It’s Friday already! Over two week in our new home in Xalapa... time flies when you are having fun!
Today closes the second week of classes for the boys in their new school, Colegio Nuestro Mundo. It has been amazing to watch the ease in which they have made the transition to this new school, how quickly they surrounded themselves of friends and how excited they come back home after the schoolday is over. They won’t cease talking about the new classes they have and they relate to us every single thing they did at recess– in the labyrinth, at the patio, down at the forest. They are specially excited about the new ecology building down in the forest area and their weekly ecology class.
When we chose the school, we already had a good sense of what the focus of the education would be like. We were aware of the fascinating mix of philosophies and ideologies that were used to create a more unique approach to a complete education of the child. We were already very familiar with many philosophies, such as Waldorf, Montessori, Piaget, Constructivism, Reggio Emilia… and of course the useless “No Child Left Behind” that somehow leaves most children behind in overall learning (talk about stressful schooling with a very low expectations to any child in it, and even a child knows it: www.connectforkids.org/node/3336; thus we were fascinated with the more proactive approach of the school. An approach employs a mix of these philosophies to personalize education enough so that it offers the child a more complete view of the real actual world and arms him (or her) with tools to make sense of the information he is given: collecting, rationalizing and organizing information that the child will be able to use more and more as he/she develops a better understanding of the World around. Suddenly learning to read, write and do math become something more meaningful, a way to reach a realistic goal for the child. An art project, or a book do more than just fill the sensitive side of the soul, but become a path by which they can validate history, make use of skills they already posses and find more meaning to the written word.
In our time in Cleveland Heights, I found my share of teachers that shared this non-philosophy of using the tools that best fit the job. They are all great educators that, unfortunately, remained hindered by the “NCLB” policy. Even so, it was a tall order, even in a private school in Mexico, but so far it has proven to deliver even a little piece of what we were hoping: a newly found sense of responsibility and organization that usually is given prefabricated to the children, a sense of self achievement and security in themselves and the skills they posses (self-confidence).
One of the biggest reasons we moved to the area was to be able to give our kids a great education, not just a decent schooling option, but a life experience that translated into education for life. When we look back at their first two weeks we wonder if we missed an opportunity at not having found this school one year ago.
Had we found Colegio Nuestro Mundo last year, we would have set residence in Xalapa from the beginning, we would have not lived in Coatepec. The boys would have had two years of a very full school experience… Life would have been a lot easier than our life in Coatepec, but would it have been as full?
Colegio Calli was a very good transition school for the boys. Although it
followed some of the Waldorf precepts, it was not quite a full blown Steiner school. This made it easy for the boys to benefit of some of the artistic richness of the philosophy without too much discrepancy to their life. It was an easy going, small school, and the size made it less stressful for the boys to fit in with a very limited knowledge of the language. Their first six months there were vital, both for the acquisition of the language, as for the getting rid of a lot of put downs the NCLB education had left in them: artistically and academically. Their self-esteem got elevated and their artistic nature got celebrated. The second half of the year could have been equally good, but the lack of challenge and variety of stimuli seemed to weight heavy on the boys once the language acquisition was no longer a challenge. So, that second half, added to the turmoil inside the school administration and teacher’s core, did not sit well with our expectations. Then, again, that same turmoil turned us into a path of research and investigation that helped us recognizing many downfalls in the up-bringing of children nowadays (ours included), and made it clear what our priorities and our path should be for the future.
About living in Coatepec. We probably would have missed a unique opportunity to make that learning process such a productive one. We were able to immerse them in a more authentic Mexico. All of us, not just the kids, were enriched by the trueness of the landscape and the starkness of the reality of those who have very little. Each day, as we walked to school, we would experience everything from the big lump of doggie doo on the sidewalk, to the men that had been up too late trying to clear their misery with a bottle of alcohol. The boys became aware of how running water has not reached everyone when they saw how women still take their clothes to
wash to the river or carried buckets home (all this on the way to school). They also became aware of how many luxuries we take for granted are not shared by many, many people, like hot water: the first time they saw the old women go down the steep hills in search for fire wood it was strange and unreal for them. Even in Mexico, where gas is more than 50% cheaper than in the US, way too many people cannot afford to cook or heat their homes with gas. But, even with all those disadvantages, we all witnessed the beauty and strength of the human spirit.
It was a hard year to figure out ins and ends of a traditional and old culture, different in many ways to how I was brought up. It was a hard year to connect with people and landscape, but once we connected, the richness was unsurpassable. It was a hard year to partake in the hurt and struggle of an emerging school, were we left our hearts, but we knew it had outlived its potential to our children. It was a hard year to become pregnant, in the middle of uncertainty and cobbled roads, but it probably wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
In all, it was unique.
If we had found Colegio Nuestro Mundo a year ago, yes, we would have not had Coatepec. For that, our year here would have been much easier, but definitively not even remotely as rich as it was.
Today closes the second week of classes for the boys in their new school, Colegio Nuestro Mundo. It has been amazing to watch the ease in which they have made the transition to this new school, how quickly they surrounded themselves of friends and how excited they come back home after the schoolday is over. They won’t cease talking about the new classes they have and they relate to us every single thing they did at recess– in the labyrinth, at the patio, down at the forest. They are specially excited about the new ecology building down in the forest area and their weekly ecology class.
When we chose the school, we already had a good sense of what the focus of the education would be like. We were aware of the fascinating mix of philosophies and ideologies that were used to create a more unique approach to a complete education of the child. We were already very familiar with many philosophies, such as Waldorf, Montessori, Piaget, Constructivism, Reggio Emilia… and of course the useless “No Child Left Behind” that somehow leaves most children behind in overall learning (talk about stressful schooling with a very low expectations to any child in it, and even a child knows it: www.connectforkids.org/node/3336; thus we were fascinated with the more proactive approach of the school. An approach employs a mix of these philosophies to personalize education enough so that it offers the child a more complete view of the real actual world and arms him (or her) with tools to make sense of the information he is given: collecting, rationalizing and organizing information that the child will be able to use more and more as he/she develops a better understanding of the World around. Suddenly learning to read, write and do math become something more meaningful, a way to reach a realistic goal for the child. An art project, or a book do more than just fill the sensitive side of the soul, but become a path by which they can validate history, make use of skills they already posses and find more meaning to the written word.
In our time in Cleveland Heights, I found my share of teachers that shared this non-philosophy of using the tools that best fit the job. They are all great educators that, unfortunately, remained hindered by the “NCLB” policy. Even so, it was a tall order, even in a private school in Mexico, but so far it has proven to deliver even a little piece of what we were hoping: a newly found sense of responsibility and organization that usually is given prefabricated to the children, a sense of self achievement and security in themselves and the skills they posses (self-confidence).
One of the biggest reasons we moved to the area was to be able to give our kids a great education, not just a decent schooling option, but a life experience that translated into education for life. When we look back at their first two weeks we wonder if we missed an opportunity at not having found this school one year ago.
Had we found Colegio Nuestro Mundo last year, we would have set residence in Xalapa from the beginning, we would have not lived in Coatepec. The boys would have had two years of a very full school experience… Life would have been a lot easier than our life in Coatepec, but would it have been as full?
Colegio Calli was a very good transition school for the boys. Although it
followed some of the Waldorf precepts, it was not quite a full blown Steiner school. This made it easy for the boys to benefit of some of the artistic richness of the philosophy without too much discrepancy to their life. It was an easy going, small school, and the size made it less stressful for the boys to fit in with a very limited knowledge of the language. Their first six months there were vital, both for the acquisition of the language, as for the getting rid of a lot of put downs the NCLB education had left in them: artistically and academically. Their self-esteem got elevated and their artistic nature got celebrated. The second half of the year could have been equally good, but the lack of challenge and variety of stimuli seemed to weight heavy on the boys once the language acquisition was no longer a challenge. So, that second half, added to the turmoil inside the school administration and teacher’s core, did not sit well with our expectations. Then, again, that same turmoil turned us into a path of research and investigation that helped us recognizing many downfalls in the up-bringing of children nowadays (ours included), and made it clear what our priorities and our path should be for the future.About living in Coatepec. We probably would have missed a unique opportunity to make that learning process such a productive one. We were able to immerse them in a more authentic Mexico. All of us, not just the kids, were enriched by the trueness of the landscape and the starkness of the reality of those who have very little. Each day, as we walked to school, we would experience everything from the big lump of doggie doo on the sidewalk, to the men that had been up too late trying to clear their misery with a bottle of alcohol. The boys became aware of how running water has not reached everyone when they saw how women still take their clothes to
wash to the river or carried buckets home (all this on the way to school). They also became aware of how many luxuries we take for granted are not shared by many, many people, like hot water: the first time they saw the old women go down the steep hills in search for fire wood it was strange and unreal for them. Even in Mexico, where gas is more than 50% cheaper than in the US, way too many people cannot afford to cook or heat their homes with gas. But, even with all those disadvantages, we all witnessed the beauty and strength of the human spirit.It was a hard year to figure out ins and ends of a traditional and old culture, different in many ways to how I was brought up. It was a hard year to connect with people and landscape, but once we connected, the richness was unsurpassable. It was a hard year to partake in the hurt and struggle of an emerging school, were we left our hearts, but we knew it had outlived its potential to our children. It was a hard year to become pregnant, in the middle of uncertainty and cobbled roads, but it probably wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
In all, it was unique.
If we had found Colegio Nuestro Mundo a year ago, yes, we would have not had Coatepec. For that, our year here would have been much easier, but definitively not even remotely as rich as it was.
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