So You Think Your Motor Vehicle Bureau is Bad?

Before leaving for Vermont, I left my motorcycle with my gifted, yet slow, mechanic Vidal.  I provided him with a list of what I wanted to be done and when we would return…4 months later.  No surprise, 4 months later and Vidal had discovered a couple of other problems that needed fixing. So two weeks later I finally managed to pick up the R1150R. However upon receiving the bike, Vidal could not find the circulation card. This is the Guate equivalent of a registration/proof of ownership. 

He apologized and said he would take care of it as it was fault. However this is Guatemala.

In order to take care of the replacement card some things needed to be in place. First you had to file a police report to indicate its loss. Then you have to go to the SAT office to get the copy. Sounds simple enough doesn’t it? It is then that I find out only the owner can file for the replacement in person and you need to have the proper title. Not usually a problem, but we have just moved into a new place and everything is in boxes. A short search later I find the proper papers. Pretty lucky for me. I contact Vidal and arrange to meet him near the SAT office.  Vidal has the police report but prior to getting the card you have to clear your files at the municipal office that was fortunately close by. Vidal goes in and finds out there is a speeding ticket on the motorcycle. Now the only way to discover this is go online or try to have your papers put in order.  Turns out the speeding ticket was Vidal’s. So he goes to the bank to pay the fine (apparently the municipal authorities cannot be trusted with money), takes the receipt to the Muni office and gets the clearance papers.

Next it is off to the SAT office. We visit the clearance window where a guy tells you whether or not your papers are in order. He questions the police report because photocopies are not allowed and it was written in black in ink. He finally agrees that the it is okay. So we are ready to go the office itself. Well not really, first you have to get a copy of my passport, all 60 pages of it. So Diane and I get in line, a line with about 20 people on it while Vidal gets the copies.  Vidal comes back, not to get online, but to tell me he has to pay first at a different bank.  Into the bank Vidal goes and he returns about 10 minutes later to tell me he needs my NIT number. This is a National Identity number that you need to buy anything of any value in Guatemala. I give him my NIT papers that I just so happen to have. Ten more minutes and he returns. The line crawls towards the door.

We reach the front and our papers are again reviewed by an official. He also questions the police report but ultimately is satisfied. The door opens and we are ready to get our papers. Except that inside is a set of about 50 chairs that are the internal line. We play musical chairs for over an hour until we reach the front. It has been an hour and half now, but I have not flipped out yet. Diane remains outside reading her Kindle. We finally make it to the vetanilla, the window for service. The woman looks over our paperwork punches things into the computer and discovers, apparently, that I have a new passport, so additional copies of my passport are needed. Vidal goes out to get them. Now in a normal world the woman would have given Vidal the copies she already had so they can be run through the copier is a fast efficient manner. Did I say fast and efficient? This is still Guatemala. So she gives him my passport and ten minutes later he returns with the additional copies that have to be approved by a person on another line. There are only 4 or 5 people ahead of us, but it still takes 20+ minutes. Apparently the printer is not working, so each time she completes a transaction she has to go to another office to pick up the copies. Finally she gets our crap, I sign it, have my picture taken and I am fingerprinted. You can’t be too careful here.

We wait for the woman at the ventanilla to finish with her current customer.  We are now pushing 3 hours and patient Diane has called to see what the hell is going on. We sit down and she reviews the papers and then tells us that the police report says my motorcycle is a 2003 as opposed to the 2002 it actually is. Never mind that the VIN number is correct. She tells Vidal that this needs to be fixed by the police and we should return. BOOOM! I lose it, a bit. I tell them that there is no freaking way that I am returning here and that this paperwork has been checked by at least 3 other people. Guatemalans tend to be the sit down and take it kind of people. She looks a bit appalled that I am pissed off and says that she will check with her supervisor. Her supervisor decides that it will be okay to issue the duplicate card. So she puts the info into the computer and then we have to go to another line to pick up the card. Three hours later we are good to go.

So when you whine about your motor vehicle bureau being slow or efficient, remember you could be in Guatemala.

Is Plagiarism Dead?

Being a member of the older generation has some perks. First of all having lived for a while you actually experienced historical events, be it the Vietnam War, Woodstock, the Summer of  Love or using the Readers Guide to Periodic Literature.  You remember that, the big red book that let you find things that were published in magazines.

Growing up in the olden days you were cautioned by your teachers not plagiarize. You were never supposed to copy word for word from a resource without appropriate notation and you were cautioned against using other peoples’ ideas as your own. But what about now? As you peruse from one website to another you see the exact same words published without any proper citations. Website after website has the same information, word for word, being presented as their own thoughts.  If all of these websites, some of which that have hundreds of thousands of users, can do it, why can’t a student.

As a school administrator I deal with this problem frequently. Those teachers that are competent often find information that has been plagiarized. They highlight it on the student’s paper and provide copies of the resource where it came from.  There is a whole industry built around preventing plagiarism using sites such as Turnitin.com.  The less then competent teacher rarely finds an incidence of plagiarism and students joyfully accept this as an opportunity to cut and paste entire reports. The question we need to ask is; where is the problem? Is this a student problem? A teacher problem? A technology problem? Or is it a change in how the educational world should do business?

As an educator I often turn to the internet to find ideas for speeches and the like. If I find something that represents what I want to say I take it, adjust and use it. I don’t always give credit to the source as it was a basis for the start of what I wanted to say. Is this right? Is this wrong? Who is to say? Why should I work extra hard to do something that is easily available? If someone else has built a house that I like do I knock it down to rebuild the same thing? Not too likely.

Often time’s students are doing the same thing. Yes, of course there are lazy students who simply cut and paste and submit work without giving it a thought of their own. But what of the ones who look for items that reflect their thinking, combine them and present them as their own? Are they plagiarizing or are they simply using the current modern day tools that are available? Should a teacher accept a well-crafted essay that a student put together using the ideas of others to reflect their own ideas? Where does plagiarism start and end?

I don’t really have an answer to this. But as technology expands and it becomes easier and easier to get information, shouldn’t we adjust our methods of evaluation? Don’t we all use technology to our benefit? How is this different from our students? If they can clearly organize and understand the information that they collected, shouldn’t we just accept it? Does it truly make a difference how much of the writing is in a student’s own words?  If commercial websites plagiarize with impunity, why should it be any different for our students? Just as the Readers Guide to Periodic Literature has been relegated to the dust bin, should we do the same with our plagiarism rules?

Antigua Guatemala Semana Santa 2014

The Arch

The Market at La Merced

Traditional Alfombra (Carpet)

 A more modern Alfombra

Boy in the Park

Guatemalan Gladiator

Traditional Family

Procession Season has begun in Antigua

With the beginning of  Lent, the procession season began in Antigua. Many, many, many churches have processions throughout Antigua and we were "lucky" enough to happen upon one. During the processions people carry huge floats representing different aspects of Christianity. But the real art to the procession season is on the ground, where people build alfombras (Spanish for carpets). They spend hours and hours building these to then have them trampled upon by the procession. The wildly colored ones are made from colored sawdust.  This street, just outside our favorite breakfast location, was being filled with Alfombraas. Of course, having the police close the only road to and from Guatemala City so the procession could proceed ranks up there with any hugely bad idea. Traffic was backed up for almost 25 kms, with no place to go.

Enjoy the pictures