At the beginning of each school year, teachers and administrative staff carefully select students to be a part of several groups. These students are usually chosen because of their good grades and aptitude for leadership. There are health brigades, environment brigades, civil defense brigades, school police, and general classroom brigadiers. One student at the school, usually in the highest grade level, will be assigned the title of brigadier general, and another the sub brigadier.
Each group has a specific mission and tasks to complete throughout the year. For example, the environment brigadiers usually are in charge of maintaining cleanliness in the classroom, and the school police help teachers keep order and discipline. All groups hold activities or give lectures in order to educate their peers in accordance with their goals.
It’s an honor to be chosen as a brigadier for one of these groups.
And to honor these students, each school plans a grand swearing-in ceremony. Between April and June, the schools host these events. Students have to look for “padrinos” or “madrinas” (sponsors), who in turn donate to the school in the student’s name and place the cords that the students wear around their arm during the ceremony.
Various authorities in town are invited to preside over these ceremonies in accordance with the different groups. The local police, doctors, firefighters, and in the case of Olmos, Peace Corps volunteers. Years ago, Olmos was saturated with volunteers from the Environment Program, and the community still associates Peace Corps with the environment. While I assure people I meet that, no, I don’t know much more than “yes, we should recycle,” and “no, we shouldn’t burn trash nor should we throw it wherever we please,” they insist on inviting me to be the environment representative.
After participating in various ceremonies last year, I once again was invited to preside over three ceremonies as the environment representative this year, and supposedly there is a fourth school out there looking for me…
Not only was I invited to preside over portions of these ceremonies, students sought me out to be their “Madrina” or sponsor. The first student I sponsored, was the granddaughter of a couple who help maintain the high school where I work. The other three were all my students.
The perk of being a sponsor at these events, or a presider, is the free food and soda that they pass out during the event. More than that, I got a sense of gratification from honoring these students and felt flattered to have been asked.
Brittany McGee 