First Panamanian Physics Olympiad
Machine translation from the original, not yet reviewed by the author.
Original in Spanish
I have been given the high honor of speaking the closing words of the First Panamanian Physics Olympiad, on behalf of all of us students who took part in it. May these words carry our gratitude to the various organizing committees, to the institutions, and to the teachers and education authorities who in one way or another had a hand in the successful completion of this momentous event.
The growth of human knowledge travels at an extraordinary and almost unsuspected speed, and this obliges us to keep up with the advances of technology and to prepare ourselves to be useful and competent when our country calls for our services. In contrast with this reality stand all the distractions of today’s society. To the extent that we stay active, whether in sports or in any branch of human knowledge, we will keep away from the vices that today are eating away at our youth.
As for the competition itself, it has been an extraordinary experience. It has been very useful to us for measuring what we know and also what we do not know. For many of us it has not been easy to get this far, especially those of us who come from public schools. At this point I would like to take the opportunity to make a respectful suggestion to the education authorities. It is essential to standardize the curricula of public and private schools. In the state schools, the syllabi of subjects such as Physics, Chemistry, English, Biology and Mathematics leave much to be desired, for they have remained almost unchanged over the years.
The quality and intensity of the teaching in public schools is not a sufficient foundation when the time comes to enter a university. We public-school students demand that our educational opportunities be equal to those of our peers at private schools. That is what we would call a fair fight. We leave our concern with the education authorities.
To our fellow students who took the top places, we offer our congratulations and wish them the best of luck at the Ibero-American Olympiad. To our teachers, our eternal gratitude, for without their teaching and guidance we would not be here today. To our parents, who guide our steps, thank you very much for your unconditional support.
And, to close, we wish to reiterate our thanks to all those who believed in us and to all those who helped bring about so great an event. Thank you very much!
A later speech
Speech at the Graduation of the José Daniel Crespo High School · Prof. Mercedes de Arosemena
Members of the head table, fellow teachers, young graduates, parents, ladies and gentlemen:
I take a brief moment in this solemn ceremony to extend a very warm greeting on behalf of the authorities of the Ministry of Education, and especially of Professor Gilberto Solís P., Director of Academic Secondary Education, who, owing to the duties of his office, is not here today, as he would have wished; that is why he asked me to convey, on his behalf, his apologies and his greetings.
In 1992, Panama held its first Physics Olympiad, in which upper-cycle students from state and private schools all over the country took part.
Since it was the first experience, we assumed that the results would lean toward the private sector, given that most of its schools were at that time following curricula much more up to date than those of the state sector.
However, the José Daniel Crespo High School, in the persons of a fifth-year student and a sixth-year student, showed us that our initial hypothesis was not correct.
Among the top eight places, and achieving the highest score of the state schools of the Republic of Panama, were the students Roberto Joaquín Pérez Franco and José Barrera.
I single out the placing of Roberto Pérez because he was at the time a fifth-year student, the only fifth-year student who reached the final stage of the Olympiad, and yet, ahead of sixth-year students from renowned schools in the capital, he achieved the highest score of the state sector in this educational contest.
Roberto showed that the students of this country’s state schools, with a good teaching methodology such as the one he received from his teachers at this school, can achieve the objectives of the teaching-learning process with excellence.
At the Olympiad’s award ceremony, it fell to Roberto to speak on behalf of his fellow students, and in his address he asked the education authorities to bring the curricula of our country’s state and private schools into line. I am very pleased to tell you today, Roberto, that your request spurred and sped up the restructuring of the Curricula and Syllabi of the Science and Humanities High School Diplomas, which came into force in 1993. With them we hope to raise the quality of teaching in the state sector, just as you wished.
My presence here today, as National Supervisor of Physics and on behalf of the National Organizing Commission of the Physics Olympiad, is meant to recognize the effort that Roberto made in that First Olympiad, but it is also meant to tell you and all your classmates that that educational experience made it possible to leave to other generations renewed Curricula and Syllabi which, without claiming to be ideal, we will keep improving to the extent that the students, the parents, the teachers, in short the whole educational community, are the ones who raise the alarm, sound the bugle call and constantly encourage the authorities, respectfully, to bring teaching up to date.
Congratulations to you and to all your classmates on successfully completing this stage of your lives; keep alive the enthusiasm you show today, for your personal growth and for the greatness of our country. Thank you.
Speech given by Prof. Mercedes de Arosemena, National Supervisor of Physics, at the upper-cycle graduation ceremony of the José Daniel Crespo High School, on March 10, 1994.
Notes
This text is the speech given by Roberto Pérez-Franco, then a fifth-year student at the José Daniel Crespo High School, at the award ceremony of the First Panamanian Physics Olympiad (1992), in Panama City.