Jim Cooper "Teaching English"

The key to be successful in life academically is set on the basis of education. If a children don’t learn the basic stuff in a successful way they would have trouble later on their life. For a good education we need trained teachers capable of delivering the tools necessary for learning during the elementary years of school which are the ones that shape the educational base of every human being. In Puerto Rico for example, the only way to successfully educate a child on public schools is with external aid paid by the parents or with the help of parents themselves. The education program for public schools is sadly poor for the needs of our country.

In order for freshmen students from public schools to be successful in collage the government has to start training public school teachers in english as a first language and not as a second one, this way the teacher will have complete knowledge  about what he is teaching to the student and at the same time will be able to dominate the student’s first language to clear any doubts in the process of learning. In my case I was educated in a private school where I had the opportunity to get comfortable with the English language. The majority of my text books throughout middle and high school where in English and that gives the student the opportunity to work with the language on a daily basis and prepare you for college where you really see a text book in Spanish. On the other hand in public schools the educational programs are so behind our times that it is almost impossible to keep up with the needs of a student to be prepared for the future. University’s curriculum shouldn't be the ones adapting to the lack of knowledge of the students, the school programs should be the ones changing to send totally prepared and successful young adults to the world.

At the end of the chain it all falls on the government hands. Corruption, is one of the main causes of the failing educational program on the the island. The lack of founds for teachers drains out any motivation for the teacher to go to school, instead we have teachers wasting days by no going to work. The physical installations are in so bad conditions that is nearly even possible to give a class without any interruption from failing equipment. Parents on the other hand just don’t care anymore in the majority of public schools in Puerto Rico, just a handful of them are responsible enough to take action and help out the children with school issues. If teaching is a passion for someone it should be a pleasant experience to do it. The only way to make it that way is to prepare better our students and sustain our educational system the way it is suppose to be. I’m sure that with better physical installations and prepared teachers, students will be successful in any matter and language they get teach.