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Above we see some of the work of nature photographer and photojournalist Milton Roldan, who once upon a time was a student who did an internship of sorts with The Panama News. The Wattled Jacana is a small water bird, whose chicks would make tender morsels for the much larger Tiger Heron.

(If bird pictures from Panama --- one of the world's great birding paradises --- appeal to you as home or office decorations, then do contact Milton and see what he has to offer.)

Panama's public school year is now underway, and in one way or another, but not nearly enough and not always in a good way, youngsters are the subject of some important national discourses.

The drug cartels are off on another wave of executions, most of the victims being young men or adolescent boys. President Martinelli has said that he feels impotent in the face of this crime wave, but meanwhile a law he signed that treats 12-year-olds as adults in cases of serious crimes has just gone into effect, and some of his supporters are now agitating for the death penalty. So will signing a death warrant for a 12-year-old be just the cure to restore the president's vigor and power?

Meanwhile the school year started on time without a major strike, but with students at some schools still under reconstruction attending classes in improvised substitute classrooms. On balance, chalk these facts up as a victory for Education Minister Lucy Molinar.

With the start of the school year and the special pilot programs for curriculum reform underway, the contents of the government's curriculum reform necessarily had to become public knowledge. It was more or less as expected.

But before getting into content, let us recognize that process is also a substantive issue here. An information control game wherein the public and the teachers' unions are kept in the dark about a curriculum reform until it is implemented is an unacceptable lack of transparency and an invitation to labor strife.

Like the Torrijos administration's unimplemented curriculum reform plan, Martinelli and Molinar would cut way back on instruction in the arts, history, civics and physical education. Eventually this would mean teachers of those subjects losing their jobs, so sooner or later there will be a teachers' strike about this.

What Martinelli, the entire Panamanian political class and certain international institutions that are dominated by multinational corporations want is a Panamanian working class that can read and write and make change, but won't notice that campaign platforms of "There are more of us crazies" or "Yes we can" are meaningless and insulting. They would use the education system to strip Panamanians of that which is distinctly Panamanian and mold a nondescript corporate generic generation that's totally oblivious to its nation's history and culture.

What we're really seeing in the government's approach to the young, in both the criminal justice and school systems, is an administration that in less than a year in office has run out of useful ideas.

This is not to say that there are easy answers to the situations of violent boys. Certainly there is no useful "one size fits all" policy, one reason being that there is no single pathology that leads to the problem.

Nor is this to say that our public school curriculum does not need reform --- clearly it does. However, here there is a single uniform policy that must be part of any education reform that contributes to the nation's development --- the kids in the public schools must attend for full days.

That would cost money to hire more teachers and build more classrooms, and it would conflict with the long-standing "Washington Consensus" that Latin American countries should adopt austere national budgets in which they spend less, not more, on public education. But then, the Washington politicians have enough trouble with US education, and Panamanians did not elect Mr. Martinelli or the members of the National Assembly to take foreign instructions about how our schools ought to be run.

Nobody much likes little thugs, so Martinelli is not going to get much grief from the public about his juvenile justice policies. However, he's headed for major controversies over the schools.

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"Pathways," a Brazilian dance act that's performing here.
Photo courtesy of GECU