Visita a Abraham Lincoln School

It proved to be a very absorbing day as we received insight into the Puerto Rican school system during our visit to the Abraham Lincoln Public School. The elementary school is located in the despressed LA PERLA district of San Juan. The teachers, speaking both English and Spanish, were very helpful in sharing their perspective on Puerto Rican schools of today. In many ways, the schools and teachers are facing some of our same issues--lack of technology tools for poorer schools, and a system that does not meet the needs of a changing society. The teachers expressed a need for more vocational education. These teachers seemed truly dedicated to their students; I was later pretty apalled upon hearing of the beginning salary of $17,000. What a contrast from York County! It was interesting to see the close and beloved relationship that the school had with don Jorge, the community leader of La Perla. Both school and community leader were more than hospitable in taking us through La Perla. The poverty seemed devastating but there was no lack of pride in their community. It struck me that if La Perla were part of our east coast, some real estate mogul would have tried to change it into megabucks beach properties. But I got the sense that there is no price on what a Perla resident calls home.


The afternoon classes were very interesting. Our profesora Nieves gave us more valuable information about the political influences that affect education. Recent reductions in the number of teachers and reduced funding are the latest caotic events. We ended the instructional day with Elena who helped us interpret several pieces of Puerto Rican literature. The body of works that we studied consistently reflected a pride and a desire to always retain the identity of what a Puerto Rican is--the sum of his past Spanish, Taino, and African heritages in a world that retains Spanish as their primary language and connects at times with everything that mainland USA represents.