remember 1987 as the year of Perestroika , although he was much talk in the Correction of Errors, the Cuban equivalent shy of the great reformist wave that engulfed more than one European country This and that, ultimately, end up with socialism as a system. Curiously, those born in that year, as my niece, Anna, have no memory of the Soviet Union, or what life was like in the Old Continent that always appeared in red shaded atlases printed in Germany ("democracy?") that we distributed school material. The 87-88 appeared to be a course of change, at least a kind of wake-up call to what until that time had been the country and the world in my generation who lived quietly. I say quiet, because compared to the next decade, when both places did experience radical transformations, the late 80's, for a student in the eleventh grade, were inconsequential.
Viewed from a distance and a more present concerns, this year seems educationally bored me, although I personally would be marked by events shocking and painful. In July my father was saying goodbye to life, leaving my brother and I am therefore unable to assess the magnitude of the tragedy. In the summer, getting used to the absence of my father, the Pan American Games in Indianapolis unknown competitive spirit aroused and willing. Friends that September would mark as my interest in athletics records and racing background medium and long.
I have no memory of daily events, the enthusiasm that the days of speeches, events and conferences on the "correction" had cause to my countrymen. I guess we went without expectations, believing in the Super publicized sentence on the grandeur of 2000. We were the generation of the future and only this should be accountable, this passed as a drug long time we were engaged. Indeed, two thousand was less noticed than expected, as would the asere the neighborhood, let us tremendous line.
Perhaps the most evident sign of change in the 87-88 school year they were our subjects, particularly history. To that extent we had received instruction as bulky manuals covering earlier periods to contemporary. Now we would study the events of the twentieth century and even our own previous decades. More surprising, the volumes of the program were not used texts bound in hardcover, but a less thick notebooks.
For typography, similar to that of a regular page mimeographed outputs, it was easy to guess that had been printed in the race, perhaps in the same months of summer where I enjoyed the triumphs of the athletes at the Pan American . I do not know whether they would Sputniks style and Moscow News, but the texts brought a little more information about the events in Hungary in the 56 and the trade union Solidarity strikes in Poland 80. One issue we
was unknown completely. Resided in a nation "pop" and educated us as a knowledge model in which, as I said, more interested in the future than the present and the past seemed so fragmented and full of dark areas that sometimes it was better not to worry too much for him, and give more credit the most logical idea that it was time "over it", defeated by the overwhelming presence of our day.
However, I think the new history books in some of us fanned an interest in looking at the past differently. It would be very pretentious to say that contributed to realize that studying an edited version of events earlier, as our sources of information were so selected and there was almost similar margin to compare. Nevertheless, such spontaneous lectures and discussions that began just when the lessons ended, it left a feeling of disappointment and mistrust.
And even laughable, because there we were, in the new schools, the institution where they were those who would remove the country from underdevelopment. To do this we received contained twice our colleagues in other pre-university, we struggled to solve complex mathematics and physics, and spent mornings and afternoons in Chemistry and Biology laboratories. In those sessions, some teachers were enthusiastic about our learning and warning us to doubt everything, and believe in the infinite possibilities of theories and experiments. In this way we prepared, they said, for the future.
Perhaps the optimism of our science teachers was circumstantial and may even subversive. The truth is that the lessons of history, in addition to the discussions and "new" program usually not conducive to the same levels of excitement. Maybe the teachers themselves were partly responsible, but I do not blame them. It was just 87-88 in that course we learned of "problems" of European socialism, when we discovered that the novel also program also had its limitations.
We knew at once when he got the exam season. Before we had been repeated ad nauseam, that the program should be subject to the policy of Rectification of errors and negative tendencies that had begun months before the government and that if any of us had forgotten the refrain of the ideological struggle, proved once again that socialism was irreversible.
included in the question on the subject in the final exam anyone could guess who sought such a response of lapidary. Only our tests, designed in the offices of MINED * Havana, not only came with clauses that we must answer for the coveted notes, but also answers. I do not know how they assumed that all American students would arrive at the same conclusions, but yes or no, every test came with a corresponding "key" then our teachers would use to review and rate, ie, a list sometimes quite short of what we should have responded to get the highest score.
The key to that course brought a controversial and shocking to us, heading on to the question about the events in Eastern Europe. No matter how thorough we made the count of what happened, or how our editors have been perfect, if not literally appeared that events were evidence that "socialism was superior to capitalism," we lost two miserable, but ultimately important points. Low earned
protests, meetings, and if you want explanations influenced by knowledge of semiotics that we did not have. The phrase had to show exact tests, nothing is "implicit" or "inferred." Many ended up with 98 in history and perhaps with the knowledge that our education, so advanced and extensive in the section of the exact sciences, left much to be desired in the subjects they should also help us think and form an idea of \u200b\u200bwho we were and how the country was by chance, or universal law, resided.
Perhaps at that time anyone could imagine that the future will transform all programmable automatons whose only concern would be the conquest of the future, because that is lived in the present and the past did not matter because then the technology was backward and inefficient . And maybe that night we stormed these futuristic nightmares even though many were still living in houses with wooden walls, cooked with kerosene and watch television in black and white.
of the superiority of socialism ... actually we did not realize. The next course included no history at the list of subjects. In subsequent years students move from players or spectators of events to come and by then the "keys" were no longer necessary. The sequence of events, calls attention to the readings, the tourists, the crisis and addressed biscuit put in place to officials at the end of the 80 had tried to convince us that the ideology and dogma could reform eternity for their own benefit, or that history was just a tweaked version and selective events, or the knowledge to be effective, should be reduced and limited.
* Ministry of Education in Cuba
