You think you had it rough!

NEA Today, Oct 1998

At a world assembly of educators, America stands years ahead of some nations, years behind others.

Frustrated by overcrowded classrooms? In Egypt, educators teach in crumbling classrooms, packed with as many as 60 students.

Having trouble making ends meet? In Liberia, educators can't afford decent clothes to wear on the job.

Angry about gender bias? In Afghanistan, the government has banned girls from attending schools, and women teachers have to conduct classes in secret.

This past summer, NEA activists from around the country heard stories like these first-hand at the biggest assembly of world educators ever held.

The gathering, the Second World Congress of the Education International, drew over 1,100 educators to Washington, D.C., in July for five days of sobering-and sometimes inspiring-dialogue and debate.

NEA helped found the Education International in 1993. The ranks of EI affiliates now include 284 educator unions from 150 countries. Most of those unions were represented at the World Congress by their top leadership.

But some top leaderslike Taye Woldesmiate, president of the Ethiopian Teachers Associationcouldn't attend. A political prisoner since 1996, Woldesmiate is jailed in a cell without natural light. His deputy was assassinated in 1997, shot in the back. The authorities said he was "resisting arrest."

Other courageous educators were able to attend. Sheridan Pearce, a math teacher in U.S. Department of Defense schools, met one-Dong-Jin Lee, a Korean educator jailed for 17 months for organizing a teachers union.

"Listening to his struggles for the rights we take for granted, I'm humbled," says Pearce. "We don't know how good we have it."

But rights don't necessarily foster reforms. NEA delegates learned that many nations around the world are doing far more than the United States to extend public education's horizons.

Eliza Garcia, a second grade teacher from Kingville, Texas, compared notes with Norwegian teachers. In Norway, teachers follow one class from first through sixth grade. "They're trained to see the whole development of a child's education," says Garcia.

Norway also offers public schooling for children under five, learned North Carolina teacher Geraldine McNeill. Each classroom has a teacher and a nurse-and no more than 10 students.

Susan Roushey, an NEA activist from Delaware, explored the ins and outs of Danish education at the World Congress. In Denmark, teachers have 32 minutes of planning for each 45minute lesson with students.

At William Penn High School here in the United States, Roushey currently teaches five periods a day, has a duty assignment for one period, and one period of planning.

"If I were in Denmark," she explains, "1 would teach three periods, have three periods of planning, and one duty period."

Roushey would like to see innovative approaches to education like Denmark's exported around the world. And she had plenty of company at the World Congress.

Delegates were eager to share with and learn from each other-whether talking about a new defunding scheme, a tip on fighting privatization, or advice on how to make multi-age classes work.

Solving education's worldwide problems, Missouri teacher Chris Guinther notes, demands worldwide cooperation.

"Thanks to the Education International and meetings like this one," Guinther adds, "we're starting to make those cooperative connections."