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I believe I once read that schoolchildren were once forbidden from speaking Spanish in Puerto Rico and classes were taught in English.
"forbidden"? extreme word, that would go against the first amendment. You have to put context to the situation at the time.
When the U.S. took over Puerto Rico in 1898, the illiteracy rate in the island was close to 90%. Education was a luxury only to the higher class in the island and kept the masses uneducated (it was by design under Spanish colonial rule). The Foraker Act of 1900 established the commissioner of education in Puerto Rico and created the department of public education. The commissioner of education was appointed by the President of the United States. They had to bring teachers from the mainland.
The United States founded schools and trained both US and Puerto Rican teachers in education. Puerto Rican teachers were sent to the United States to receive training. In the island, US teachers would train Puerto Rican teachers. By 1913, the US government had invested 14 million dollars on public education in the island and 1,050 schools had been built in rural areas. Laws passed in 1899 required education in Puerto Rico to consist of a public system for ages six to eighteen, to limit the student/teacher ratio to 50:1, and to be coed.
The education system was designed using guidelines set forth by the United States. English language instruction was imposed on schools, until 1939 where Spanish was made the official language of instruction. English is currently taught as a second language beginning from first grade and continuing straight through senior year of High School.
Once the local government and their politics took control of the public education system in the island, it went down hill. The best private schools in Puerto Rico today are taught in English as a first language or most of the classes. Those are the schools the politicians and the elites in Puerto Rico send their sons and daughters. They maintain a high rate of students being accepted into prominent universities in the United States. Meanwhile, in the public schools they only teach English as a second language and is mediocre at best.
They should have kept the original format. English as the first language in the schools or the majority of the classes like they do in Singapore. It would have given better economic opportunities to the poor in public schools once they get out of High School if they decided to go to college or straight to the workforce in Puerto Rico or the U.S........the best jobs in P.R. required English.
I believe the politics in Puerto Rico did a disservice in this area that the masses especially the poor are paying for it today.
They should have kept the original format. English as the first language in the schools or the majority of the classes... I believe the politics in Puerto Rico did a disservice in this area that the masses especially the poor are paying for it today.
You are correct about the history of English teaching in the public education system. There are some schools that still have English names, for example: Martin Brumbaugh Elementary School in San Juan, who was governor of Pennsylvania and the first Commissioner of the Puerto Rico Department of Education.
However, it seems that you are implying that education in English is better than Spanish solely because it's in English. I don't know about you, but I am a product of public school education in Spanish. After finishing high school, I went to the Inter-American University in San Juan to become a teacher because my own public school teachers were good examples.
I passed the test for Teacher Certification one year before getting my Bacherlor's Degree. As a result of that, the Department of Education issued a temporary certificate and that allowed me to start teaching at a small private school. After finishing my degree, I immediately started to work as a regular teacher in public schools.
Today, I criticize much the public school system in Puerto Rico, but that mostly comes from my experience as an employee, not as student. I worked in schools of lower performance in San Juan. The Department of Education is one of the worst employers in the island. Teachers don't have much incentive to innovate because there is political favoritism at the time of receiving training. I taught without books and materials. There were times when I had to go to the central offices in Hato Rey to ask for at least a lesson guide. Incredible! My co-workers were resigned as if nothing was going to change.
The mediocrity of teaching itself comes from the low moral support, lack of materials and training, teacher burn out, and toxic politization. That is not related to the teaching in Spanish. The deficiencies in English teaching comes from high politization, and it will continue like that if Puerto Rico doesn't move to a definitive political status.
My English is not perfect, but it's certainly decent thanks to my public school and college education IN SPANISH. Just because something is in English, it doesn't mean it's the best. The US educational system overall is pretty mediocre if you consider that only 30% of the population have a bachelors or higher... AND IT'S IN ENGLISH.
Massachusetts is the state with highest percentage of people with bachelors or higher (about 45%), and I am proud to be part of that statistic thanks to my Puerto Rican public education in Spanish!!!
However, it seems that you are implying that education in English is better than Spanish solely because it's in English. I don't know about you, but I am a product of public school education in Spanish. After finishing high school, I went to the Inter-American University in San Juan to become a teacher because my own public school teachers were good examples.
Not at all. What I'm implying that under the system of education of Spain of 400 years until 1898 in P.R. it resulted in almost 90% illiteracy rate in the island. There was NO public education system on the island (except for the elite families and upper class). If the United States are going to come in and set everything up from scratch, put a department of education, put up the the millions of dollars, build the 1,000's of public schools for the rural areas and the poor and bring the teachers from the mainland to set everything up and train the Puerto Rican teachers then in my opinion they should teach every class or most classes in English, since We are a territory of the U.S.A. and it makes sense economically and for educational purposes of higher education since most of the books in the universities are in English as of today.
Is not like the Americans came in and took over schools and an education system already in place and said "from now on everything is in English" and fired all the Puerto Ricans teachers, that is not how it happened........The Americans built everything from scratch including putting up the federal funds and brought the teachers to build and run the University of Puerto Rico at the beginning of the 20th century.
Then in the late '30s, the U.S. handed the full control of the public education system to the local politicians that for some political reason made English as a second language (1 class a day) and mediocre at best and the teacher's union made it hard to hire English teachers from the mainland. While the top private schools in Puerto Rico kept English as the first language or in the majority of the classes and brought English teachers from the mainland. Those are the schools that the politicians, ruling class and elites send their sons and daughters and they have the best economic opportunities in Puerto Rico.
They could have gone half and half.....half the classes in English and half the classes in Spanish, make it real BILINGUAL and bring teachers from the mainland to work with the teachers on the island. We can have the language of Shakespeare with the language of Cervantes in the same school from 1st grade to high school. Both quality and on the same level.
I'm a product of public education in Puerto Rico which gave me a disadvantage compared to the students in private schools that I made up in other areas like learning English from teachers that master the language when I was for 4 years in the States then coming back to Puerto Rico and then joining the U.S. Navy when I was 18 years old. No way, I would have learned to write, speak and read English with confidence by just attending the public schools in Puerto Rico. My English teachers in the schools in the island taught the language as a basic second language like if you were going on vacation as a tourist to Disney World and you needed to know the basics and you were learning from teachers that hardly spoke the language on the daily basis.
If you are going to learn English from a teacher, I want a teacher that speaks the language as their first language or somebody that speaks it frequently and is confident in that language.
Just like a Spanish teacher, I want the teacher to know the language well as their 1st language or that they speak it frequently not some person who learned the language recently as a 2nd language in some community college and they hardly speak the language on the daily basis and only knows the basics and is only a teacher to collect a paycheck.. If I want to learn Spanish (Puerto Rican version) I want a Puerto Rican to teach me and how to pronounce the words properly and the meaning and the history of the words.
Maybe you are the exception and not the norm and if the majority of the public school students in Puerto Rico speak and write and read English as well as you, then maybe the public education system in the island wouldn't be in the state they are now and they would be in the same level in scores and achievements with the private schools and many Puerto Ricans would embrace the U.S. and not feel like it's a foreign country and would feel part of the U.S.
Nobody is saying that you have to put Spanish on the back seat and forget the language. That's our history and it is what it is. I'm proud of it also but they shouldn't treat English as a distant foreign language in the Public Schools in Puerto Rico. Not while we are U.S. Citizens and more Puerto Ricans live in the states than on the island. Is not good for many reasons especially if we want to get out of the territorial status and push for statehood.
Last edited by Hellion1999; 04-25-2019 at 12:46 AM..
I don´t know enough PRican history to know the full extent of this answer....but know that Cajun kids in Louisiana were physically punished for speaking French as late as the WW2 era, so...it could be possible. The same English-only teachers brought from the Midwest to teach my grandparents could have just as easily done that to Boricua kids way back when.
I once spoke to a lady in her 70s, maybe early 80s, on a plane from San Juan to Miami who spoke amazing English and said she had all American teachers as a little girl on the island. She seemed to speak kindly of that exchange, and I didn´t want to rock the boat and ask if there was any sort of prohibition or consequences for speaking Spanish.
There was a time when the Puerto Rican flag was forbidden, but I don’t know when that law was removed. People were killed just for having that flag in front if their homes.
They also changed Puerto Rico’s flag to the current one, which is alike to Cuba’s except the colors are the opposite (the stripes is red and white instead of blue and white, and the star is on a blue triangle instead of red). The original PR flag was similar to the Dominicans, with top blocks being blue and bottom blocks being red, a white cross in the middle, and a white star in the blue block on the right.
The other flag of PR, that was flown in Spanish rule, aside from the Spanish Empire which included a red X with spines, was the PR coat of arms on a white base. That is still the coat of arms of PR, has a sheep and other stuff. That coat of arms was chosen when PR was a colony of Spain for some 400 years.
Outside of San Juan people prefer to speak Spanish. Even in San Juan most people speak Spanish or Spanglish whenever they can, although most understand some English. Quite a few are fluent in English. Almost all that speaks English does it with a strong Spanish accent.
The entire Spanish Empire in the Americas has been under Spain than an independent country, a colony of another country, or a part of another country. PR was one of the oldest Spanish colonies in the whole world.
There was a time when the Puerto Rican flag was forbidden, but I don’t know when that law was removed. People were killed just for having that flag in front if their homes.
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that is anti-american independentista propaganda you are repeating and this is the cr@p they spread in the public schools in the island by allowing Independentistas and anti-american teachers control the schools to spread their political propaganda. There was never a law against or death penalty for flying a flag in Puerto Rico under American rule.
The only people that got shot or arrested were the nationalists who took arms against the American government and the Puerto Rican government and didn't surrender to the Police.
La Ley 53 was passed in 1948 by the Puerto Rican Senate who the majority were PPD and signed into law by Governor Jesus T. Piñero (a Puerto Rican) that says you can't use or promote violence to take down the Puerto Rican or U.S. Government. It's a law that every country in the planet has.
ArtÃculo 1 – Constituirá delito grave, castigable con pena máxima de presidio de diez anos o multa máxima de $10,00, o ambas penas, la comisión por cualquier persona de cualquiera de los siguientes actos:
1. fomentar, abogar, aconsejar o predicar, voluntariamente o a sabiendas, la necesidad, deseabilidad o conveniencia de derrocar, destruir o paralizar el Gobierno Insular, o cualquier subdivisión polÃtica de este, por medio por medio de la fuerza o la violencia
2. imprimir, publicar, editar, circular, vender, distribuir o públicamente exhibir con la intención de derrocar, paralizar o destruir el Gobierno Insular o cualquiera de sus divisiones polÃticas, cualquier escrito o publicación donde se fomente, abogue, aconseje o predique la necesidad, la deseabilidad o conveniencia de derrocar, paralizar o destruir el Gobierno Insular o cualquier subdivisión polÃtica de este, por medio de la fuerza o la violencia
Outside of San Juan people prefer to speak Spanish. Even in San Juan most people speak Spanish or Spanglish whenever they can, although most understand some English. Quite a few are fluent in English. Almost all that speaks English does it with a strong Spanish accent.
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NO, many in San Juan and Guaynabo that are educated and went to good private schools in P.R. or were educated in the states speak English well, no accent. Those are the ones that went to good universities in the states and either work for the Federal Government in the island or have top positions in American corporations that requires fluent English because they have to deal with the mainland and travel.
the people that have a strong Spanish accent are the people that don't speak fluent English on a daily basis. That's why young Puerto Rican kids that move to states and go to school on a daily basis, they tend to lose the Spanish accent quick. Because they have to speak the language everyday and are surrounded by other people speaking the language and they listen how words are properly pronounce and practice it everyday.
the same thing in Puerto Rico in San Juan and Guaynabo.
I know that, but most people don’t go to a university and much less a good one. That’s a stat for the 50-states, imagine what it must be like for PRs.
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