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| Escuela
nueva in Colombia goes urban |
| By Ángela
Constanza Jerez T. Journalist, El Teimpo, Colombia |
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|
 Jonathan
knew that the school where he was going to start primary Grade
5 was different; he had heard people talk about it in his
neighbourhood and his mother had said the same thing when
she came home from enrolment day. So he was looking forward
to his first day at his new school, the Colegio Distrital
San Vicente.
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| It
took him just a few days to learn the ropes. He had never seen
a classroom like that before. The desks were not arranged in
rows and the teacher's desk was not at the front. The teacher
did not stand by the blackboard to take the lessons, which was
what usually happened at his previous school. There were no
textbooks either, the children had handbooks that they filled
in together. Books were kept on a small shelf for everyone to
use. "It was pretty hard at first," Jonathan recalls, "because
all the children were already divided into groups and knew how
to use the handbooks, but I went up to them all, one by one,
and became friends with everyone. They told me how to use the
handbooks." |
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| Jonathan
Flórez spent this school year in one of the 15 schools in Bogotá
which have been using the Escuela Nueva (new school) approach
for the past two-and-a-half years. This approach was devised
in 1975 for rural schools in the coffee-producing region of
Colombia, then extended to almost all the country's rural areas,
and a slightly adapted version is now being tried out in schools
in poor urban areas in Cali (Valle) and Bogotá, the capital
of Colombia. |
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| Escuela
Nueva began as a pilot project to increase the number of primary
grades offered in rural areas, to prevent children from dropping
out of school in regions with specific problems or conditions
and, above all, to improve the quality of rural education. |
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| "It
started in multi-grade schools," explains Vicky Colbert, director
of the Volvamos a La Gente Foundation. "Teachers had to be more
innovative because of the huge range of abilities and speeds
of learning. These schools needed a broader range of personalized
strategies for co-operative learning, as children started school
later and repeated grades more often." |
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| The
results surpassed expectations and the Escuela Nueva approach
has now been in existence for some twenty-two years, picking
up countless awards along the way. In 1988 it was chosen by
the World Bank as one of three most outstanding projects undertaken
in developing countries, having made good at national level
after starting as a local venture. International Organizations
such as UNESCO, UNICEF, OAS and IDB have hailed it as one of
the most important educational innovations in recent years. |
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| Children
learning values |
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| The
education departments in Cali and Bogotá decided to try out
the Escuela Nueva approach in schools in their poorer areas,
where they had the same problems as those who had first adopted
it in rural schools. The model was launched eight years ago
in Cali, where the eightly poorest schools took up the challenge
of changing their teaching methods. Unfortunately, resources
were inadequate and there are only two schools today that are
still working with the model, although in a fairly rudimentary
form. |
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| Of
the sixteen schools in Bogotá that took up the education department's
proposal, on the other hand, fifteen are still using the approach,
which they have adapted to their needs. (The school which dropped
out of the project did so because it had extended its grade
system to include Grade 9 and Escuela Nueva is only for primary
schools.) In Jonathan's school, for example, the teachers made
changes to the assessment processes and the handbooks children
use to learn the different subjects. |
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| Julia
Díaz, Jonathan's class teacher, recalls that there was initially
some resistance to change from a conventional school to a "new
school", particularly from parents who did not understand why
the teacher did not teach from the front of the class any more
and why children had to work in groups and solve problems in
a book the parents thought looked like a collection of forms.
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| There
are some parents today who still do not understand how their
children can be learning anything, but they are happy because
they can see them making progress. |
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| This
is the case of Olga Leguizamón, the mother of a Grade 4 pupil.
She is not quite sure how this educational approach works, but
she likes the idea of children working in groups and helping
each other. Sometimes she even goes to the school to help the
pupils. |
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| "This
is quite common," says María Ligia Canón, a teacher. "Parents
help their children with their homework and come to lessons
too." |
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| The
lessons are indeed very different at San Vicente. Pupils are
divided into groups of four or six. They all follow the instructions
in the handbook and help each other, ask each other questions
and listen to one another. |
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| But
this was not always the case. According to Julia Díaz, it took
teachers and pupils six months to understand how the Escuela
Nueva worked. They started with the changes that had to be made
in the organization of the classroom. The teachers identified
leaders among pupils and made them group monitors, library monitors
and helpers. Then they taught both them and the other pupils
that working in groups meant listening to others, respecting
their opinions, being tolerant, keeping their voices down, etc.
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| "At
the same time as learning how to work in groups, they were learning
values such as responsibility, honesty, autonomy and comradeship.
We are still teaching them these values," explains María Ligia
Canón. |
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| Each
time the children finish a work unit in their handbook they
have to assess their performance as an individual and as a group.
The other members of their group and the teacher then make their
assessments. "This puts the values they have learned to test,"
says Lilia Alayón, a teacher. "At first they were generous with
their self-assessment, but now they are very hard on themselves.
Their self-assessments are stricter than any others."
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| Progress
in reading and in democracy |
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| The
children have learned how to follow instructions, conduct research
and consult dictionaries and texts on all kinds of subjects,
and have consequently improved their reading and comprehension
skills. They have also learned about civil and democratic processes
thanks to the system of school government whereby pupils, parents
and teachers are all represented on the three committees governing
the school: the teaching methods committee, the sport and leisure
committee, and the health committee. |
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| Other
schools in problem areas of Bogotá which have adopted the Escuela
Nueva approach have similar school "governments". All these
schools, like San Vicente, receive support from the Volvamos
a la Gente Foundation to set up their "governments" and introduce
the other features of the Escuela Nueva approach. |
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| But
one is still missing, and that is the "learning corners", small
areas where children can carry out specific tasks, such as work
on projects. They have not been set up because of the double
shift system. |
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| "This
is a problem, but unfortunately we cannot solve it by creating
virtual corners," says Julia Díaz. Jonathan is aware of this.
He brings his projects to school when he thinks he may need
them and then takes them home again, because there is nowhere
to put them in the classroom and if there were, the children
from the afternoon shift would make short work of them. "I don't
mind," says Jonathan, who likes going to this school, where
the teachers have never boxed his ears and where he feels he
is respected. |
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