More money, still a lot of problems

So I just spent a week at one of the nicest elementary schools I have ever seen. It was beautiful, they had everything that a school should have for their students including top of the line technology, quality teachers, and resources galore. There were multiple soccer fields of astro-turf for the children to run around on, computer labs for intercambios, and just about every kind of program that a child could dream of. It is a little scary that this isn’t even considered to be one of the top 10 most expensive schools in Peru, its 32nd! I have to admit it was awesome to work there, all of the students seemed to be excelling beyond their ages academically. They were a joy to work with, had fantastic manners, and made teaching easy. The only real issue that I bore witness to in the classroom was the constant chatter in the background, which isn’t bad for 5 year olds. A well rounded education requires students to be more than just intellectually fit. In my Jesuit high school, we had to fulfill RIPLOC in order to graduate. This meant we had to be religious, intellectually competent, physically fit, loving, open to growth and committed to doing justice. I think that a privileged school has a responsibility to the world that has been so kind to them. In the article response by Ruben A. Gaztambide-Fernández and Adam Howard they state, “It may seem counterintuitive that economically advantaged individuals would be concerned with and committed to social and economic justice, since they are the ones who benefit most from inequality” (P2). In saying this, the author is identifying the irony of educating students who have privilege how the system benefits them and hurts others. Underneath that irony, there is a goal of wanting to help make the world a better place, does that mean that people who have more should give away all of their extra money to people who have less? Not necessarily.

End of the day, the amount of privilege that someone is born into does not define the kind of person they will become. Through education, there is an ability to intervene and show students the path towards a better future. It teaches them valuable moral lessons that will help them to become wonderful people down the line. Although it may seem ironic at first, underneath it all I believe that people want to be good. To do good they have to be shown, especially if they are not exposed first hand to the issues of the world around us. People are always saying that the first step is to educate on the issues because most of the time people have no idea what is going on in the world. I went out to the club on Saturday, and I probably shouldn’t be telling you that I did that, but it’s a fact. Anyway, while at the club I was talking about my time here, which consisted of a number of visits to el Augustino. I told this to someone, and the guy literally looked at me with shock and was like “YOU WENT TO THE GHETTO!?”. Me being the person that I am, I got up in his face about Patty, my little friends at the casitas, and how they are going to be better people that this rich douche will ever be. He clearly didn’t get a just education that pushed him to be better, do better, and strive to eliminate some of the inequality in this world. A lot of people won’t have teachers or a school community that challenges them to look outside of their lush lifestyle and learn how to use their privilege as a platform to appeal to more people for justice.

To have an education that focuses on expectations of becoming a person responsible for their choices in the world and understanding what the consequences are is beneficial for the entire world. It is the goal of many teachers because “any classroom that employs a holistic model of learning will also be a place where teachers grow, and are empowered by the process.” (Engaged Pedagody, 21). Most teachers want their students to succeed in becoming well rounded people, because that means that they have succeeded as teachers. This means that they have to provide opportunities for learning that goes deep down into the mysteries of the world. They won’t always have the right answers but they need to be open to challenging questions about the norms of society, critiques about different systems, and constant confusion about why the world is the way it is.

For the most part, we will have had to grapple with some of the hard concepts along with our students. We will learn so much from all of their different opinions, beliefs, and background knowledge that they bring into our classroom. They will push us to find answers in different places and inspire us to try to be the change that we wish to see in the world. We will have to lead by example and that is not always an easy task. It means that we need to be genuine, honest, and transparent with our students at all times. I hope that I will be able to do this with my students the way some of my teachers have done so with me. Every time a teacher answered my question with a question instead of turning me away, I was engaged. Every time I was pushed to look deeper, criticize harder, and think more I took steps in the right direction, helping me to become who I am today. Not that I’m the best person in the world, but I have good intentions and an open heart and I hope that I will remember that when a student comes to me with difficult questions about poverty, crime, evil, and pain.

So educating the social elite means that we challenge them to be more than just intellectually competent, and rise so much higher to be well rounded citizens of the world.