Role of a teacher

Today I was interviewing a few staff members of the Latinos in Action program and I learned something very interesting about the role of an educator in Rural Mexican cities. The guy that I was talking with was a Latino teacher, and had many experiences as evidence of what he told me. This is what he explained:

Traditionally in small communities the pope held the role of judge, officer, governor, financial advisor, leader of the community and whatever type of concealer you could imagine. They were the go-to men whenever there was a problem. Well with the advancements in education teachers have become the problem solvers.  The teachers are the ones with the most education in the community and therefore earning them the position of the Universal problem solver.  When the Latinos want medical, financial, or political advice, they typically go to their teacher to get it.

In Mexico parents trust the teachers to make a lot more decisions. They are allotted more power. For example, teachers have the right to punish the students. The Latino teacher I was talking to told me that he has had Latino student ask him about how to handle their credit card debt or other random councils. He would answer, “I’m just a history teacher,” but he sensed that they still expected him to be a qualified multi-subject helper.

After hearing about this unique viewpoint, I searched for an article to provide evidence to support it. I found strong evidence that in the Hispanic culture, teachers take the role of an authoritative leader.  This can cause problems when Latino students transfer to an American school because they have a different expectation for the role of the teacher in their education. It will be interesting to dive in deeper to see what are the specific challenges that this cold cause for the transferring students.