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serious problem for improving the quality of education (Paulston, 1980).
According to Valdes (1972), discipline has been difficult to maintain
in many instances because many of the elementary and secondary teachers
are very young and inexperienced and quite often do not receive any
cooperation from the students. This viewpoint was expressed by many
early immigrants, but for the most part, the 1980 entrants believe
that the educational system was one of the greatest achievements of
the Revolution. Even teachers who had returned to visit Cuba agree
that the educational system has greatly improved and is now quite
admirable.
Of the Cuban schools, Moreno Franginals (1982) says,
We do have some very good schools. The problem is
the overall average is not as good as we would like.
We have some outstanding schools in Havana and Santa
Clara and other places, but that's not important.
What is important is that the overall average is
still very low.
The Revolution has incorporated much from the Russian educational
system, of which Bronfenbrenner (1970) writes,
Since each child's status depends in part on the
standing of the collective of which he is a member,
it is to each pupil's enlightened self-interest to
watch over his neighbor, encourage the other's good
performance and behavior, and help him when he is
in difficulty. In this system the children's
collective becomes the agent of adult society and
the major source of reward and punishment, (pp. 49-
50)
Punishment is often in the form of group sanctions and group
criticism. The worst punishment is ostracism from the group. The
individual is taught to act upon the judgments of the group and to
consider group interests above all else.