Jim Cooper

   

Cover of the book "Down in the Island"

It’s very interesting how perspective shifts between people from different places, many that travel abroad to settle in another culture, after a few years, are still treated as outsiders. Why does this happen? Outsiders at the same time might not fully grasp on to what makes their new home different from their old one. As portrayed with an American Professor teaching in Puerto Rico in the book “Down on the island” by Jim Cooper. Jim cooper had to adjust to Puertorican lifestyle quickly as he started teaching in the University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez  where he arrive with the idea that he would have the same influence of Puertorican culture  from his students as the students would have of his North American culture.

     On the teaching chapter of the book the first his first clash of “procedures” happened when he was given the syllabus of his class at the colegio because he did not make any sense of it other that it what completely improvised and not adjusted well enough for student needs. The course was made up supposing that every student at least had 3 years of some sort of English class on high school and given the fact that student numbers were growing and most were from public schools who may have given the class or not. To his surprise the English department was not taken seriously and students are forced to go through the class instead of learning actually anything from it. Given the point that some professors do not know the proper way to pronounce or teach the course, as they just “follow the book”. I think many students from the UPR system can relate to at least one class where the professor really does not care and this is one of the things that the professor and I too think, that should be done differently.

   

Jim Cooper (actually)

When Professor Cooper started his second year at the colegio he was encountered with a situation that he shared with among his fellow professors and it was the outrageous ways that the students cheated during their examinations. This was his second clash with the identity of the Puertoricans, for which he later understood when he found out that students during their elementary school where encouraged to “help” each other when somebody did not know the answer to a problem. He had to cope knowing that his students will continue to help each other because they were raised that way the same way North Americans are raised to be competitive in everything including not helping others during examinations. By helping , students even thought that being  nice to the professor would be enough to earn a good grade even when their work was poorly done, top which the professor did not tend to incline and to what he found out that many of the relationships where based of the same facts that lead him to figure out what encouraged young college students to cheat during their college days.

On his trip down to the island the professor had to deal with the burden that came with teaching his culture while learning from a new one in a simultaneous process. From what I could take out from the book the professor could not assimilate completely into the Puertorican culture even though he accepted the way things were done here because he understood that he could still make the difference teaching, his students at least, what needed to be taught.  In the book he could grasp an essence of what is like to be a student in the University of Puerto Rico, if he could not understand how the syllabus work around for the preparation of the student, imagine how would a student react when he is forced to take a course that he does not understand when the professor does not understand either.  All in all I enjoyed reading these chapters because it was something I could identify with and it was interesting see it from the other perspective as a professor.