#Memories - Chapter 1: Unerasable by Policies

I am seated in the teachers’ room of the place that embraced me during my first three years as an English as a Foreign Language teacher. (Yes, I know… you may think I am too young to be this worried.) Still, it is inevitable to feel a kind of sadness when the time comes to realize that a large number of the students with whom you share your daily life will eventually leave this school at the end of the year.

This will happen for two main reasons. First, my school will move from being a semi-private institution to a fully private one due to the new educational reform currently affecting my country. Unfortunately, many schools have been forced to choose what we commonly call “between the sword and the wall.” This situation is not the result of families’ decisions, but rather the impossibility of paying the high monthly fees required to keep their children here.

Second, there is fear — a fear they may already be feeling — that they will not find another school with enough capacity to accept them, as thousands of other students are facing the same reality. The entire system is undoubtedly collapsing. (Fun fact: the Ministry of Education refuses to acknowledge this, even though it is practically drowning.)

Now, let me point out something important. I do not want to get politically involved, but… Madam President, I simply cannot believe how blind you must be not to put yourself in others’ shoes for even a single moment. You stated that this reform would “increase the quality of education” — you are wrong. You claimed it would “narrow the gap between public and private education” — you are deeply wrong. And what is worse, you said it would “help the middle class” — you are terribly wrong.

In just a few words: you completely messed this up — not only you, but also all those who stand beside you supporting these ideas.

I have never been particularly keen on analyzing public policies, mainly because I have been profoundly disappointed in them since my own high school years. However, it is deeply worrying to see how something you study for years at university is underestimated by the people leading this country — people who have no real idea of what actually happens inside a classroom. Their proposals are unrealistic and disconnected from reality.

Changing the current educational situation in Chile cannot be done by simply “covering the sun with a finger.” This issue is far more complex than it appears.

It is true that there is a great deal of work to be done in public, semi-private, and private schools. However, attempting to change everything from one day to the next was, by far, the worst decision possible. Why did they not start this so-called “cleanup process” with the schools where immediate intervention was truly required? Why did they not begin with institutions facing critically low academic results? Why didn’t they simply ask us — the people who actually work inside schools?

Sometimes I feel it may be too late to rethink my professional career. At other times, I try to find ways to overcome this fear, this nerve-breaking feeling, this sadness — knowing I am probably not the only teacher who feels this way.

At this point, the only thing that gives meaning to my professional life is the love I receive from those bright-minded teenagers who make my days happier. Those who feel, in many ways, like my sons and daughters. Those who bring out the best in me every single day. Those who are truly worthy of respect. Despite everything, we will continue teaching. We will continue caring. Not because the system supports us, but because our students deserve it. And if there is still something worth saving in education, it lives in the classrooms — not in offices, not in reforms, but in the daily human connection that no policy can erase.