A New Educational Context
Peru is a country filled with rich cultures, many languages, delicious food and a complicated history. To end our time in Peru, we left Lima and took a short one hour flight to Cusco. During our time in Andahuaylillas and Cusco we were able to experience these differences in culture, languages and history. Lima is located in the desert while Cusco is located in the highlands. Throughout our time in Peru, we have learned that those from the highlands have been discriminated against. Many people in the Cusco region don’t speak Spanish, but instead speak the native language of Quechua. They also have a different culture than those living in other parts of Peru. On Wednesday, we went to Cuyuni, a small Andean community and participated in an Andean ritual which gave back and thanked Pachamama, mother earth. When in Lima, I felt it was just another big cosmopolitan city; however, in Cusco I felt the culture, history and traditions everyday. At Plaza de Armas, the main square, parades and festivals take place every day in the month of June.
Monday and Tuesday morning we spent time at Fe y Alegría in Andahuaylillas and in the afternoon we went to the town’s Ludoteca.
Ludoteca is an after school program run in conjunction with Fe y Alegría. Ludoteca provides a safe place for students to play with their peers. Fe y Alegría are Jesuit run schools and social programs throughout Latin America. They focus on providing a quality public education. The Fe y Alegría schools in the Cusco region are very interesting and unique. In most rural schools, Quechua is taught in grades K-3, followed by Spanish in the upper grades. By 6th grade, the goal is for students to be fluent in both Quechua and Spanish.
One of the goals of Fe y Alegría is to reinforce students’ culture and then build upon it. Parents play an integral part in their children’s education. Parents come into the classrooms and teach their children about their culture, such things include weaving and dyeing of textiles. Fe y Alegría found that their students were anemic because they only ate meat and potatoes. In order to address this problem, they built greenhouses at the school. Along with this, Fe y Alegría serves a nutritious breakfast and lunch to all of its students. In the primary school at Fe y Alegría there are about 400–500 students. In contrast, at a rural school there may only be 10 students. On Monday at Fe y Alegría in Andahuaylillas I sat in on a primary school science class where they were learning about the planets and our solar system.
On Tuesday, students around the age of 11 made origami, practiced theater and learned about the history and culture of Peru. The history and culture class was particularly interesting. I found it a little confusing that although the school in Andahuaylillas is located in the Andes, Spanish was the only language taught in the primary school.The professor opened the discussion by asking how many students out of about 20–25 spoke Quechua. Only three students raised their hands. She followed this up by asking how many of their parents spoke Quechua and most if not all students raised their hands. She asked her class and wanted them to think about why they hadn’t learned it. It was then their homework to answer two questions: what is cultural identity and why are some traditions being lost. Along with this, it was their homework to practice Quechua. Overall, I really enjoyed our two mornings spent at Fe y Alegría and wished we could have spent more time. I believe that education is context dependent. Comparing Fe y Alegría in Andahuaylillas with the schools in Lima you will immediately see differences, differences that I believe are context dependent. For example, in many Fe y Alegría schools in rural Peru, both Quechua and Spanish are taught. In Andahuaylillas there was a strong emphasis on community, history and culture. However, at La Inmaculada there was a different tune to this story. Both English and Spanish were taught and the school was rooted in the Ignatian Pedagogy. While both Fe y Alegría and La Inmaculada are Jesuit, I felt the Ignatian Pedagogy was being incorporated in different ways. If these schools were transferred directly to another city, they would be missing critical components that these students need. At Fe y Alegría, Colegio Roosevelt and La Inmaculada there are obvious distinctions. For example, at Fe y Alegría, parents and community involvement in teaching history, culture and language is a great asset. At Fe y Alegría I think of the schools involvement with the parents/community in teaching their students about history, culture and language of where they live. Fe y Alegría is also a public school where Colegio Roosevelt and La Inmaculada are both private schools serving the middle class and wealthy. At La Inmaculada, there was a sense of social justice in their pastoral programs which aimed at seeing the equality among people. There was also social activism within the classrooms whether talking about Venezuela or how the school can become greener. At Colegio Roosevelt, I saw a heavy focus on up to date technology, extracurriculars and the arts. If you were to bring either Colegio Roosevelt or La Inmaculada into Andahuaylillas or a rural community, the students wouldn’t flourish. These schools are catering to a certain group of families and students.
In seminar this week, we focused on different broad aspects of education such as privatization vs public education and dual immersion vs bilingual education along with two different child rearing approaches. Lareau, “Invisible Inequality” looked at two different child rearing approaches: concerted cultivation vs accomplishment of natural growth. While neither one of these is deemed better than the other, both have an effect on how children develop. Lareau focuses of three key factors: organization of child’s daily life, language use and social connections. While none of these happen directly in the school, all of these will have a huge impact on schooling. Over time, public education has become more and more criticized. Both Balarín, “Default Privatization of Peruvian Schools” and Ravitch, “Worldwide, Public Education is Up for Sale” look at the privatization of education around the world as one solution to the “failing” of public schools. The main problem is that schools are failing which is solely being measured on quantifiable results. They believe that the solution is privatization since the public sector cannot fix the problem. I believe that privatization is just a band aid to a much bigger problem. If all schools become privatized, there is the possibility they will become a business rather than a place for education and growth. In addition to privatization, there are problems with neoliberal approaches to education as discussed in Cabalin, “Neoliberal Education & Student Movements in Chile”. Cabalin defines neoliberal approaches as policies that “promote the continued privatization of the education sector, which values the right of school choice over the right to an equitable education, and also presents education as a commodity, where schools are presented as a product to buy and sell”. He argues that these policies have only created further segregation, stratification and inequalities. Based on our experience at Fe y Alegría, a public school serving rural communities, I would agree and argue that a neoliberal education is not beneficial to Andean communities. At the core, people shouldn’t have to pay for something that is a human right. In Fe y Alegría, La Inmaculada and Colegio Roosevelt we have seen bilingual education in practice. This is just one way schools can teach a foreign language to their students. Another approach to teaching a foreign language is dual immersion education. In dual immersion education the majority student group learns the new language from the minority group. They are then all taught together. A negative of the dual immersion education is that it creates unseen power dynamics and consequences for those who aren’t the majority in the school.
Throughout my time in Peru, I have been able to draw connections between the Peruvian education system and the educational system in Milwaukee from the vast inequality to the similarities in teaching. My time spent at Fe y Alegría was enlightening to see how a school can combine culture and history while supporting their families and surrounding communities. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent both at Fe y Alegría in Andahuaylillas and La Inmaculada, both providing different insights into different contexts within Peruvian schools.
