People and noise

Poetic Justice

A month ago Deysi, my Spanish teacher, asked if Helen might be available to judge a poetry competition at her school. I replied I was afraid she would be in the communities at the time, and, after a not inconsiderable pause, Deysi asked whether I’d be up for it instead. Now, under normal circumstances I might object to being such a clear second choice, but these are a little way from being normal circumstances. There’s no surprise that being much more fluent at Spanish, female (this was apparently an important factor, as it seems in Peru that poetry as largely seen as ‘a girls’ thing’) and probably considerably less likely to scare the children, Helen was by far the preferable choice. Anyway I said I’d be up for it (what the heck, I thought, it might be interesting, maybe even fun) and so it was that yesterday morning I found myself getting up at 0630 to make my way to Deysi’s school.

Arriving just a couple of minutes late (I was still the first judge to take my seat; Iquitos does not appear to be a haven for the punctual) I began to get a better idea of what I’d signed up for. I had imagined an assembly in the school hall, but what I was faced with as I walked through the gate was a grandstand filled with children. Okay it was a small grandstand, but with the discovery that the competition was taking place in the playground over a small PA, and that the whole school and many parents were there to watch, I began to feel a touch more like a gladiator entering an (quite small and hopefully relatively harmless) arena.

Nevermind, I thought, everything’s been set up to be relatively straightforward. I had already seen the scoresheet, my fellow judges (the school’s head of English and a pleasant American missionary girl with that bright-eyed look of a believer) were going to confer in English, and it would all be over in about an hour. I resolved to smile politely at everyone, keep a low profile and mark slightly tough (always leave room at the top, I say).

The performing children, sat along benches facing our jury table, seemed a nice bunch. Most Peruvian kids seem pretty well behaved, and this lot, aged from six to twelve I think (though in the haze the details escape me) had clearly been well drilled for their performances. One by one, separated by year groups, they walked to the microphone (placed between two large stands announcing the competition and it’s theme: values) to deliver each poem. We had to mark according to four categories: Pronunciation (generally pretty good), Intonation (to be honest, I didn’t have much of a clue how to mark this, so went on instinct), Body Language (each performance was accompanied by heavily exaggerated meaningful gestures; sadly I felt obliged to mark down anyone who was a little more subtle) and Confidence. Happily we weren’t judging on content, otherwise things might have got messy as I took a stringent line against the conformist statements of loving parents, studying hard and being the best you can be and searched in vain for an element of subversion. Nonetheless, I got my Simon Cowell on a touch with slightly harsh marking of sweet children as my fellow judges coo-ed in appreciation.

It flew by to be honest. The prefects announcing each performer raced through the children to the point that marking became a mad scramble. Selecting one winner from each year was fairly straightforward though, with the exception of a couple of year-groups where I was only to happy to concede my minor preference in order to get things done smoothly and quickly. It was then I discovered we were expected to speak.

Oh dear. Unprepared public speaking tends to leave me grasping for words, so in another language, when I don’t actually know the words I’m grasping for, I’m in a fair bit of trouble. Luckily one of the prefects fed me a line, and by cutting and running as quickly as I could I hope it didn’t tarnish my judgely status / dignity too much. As I sat back down the head of English started on “You were meant to…” and I just looked at her hopelessly.

So, what have we learned? The Peruvian educational experience is a bit different to how I remember the British one. Leaving aside for a moment the fact that there are very open expressions of emotion, with the (entirely female, at least at this school) teachers exchanging hugs and kisses with their pupils, these types events seem to happen on a regular basis, testing and showcasing all the different areas of learning. On top of this there are class elections and doubtless numerous other things centred on achievement, growth and rigorous assertion of values through competition.

Maybe if they had existed in England I might be better at public speaking.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment