Hero teachers in a perverse system: a play exposes the reality of Peruvian education

Behind every figure in Peruvian education there are stories that explain them. Why there are only a couple of outstanding students in a section, why so many students fail math and also why there are still schools with a single classroom for multiple grades while, miles away, there are students who even have internet.

Where are these stories told? They reach the press, social networks. Fragmented and sporadic, they sneak into the public agenda, motivate some interviews on television, sometimes the congress raises concerns, but they are soon forgotten. The cycle then repeats itself for years, decades even, and there are not necessarily changes. But they can also come in different formats.

“What happens in the classrooms in the end is a reflection of what also happens in our politics,” Mariana de Althaus (Lima, 1974), a playwright who, after reading the book “From the heart of rural education,” told El Comercio. ” by Daniela Rotalde, worked on a play that examines every aspect of why Peruvian education is in crisis. The result of her work is “Life on Other Planets,” which is on display starting this week at the ICPNA in Miraflores.

But the work is not a mere dramatization of events with defined characters, plots, subplots and a discourse where forces oppose each other, be they precarious teachers or the irresponsible state. It is somewhat more elaborate than that, as it includes statistics, historical accounts of educational reforms from Peru’s independence to the present, and reflections by actors Alaín Salinas, Conny Betzabé, Godo Lozano, Herbert Corimanya, Marisol Mamani and Muriel García. They, quite apart from the characters they play, reveal their own experiences with state education. In fact, they were chosen for the roles in part because of their personal connection to the public education system.

“Life on Other Planets” was not ready for De Althaus to look for his cast. He also built it with the experiences they had; The result is a work that works on multiple levels, that examines policies and personal experience in a comprehensive way where there is one constant: the presence of heroic teachers in a system that discourages.

“We shouldn’t be asking them [a los maestros] “Let them be heroes, simply let them do their job,” he said of Althaus after a rehearsal of the play. “But to do their job as it should be, they have to somehow become heroes because the conditions are not met. It is true that there have been changes, salaries have increased, they can often access training, but a law and a reform are not maintained over time in a natural way, it needs the entire society to support and work for it to improve, to “that an education be reformed that is fair, that reaches everyone.”

“What happens in the classrooms in the end is a reflection of what also happens in our politics.”

Mariana of Althaus playwright.

The work presents the case of a rural school teacher who faces not only the disinterest of her parents, but also that of the educational authority itself; In the middle of it are the students who want to learn despite everything.

“Traditionally we have only blamed the teachers. It is a whole system that we have to evaluate; as Jaime Saavedra says [exministro de Educación] We should be obsessed with education. The only way for a country to prosper is if it improves its education. Rich countries have much more advanced educational systems, that is why they are rich; “They have made political agreements between the various forums to precisely move forward with the reform projects.”

The work dialogues with reality, but it is a story whose end is not written; It is written outside the classroom, in classrooms and in government offices. It is not a matter from another planet.