My Classes
One of the opportunities I am most thankful for is the chance to take all my classes in the University, with regular Cuban students. All of the classes, with the exception of the Ecology class previously described, are in the department of History, Philosophy, and Sociology. As you may already know, education from preschool to post-grad is entirely free for Cubans. The down side, in my opinion, is that this comes with a decrease in free will. In order to achieve the highest degree of efficiency, university students only take classes dictated to them, in their “carrera,” or major. For instance, as a 1st semester 3rd year history major, I would take Cuban History 5, Contemporary History, Patrimony, English, Jose Marti, and Cuban Immigration. With this system, students complete their undergraduate and graduate degree at the same time, in only 5, sometimes 6, years. This includes doctors and lawyers. To me, it’s not worth the rush because the classes lack personal investment, meaning individual motivation decreases. People skip classes all the time, people read through classes, talk to their friends, and complain about how much they don’t want to go. Sure, this happens in the US too, but it is way more widespread and more justified in Cuba. I’m not necessarily saying we do it better in the US, obviously our educational system is hugely unfair, but I’m just saying that it’s not perfect here either.
Like everything in Cuba, the foreigners with the money have more privileges and freedom in the University than the Cubans do. Though I basically have to take all my classes in one department, I can take whatever class in whatever carrera I want. So my classes are Cuban History from the Revolution until today, Cuban Immigration to the US, Latin American Thought, and Marxist and Leninist Philosophy. The History course is pretty lame. The professor is old and senile and half-blind and half-deaf, so he talks really slowly and jumps from idea to idea rather illogically. Sometimes he just lists names of people and dates without any explanation. It’s pretty amusing though, the entire class pays no attention to him. Most arrive at least 30 minutes late, or not at all. My friend Mikel hasn’t come in about 4 weeks. The ones that do show up blatantly read other books right in front of him or talk openly to their friends. I just keep showing up with the hope that there will be a glimmer of something interesting. The Cuban Immigration class is really good, mainly because the students have really strong opinions about the subject and the professor provokes them, in a good way. This class has been a lesson on Cuban habits too. As far as I can tell, Cubans cannot wait their turn to talk. When someone talks, they get maybe 20 words out and then 5 other people jump in and start talking over them. Basically, the class dissolves in chaos fairly often, but this is both informative and hysterical, so I like it. Latin American Thought is kind of like a history of Latin American philosophy and philosophers. For instance, we’ve lately been talking about this guy named Mariategui, a Marxist Peruvian who started a group of philosophers and wrote a lot of books. It’s pretty interesting, but the professor is almost impossible to understand. Cuban Spanish is REALLY difficult because it is really fast and endings are often dropped, especially s’s, and this guy is a classic example. Luckily, I’ve learned that if I’m staring at his mouth I can usually tell what he means to say even if no sound comes out. My favorite class by far is the Marxist/Leninist class. It’s early and long, and the professor is a hard-ass, but he’s also fantastic. We spend a long time on concepts, but he makes sure we all understand them because he makes us explain it to each other, by prompting us to make the same connections that past philosophers make. It’s like we are following the same trains of thought in this classroom that Hegel and Descartes followed years ago. He also uses really good examples to help us understand. Besides just generally being a good class, I really like it because the challenging part is understanding the concepts, not understanding what he is saying.
Despite a seemingly tough schedule, classes actually take up a pretty minimal chunk of my time. I have about 12 hours of class over 3 days each week and almost zero work. There is very little reading, maybe 1 hour or less each week, and never any homework. By the end of the year we have to write a 20 page paper for each class, but I’m thinking that this might not even be a big deal since I’m pretty sure all the professors think we don’t really speak Spanish. I heard of this Japanese student who really didn’t speak hardly any Spanish and so probably didn’t really write much of a final paper, yet still got full marks for the course. That’s the power of money here, unfortunately. For a socialist country, a huge amount of importance is placed on the dollar. But I won’t get into that now, it’s already a long entry.
Like everything in Cuba, the foreigners with the money have more privileges and freedom in the University than the Cubans do. Though I basically have to take all my classes in one department, I can take whatever class in whatever carrera I want. So my classes are Cuban History from the Revolution until today, Cuban Immigration to the US, Latin American Thought, and Marxist and Leninist Philosophy. The History course is pretty lame. The professor is old and senile and half-blind and half-deaf, so he talks really slowly and jumps from idea to idea rather illogically. Sometimes he just lists names of people and dates without any explanation. It’s pretty amusing though, the entire class pays no attention to him. Most arrive at least 30 minutes late, or not at all. My friend Mikel hasn’t come in about 4 weeks. The ones that do show up blatantly read other books right in front of him or talk openly to their friends. I just keep showing up with the hope that there will be a glimmer of something interesting. The Cuban Immigration class is really good, mainly because the students have really strong opinions about the subject and the professor provokes them, in a good way. This class has been a lesson on Cuban habits too. As far as I can tell, Cubans cannot wait their turn to talk. When someone talks, they get maybe 20 words out and then 5 other people jump in and start talking over them. Basically, the class dissolves in chaos fairly often, but this is both informative and hysterical, so I like it. Latin American Thought is kind of like a history of Latin American philosophy and philosophers. For instance, we’ve lately been talking about this guy named Mariategui, a Marxist Peruvian who started a group of philosophers and wrote a lot of books. It’s pretty interesting, but the professor is almost impossible to understand. Cuban Spanish is REALLY difficult because it is really fast and endings are often dropped, especially s’s, and this guy is a classic example. Luckily, I’ve learned that if I’m staring at his mouth I can usually tell what he means to say even if no sound comes out. My favorite class by far is the Marxist/Leninist class. It’s early and long, and the professor is a hard-ass, but he’s also fantastic. We spend a long time on concepts, but he makes sure we all understand them because he makes us explain it to each other, by prompting us to make the same connections that past philosophers make. It’s like we are following the same trains of thought in this classroom that Hegel and Descartes followed years ago. He also uses really good examples to help us understand. Besides just generally being a good class, I really like it because the challenging part is understanding the concepts, not understanding what he is saying.
Despite a seemingly tough schedule, classes actually take up a pretty minimal chunk of my time. I have about 12 hours of class over 3 days each week and almost zero work. There is very little reading, maybe 1 hour or less each week, and never any homework. By the end of the year we have to write a 20 page paper for each class, but I’m thinking that this might not even be a big deal since I’m pretty sure all the professors think we don’t really speak Spanish. I heard of this Japanese student who really didn’t speak hardly any Spanish and so probably didn’t really write much of a final paper, yet still got full marks for the course. That’s the power of money here, unfortunately. For a socialist country, a huge amount of importance is placed on the dollar. But I won’t get into that now, it’s already a long entry.
posted by Anna van der Horst at 9:46 AM
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