I’m afraid to be sent to a rural community, I know it’s going to happen, but I’m not prepared, I’m afraid to be sent to a very remote place, and the dangers that it entails (S6).
According to TR3 there is a lack of pedagogic material in rural schools, in addition, a very limited use of information technologies; moreover, children in rural communities also lack this opportunities in their homes. Most teachers both from rural and urban agree that parents are key in the children learning outcomes, they can either support or complicate the learning process of their children.
To educate a child the parents and the teacher must work as a team, we cannot expect children to have good educational outcomes when the parents don’t encourage them or motivate them. Parents are a key factor to succeed in educating their children, if the parents don’t get involved, I don’t think we can manage to get positive results in the classroom (TR3).
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The classrooms in both the rural and the urbans schools lack maintenance, they lack furniture for the children and for the school materials; things are not organized. Both schools have small classrooms and normally overcrowded (especially in the urban school). There is no audio-visual equipment or computer in the classrooms. Both schools have good air conditioning systems (the temperatures in Culiacan can easily reach the 40 C in the summer).
Figure 5.2. Classrooms conditions in the urban school
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The facilities and furniture both schools lack maintenance and do not have access to appropriate patios to practice sports and the bathrooms are not properly sanitized, especially the one in the urban school. The computer room in the urban school is equipped with 20 computers, however they are old and neglected. TU3 commented that they prefer not to use the computer room because the computers are not enough for all the class and it becomes unconformable for the children.
Figure 5.3. School’s facilities in the rural school
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Most of the participants agree that, even though is well known that they will be assigned to rural schools, there is very little focus on rural education in the TTI, rural education is not an essential part of the curriculum and many of the TTI teachers have not worked in rural contexts before.
I have worked in rural and urban schools and I can tell you that there are huge differences among them. Children in rural communities demand a lot of work, a lot of patience; they have more barriers when it comes to learning. Rural schools also suffer deprivation of resources, you as a teacher must find your ways to get your own resources to teach. They don’t tell you this at the TTI, they don’t teach you how to handle two classrooms at the same time, or how to be the principal and the teacher at the same time, and those are normal situations in rural schools (TR2).
Most of the participants agree that children form disadvantaged groups are the ones who need quality teachers to handle their learning barriers, but they recognize that the MES doesn’t cope to provide them with quality teachers, tools and opportunities. In other words, rural children are left behind and it’s a deep-rooted problem that keeps repeating year after year that reflects the realities of the social reality in the country.
I grew up in a rural community and now I work as a teacher in the same school I studied as a child. Growing up in a communities with basic services is a big challenge, as a child you don’t see progress, and you have no big expectations, as a teacher I see it in the children, it happens from generation to generation, may be two students in the class will manage to reach to higher education the rest will be left behind at some point, there is no faith in education in those communities and I don’t blame them, the fault is on the system, because even though decades have passed, our school remains almost in the same condition. (TR1).
There have been changes yes, we now have a full-time shift in the school and we provide children with healthy food, but in the other hand, we have computers, but we don’t have internet and we have some teachers who do not know how to properly use computers (TR2).
Another challenge face by the MES in Sinaloa is the presence of immigrant children. There is a big number of families from poor indigenous communities that travel throughout the country to work for agricultural companies in the fields. The families leave their homes, and the whole family migrates. Unfortunately, some of the children must work in the fields, but some others are enrolling to school. The MES have adapted the scholar calendar to match the harvest periods and include those children in schools.
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There are big barriers for these children, they go through a lot of changes when they emigrate, one challenge is the language but what concerns me more is that they normally are enrolled in remote rural schools, where conditions are not always optimal.
In addition, they suffer discrimination not only from teachers but from the other children, the MES has not integrated those children properly (TTI2).
Another topic that emerged from the participants, refers to a deep-rooted problem in Mexico;
the drug cartels’ effects on society. The Sinaloa state is home of the Sinaloa cartel, considered the most powerful drug trafficking organisation in the world (Valdes, 2013). According to some of the teachers, this problem has deep effects in society. The violence issues that it entails have dramatically shaped the dynamics of people’s lives. It has also affected the education sector;
many children want to work for the cartels when they grow up. This would provide a lifestyle that they cannot access in other ways, certainly they have very low expectations on education.
I have pupils who want to become drug traffickers when they grow up. Their own realities don’t allow them to see any other means to have better lives. They don’t think they have a better choice (TR1).
The issue with the drugs in Mexico has increased due to wars between rival cartels; there has been a wave of violence in the last decade and the problem has increased to such degree that some of the participants admitted having had pupils who have been affected by violence (Valdes, 2013).
I had this child who was very conflictive and violent, I met with her mother to address this issue and she told me that his father murdered, and the child was not coping properly with that fact. Furthermore, he wanted to become a hitman when he grows up.
Of course, as a teacher, you kind of give up with children like this (TU6).
In addition, some rural schools are in towns with a permanent presence of people working for these criminal organisations, the issue represents a risk for the teachers.
I have colleagues that work in remote rural locations in the highlands and they fear for their security. It is common that people working for the cartels request teachers to leave the town now and then, because they don’t want strangers around (TTI2).
The violence wave in the State has been constant but in recent years it appears to have extended and to reach innocents. As pointed out by El Debate (2017), three teachers were killed while driving after leaving the school in a rural town in the south of the state on May 2017. This occurred six months after the interviews were conducted.
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To introduce the participants to the subject of E&I, they were asked what they know about the topic. Most of the TTI students knew about the sensitivity of the topic, however, they seemed to be insecure when they were asked if they can promote inclusive and equitable teaching.
According to SEP (n.d.), the TTI aims to produce teachers who can create teaching environments that consider the diversity and complexity of the class, and to promote the equity and inclusion in a school for all. But according most of the teachers and TTI students, the TTI is failing in its attempts to produce quality teachers who can handle the challenge.
I have been teaching for more than 38 years now, I understand and know how to manage the children diversity, not because they taught me how to do it in the TTI but because of my experience in the classroom. I think is very hard to equip TTI students to deal with the several issues that they will find in the schools, I have taught in rural an urban school and nothing prepares you for so many issues in the teaching profession (TR1).
All the teachers agree on the fact that the reality in Mexico’s schools is very complex, and the MES is not taking strong measurement to achieve substantial changes to include vulnerable populations.
The children, who need more receive less. Sometimes you must deal with the lack of resources, materials, and personnel. Parents who don’t cooperate and instead make your work more complicated, lack of autonomy as a teacher and many other problems that TTI would not address in the classrooms, they don’t show you the reality. I don’t know if things have changed throughout the years, but I see the new teachers struggling (TU1).