Director resigns from project

by Jos� A. Del Valle

People long ago concluded that changes are needed in the schools to make education more meaningful to Mexican American students. For this reason the Teacher Corps, a federal program sponsored by U.T. EI Paso and the school systems, came into existence. Its purpose is to serve as a training vehicle for new teachers and to act as a catalyst in experimental classrooms and in the community.

However, in the past few months, the momentum initiated by the program's 28 interns abruptly stopped. The answer to this standstill has been due to two primary reasons: One, interference by the university and the school system; two, resistance to change by traditionally minded teachers.

Manifestation of the university�s inadequacies has been reflected in many areas. Dr. Norma Hernandez former director recently resigned. She said to a class: � I cannot run the program if I do not have control, and furthermore I will not lend my name to a project run by someone else in the Education Department.

The absence of a program director is only one example of the back room upstaging. Dr. Tomas Arciniega, the first program director, was promoted to a chairmanship position and then after a quick three months demoted and assigned to a lesser position. Coincidentally, Dr. Hern�ndez resignation also came after three months.

In addition Carlos Garc�a, associate director of Teacher Corps has been notified of his termination in the future. All of these changes come under the auspices of acting Education Dean Oscar Jarvis and his newly appointed Dept. Chairman Luis Natalicio.

The subsequent change on the directorship has been termed devastating, as one intern explained. She went on to say that it was very difficult to work under such conditions when the directors are moved around like chess pieces.

By-passing the university, "the interns have also been doing a lot of moving, and also involuntarily. With fuel provided by teachers who are adamantly against accommodating to professional trends, the EI Paso and Ysleta school systems quietly reinterpreted the contract rights of the interns. The school systems agreed to adjust traditional teaching to more modern methods and met resistance," said a second intern, "When teachers faced the actual transition, they reacted negatively. The interns were made the sacrificial victims of such a catalytic experience. We received severe professional and academic repercussions.�

The solution was to divide the four 7 -member teams to eight different schools thereby reducing their effectiveness. It has been said that a division into 28 different schools had planned for the, 28 interns. Any action should have been done according to specific guidelines, but the new interpretations allowed the "flexibility.� This has been the fate of countless federal programs that take goals seriously. Pressures and reinterpretation delute their objectives.

Currently the program goals are being reached, but in a few schools. In other schools, the interns are relegated to continuing the two-year program teaching in the very traditional methods they contracted to change.

The new concepts of "bicultural education," "individualized teaching,� � modular scheduling," "open space,� team teaching," have become only ideals for a majority of the interns.

"The priorities of the program have changed," comments a third intern,� The school systems, the universities, and some teachers have shown a superficial concern about the Mexican American in academic studies but not in the practicality of the class room.

So as the rest of the nation experiences a predicted educational evolvement, the interns have. learned that economical survival and its subtle intricacies overshadow, temporarily the change in learning.