Social, Cultural, Political, and Intellectual Aspects of Schooling in Peru
Hello Interwebbers!
Welcome to the reflective blog post about our trip! We set out on this journey to learn about Peru’s educational system and its political, cultural, and social processes and compare it to those processes from the US educational system. We dove head-first into our exploration the friday after arrival, and our exploration still continues today as we think about our experiences from this wonderful adventure. We spent the first three weeks in Lima, where we visited a number of schools and after-school educational programs around the city. As a group, we visited schools with varying political, cultural, and social processes.
One such comparison is the Fé y Alegría (Faith and Happiness) schools and La Inmaculada. Let’s start by describing La Inmaculada, because we spent a week at the school in different classrooms. Each of us were split into different classrooms, with the exception of Gabriel who partnered with my roommate Kelsie, and we took part in the school routine and the overall school system for five days. La Inmaculada has the primary classes split up like this: There is one main homeroom where the students leave their school bags, jackets, etc. This is also where they have their fundamental core subjects: Math, Reading, Writing, etc. Other subjects like science, English, music, computation, and communications are all in separate classrooms where the students have to change classrooms. I was in a second grade English classroom. Everyday, the second graders would file in, ready for the day’s lesson. The teacher would start the day singing a ‘good morning’ song in English, and then start her lesson. Learning English is a very big part of the societal upbringing in Peru. What I mean by that, is that people who learn English are perceived to be more literate and really educated in comparison with those who did not study English. The mere fact that someone can speak English in Peru can increase their societal status and increase their chances of getting a great job with a lot of money.
La Inmaculada is one such school that has relatively high tuition fees for the students who attend the school. It is not nearly as high as Colegio Roosevelt (which is a school for kids of rich Peruvians and Diplomats), but it definitely excludes those from the region on the other side of the mountain. La Inmaculada has enough money for a zoo, for a large garden that the students take care of, as well as several buildings for classrooms. We mainly visited this school because this school is run by the Jesuit institution that is based in that area of Lima. The school’s motto and objectives are based off of those of the Jesuit faith. Did I see any implementation of the Jesuit faith in the school? No. This was partly because we were only there for half of the school day, and therefore do not get to attend their mass or religious studies classes. However, I did not see the Jesuit message being embedded in the pedagogy. And how could I, when I was with a teacher who was instructing seven and eight year olds on how to speak, read, and write in English? I’m sure the other girls have much different experiences at La Inmaculada. However, as the only non-Christian in the group, I am still confused as to how the Jesuits differ from other sects of Christianity. We attend Marquette University where the message is “Be the change you wish to see in the world” (Mohandas “Mahatma” Gandhi). The Jesuit faith is imparted into our curriculum by our multitude of opportunities to serve others. The Christian faith and the Jesuit faith are culturally prevalent in Peru and in La Inmaculada. I wish that I was able to learn more about the various ideologies of the Jesuit faith before embarking on this trip.
The Fé y Alegría schools , on the other hand, were completely different experiences altogether. The students are from poorer families and, depending on where the school is around the country, they may have to take long walks/transportation rides to get to school. We got to observe a variety of classes at Fé y Alegría #2 in Lima. I spent most of my time in science classes, where the seventh grade students discussed with their classmates about the best ways to better their environment in their communities. This school teaches their students from a young age that smoking is bad for the health and for the environment. Many of the students that presented their thoughts to the class talked about how the smoke that people exhale are dangerous for other people to inhale. Another key topic was the littering. Along with talking about the unsanitary dangers of smoking, they explained to the class how people generally throw their cigarettes on the ground when they are done smoking and how that is not healthy for the environment. Animals could eat it and become sick, the toxins could get into the water system and toxify the water even more. I was incredibly impressed with how passionate these students were about their knowledge about cleaning their city and keeping their environment as clean as possible. The students were split into groups to create posters with slogans on them. They came up with inventive and cool slogans that I would happily hang up on the walls around the city of Milwaukee, leave alone in Lima.
One thing I noticed in all of the Fé y Alegría classes that I observed, all the lessons were heavily group-based, and the students took part in projects and lessons that relate to their lives outside of the classroom. I got to see a greater variety of subjects at this school than at La Inmaculada where the English teacher attempted to use the sports that students like to relate to them (the unit was about the names of various sports and describing the weather), but that is one main difference that I noticed. I observed a Phys. Ed. class on the first day where the students were choreographing jump-rope routines in groups to songs they had picked out. They had to display their sense of rhythm with the jump-rope as well as incorporate other interesting moves with the rope that they had learned in class. The Arts/Theater class that I observed on the last day was fascinating. The teacher was teaching the students about the various aspects of theater. I enjoyed it immensely as I did their stretching exercises with them to wake the muscles up to be ready for the activity. The students were in four different groups where they each had to create a skit based on a place (school, library, park, hospital, etc.). Three out of the four groups chose the hospital as their place of inspiration while the last group chose the park. They got fifteen minutes to discuss their idea before the teacher called for the work to stop. One by one, the groups walked up to the stage (the other side of the room) while the rest of the class eagerly watched. The hospital scenes were quite exciting! Someone dies in one skit from a mugging, another person almost dies and was revived in an ambulance, and there was plenty of action! The park scene was serene and peaceful, like you would imagine any other park scene. There was a girl walking and a boy, acting as her pet dog, walking beside her on an invisible leash. She stops to pet him and says “Buen perro!” (“Good dog!”). They walk by some girls casually chatting when the ‘dog’ lifts his leg to tinkle on one of girls. We laughed as the girls jumped away in shock and disgust, and the girl with the dog kept saying “Mal perro!” (“Bad dog!”) and the boy grins as they walk away. The rest of the group acted as bystanders who laughed as the other girls freaked out after the dog had ‘peed’ on them. They created these scenes themselves based on what they have seen in movies/TV programs and/or in real life. Like the other classes, these students heavily relied on their background knowledge and past experiences to help them learn what they had been taught. There are only two buildings for this school: the pre-k and kindergarten school, and the grade school (1–12). The grade school is one building with many students of many different ages. I have no idea how they fit that many students into the school, but they manage somehow.
While the political aspects of both schools are completely different (economic situations of the families, location of the schools, etc.) they each have their own social and cultural differences. When it comes to making these processes more equitable, it takes a lot of thought and consideration of all of the aspects that are a part of each school. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know how they would be able to make these processes more equitable. My only idea is for the government to put more funding into schools nationwide. That way, each school would have the resources that the students need in order to learn, grow, and thrive in the world outside of home.
I sit here writing this on my laptop, just days after arriving home, and I can’t help but marvel at all the adventures I had over the past month. Has one month really gone by so quickly? I realized as I reflect back on my memories of our travels and educational discoveries that I learned so much about how education in Peru works in comparison to the educational system in the US, and I took plenty of tips on what to implement in my own classroom: What to teach, what to discuss, and what to learn from my students. Teaching is just an extension of the learning experience. Being a student is all about taking in the information and studying until one can understand the subject matter. Being a teacher is all about being able to take that subject matter and instruct to someone else to test your own understanding of the subject matter. Teaching and learning, the relationship between instructor and students, is a two-way process. We each get a chance to teach each other as well as learn from one another. That’s what life is all about.
Until next time,
Aditi Narayan
