Dr. Scary and Mrs. Marbles (2/4)

The Managing Director hired Dr. Scary Snobson two years ago to open the facility. He had a Ph.D in Reports and Updates. He loved organization, management, forms, protocol, procedures, paper and bureaucratic drone head duties. 

He recruited former Peace Corpse teachers to establish foreign faces and mouths in front of spoiled elementary kids and parents. Marketing 101. He practiced Hathaway yoga and invested his princely salary in offshore rice paddy accounts near Burmese refugee camps bordering Thailand. He was thrilling and running scared.

Did he run for fun?

He ran in the tropical sun for sums. Kids in = count cash. Numbers numbed wealthy Burmese wallets. Pay here. Drop kid at classroom ABC. Minders/babysitters/Myanmar female educators in training will take care of them until you pick them up at 3:30. If you're late we sell them to China. A boy is worth $3,500 in a one-child Orwellian culture.

I have two boys, said a Burmese parent. Do I get a discount?

It depends on their passing a physical with Nurse Dull, said Dr. Scary. Let me ask my passive Taiwanese wife. She's very proud of her green card. She talks like her mouth's full of marbles. She believes in acquiescence.

You mean the sad-eyed, lights on-no one home, reactive space cadet wearing the cheap floppy Chinese hat, Gloria Swanson sunglasses and magic slippers inherited from her grandmother outside the gate-less gate standing lost and forlorn Monday-Friday mornings as horrendous traffic spewed noxious hydrocarbons into faces of emotionally deprived children next to struggling nanny slaves dragging children's suitcases of books and carrying bright plastic baskets of food as parents, wearing diamond and imperial green jade jewelry necklaces, yakked on cell phones strolling to classrooms with their darlings at the tall gleaming metropolis of a school?

Her marble mouth machine droned her official mandatory sequence. Park here. Leave kids here. Parents ignored her.

That's her. She's his baby. Her attention span was shorter than an apology to Burmese parents of neglected children about the hidden cost and quality of grandiose theoretical classless plans. Read the fine print. You paid suckers.

Dr. Scary and Mrs. Marbles (1/4)

Tell me a storybook about Myanmar. How long were you there?

All fucking day.

No, really.

Five weeks. I was the first teacher in and first teacher out. Sublime.

Why did you go?

To grow. To experience a Montessori learning environment at an expensive private school. See how things worked. On the ground. Wander around. Scribble words. Make images. Meet the kind, curious, smiling people.

(Alarm bells clang)

A private school sounds dangerous. I spell uh, I smell money. Cash for kids.

Education is a busine$$. Profit before people.

Didn't you learn this lesson in 2008 for a year at St. Laurensia near Jakarta when you helped 4th graders develop social and moral character with humor and curiosity?

Private school, parents rule fool.

Yes, however I needed to see Myanmar for myself, analyze management objectives and system. Connect with smiling people. Learn, laugh, grow, glow and flow with the go.

Trust and verify. That's what I say.

And you say it with clear pronunciation.

Make it new day by day make it new.

The school had 700 kids from Montessori (3-6 years young) through grade 9.

That's big money. It's a numbers game.

Yes it is. Don't ask me how much. Big.

Bigger than the infinite sky?

Almost. The financial bean counters wore out abacuses. Click-click. They'll raise tuition next year. The Burmese managing director lived happily ever after.

I love fairy tales. 

educational paradise

Inside a Myanmar prison block of teachers' apartments

reminding him of Chinese reform through re-education schools

in Sichuan and Fujian

where he lived, taught and breathed years ago

hearing underpaid, undersexed and overworked teachers smash sticks on podiums

using fear as a motivator screaming

wake up idiots

near five-story class tombs

surrounded by walls, dirt, silver strands of barb wire

removed from glowing rice paddies, soaring white herons

Burmese pythons constricting choices and consequences

freedom of speech with Big Brother in deep shadows

near goats foraging in trash as village women lugged buckets of water on thin shoulders

or balanced stacks of bricks and rocks on heads to build a new wall

a new tomorrow, forging new futures for the monied class

a man read a newspaper after 50 years of censorship in Myanmar

as sunlight streaked morning clouds above Shan mountains

inhaling a glorious day in educational paradise.

Repair time.

Salute the sun.

 

living things

Julia and Montessori friends explored living things using plastic objects.

Living things need air, water and food, she said. Like animals. Like us. We are talking animals.

As we live and breathe, said Aiko, scribbling in her creative notebook. She read the fine print. Don't be fooled by cheap imitations. Education is a business. Parents paid. Managers/teachers managed.

Eat fear and stay dependent, said a parent spoon feeding their child past their bedrhyme. Here, she said, let me carry everything for you. 

The child said, how much does conditioning cost?

Now or in the long run, said the parent.

During class on a balcony overlooking a plastic playground, security guards and kitchen women shucking peas, an administrative woman stood silent as a 7th grade girl cut her nails. Why, said Aiko. They didn't conform to school policy, said the woman. We must have standards. 

I'd rather be a hammer than a nail, said Julia.

Nelson, another five-year old genius said, yes and we need stories. Our brains are wired for stories.

Am I safe?

What is the sound of one hand clapping?

What happens next?

What's essential is invisable to the eye, said a boy on a planet with a flower.

Don't think. Look, said Julia.

Helper

Once upon a time there were many small people.

They went to a Montessori school in Myanmar.

Their parents drove big cars down a private road owned by the school.

They dropped off boys and girls and helpers.

What's a helper, said Julia, five.

It's a young girl from a village who lives with you. 

Why does she live with us?

She needed a job. 

Oh, I see, said Julia. She's the one who washes our clothes, cooks our food and cleans our house. In math we learned that 26% of our people are unemployed. That's a big number.

Yes. Here's another number. 16% of the population has electricity.

Power to the people, said Julia. I carry my own stuff. I know how the world works. I am independent. Why does she have to carry the kids' books and bright plastic basket of rice, vegetables, fruit and drinks to the classroom?

She doesn't have to. She does it because some parents are afraid of letting their child carry it. They tell the helper to carry it. You've seen helpers dragging wheeled book bags across cement for primary and secondary kids.

Yes I have. They look sad. Why are parents afraid?

Excellent question. Maybe because the kids are small. Like us. Ask them.

Ok, bye. I'm going to meditate on this question now.

Bye Julia. Nice to see you.