Transform Education for 90 Children in El Salvador

As you all know, one of Amún Shéa’s biggest points of pride is the amount of autonomy and control our students have over their education and personal development. This is, no doubt, a central reason that so many of you continue to chose to support PEOF in its work to make this methodology a reality throughout Morazán and El Salvador.

Perhaps the most powerful example of this aspect of Amún Shéa is our dance group, Danzu. Founded by students nearly two years ago and 100% student run, this group has shown how much kids can do when given the autonomy and resources they need. I, along with the entire Amún Shéa community, have had the pleasure to watch this collection of students take on more members and grow personally and professionally for the past two years. Their recent participation in the national GleeFest 2017 competition highlighted the outstanding nature of this group and the potential that such efforts hold for the students of Amún Shéa and the entire Integrated System of Perquín.

Disappointingly, we were unable to raise the funds necessary to participate in an official capacity in the competition; a related microproject on GlobalGiving failed to raise any funds to support the group. Due to this financial issue, the group was barred from winning the competition, even though several judges and rival groups told members of our team that they could have easily won the competition. Thankfully, due to their excellent performance, Danzu garnered the support of a local patron to finance their participation in next year’s contest.

It is understandable to feel that Amún Shéa has reached high enough levels of development that further financial support is not merited, especially given this year’s huge successes of the CIAC, the Dr. William Brinker Science Laboratory, and the expansion of our methodology throughout the Integrated System of Perquín. The realization of these goals, however, just underscores the need for more financing.

As we try to reach more and more students, the financial burden on PEOF becomes heavier and the risk of having student groups like Danzu slipping through the cracks becomes greater. This is a risk I am not willing to take, and I know that you feel the same way if you have supported this project in the past. With the holiday season fast approaching, please consider taking the time and money to renew your support of PEOF and Amún Shéa. Please also consider taking advantage of our new partnership program with eBay, which we will detail in an upcoming newsletter (so make sure to sign up at our website if you haven’t already!).  Thank you for your continuing interest and support.

In the past, we have almost entirely focused on the impact your donations have made at Amún Shéa, and with good reason; Amún Shéa has been, and remains, the most direct embodiment of Perkin Educational Opportunity Foundation’s mission of bringing pertinent, effective education to Northern Morazán. To say that Amún Shéa is PEOF’s only work, though, is far from accurate. In the long run, PEOF sees Amún Shéa as a development hub, a model for education for Northern Morazán. Much of PEOF’s focus, then, lies in working with the institutions that make up the educational framework of our region. Immediately, this means working with the Perquín School System (SIPER) to implement our educational methodology on a wider scale and thinking about how you can help us do so.

PEOF has worked with SIPER for many years now, but in recent months this partnership has truly blossomed. From the beginning of this school year in January up until the present, a dedicated team of specialists from Amún Shéa and PEOF has been working to foment the Problem Based Learning (PBL) methodology throughout SIPER. This work has included an array of workshops focused on developing mathematics skills through games and projects, the potential of using Legos as a teaching tool, and how to plan and carry out ambitious projects. We have gotten a huge amount of technical and administrative support from our new partnership with the Pestalozzi Foundation, but due to the scope of the project, we always need more support.

Recently, teams of students from various institutions throughout SIPER met in Perquín to present project ideas which included ideas such as an automated watering system aimed at reusing rainwater and reducing waste and a business plan for creating didactic materials from wood to sell throughout the SIPER. We want to continue fostering these kinds of young minds and we know you do too. Your support goes even further than ever before now that our influence is spreading to a wider audience.

Links:

• Official PEOF Website
• Official Colegio Amun Shea website
• Amun Shea Facebook

Amún Shéa is happy to announce the imminent opening of the William Brinker Laboratory for Plant Tissue, Soil, and Water Analysis. The lab is the direct result of donations of many supporters but owes its existence to the efforts and generosity of Dr. Brinker, who saw that donations targeted towards such a project have the opportunity for an enormous impact on both the students of Amún Shéa and the community of Norther Morazán.

The laboratory will take on many roles at Amún Shéa. It is an incredible hands-on resource for the students, a gateway to career opportunities, a link to upper education, and a source of income to help support the growing efforts of the school. Stainless steel lab furniture and high-quality laboratory materials are being installed at this very moment and we have the great honor of working with CENSALUD, a prestigious medical school in El Salvador, in staffing the lab and developing a diploma focused around lab work and plant genetics.

The diploma will be available to any interested students at Amún Shéa and will hopefully grow in the future to be available to students from nearby schools as well. Although not every student at the school will elect to participate in the diploma, all students will go through a basic course in lab work and have the lab as a resource for their education in the sciences. Those students that do chose to pursue in-depth work with the lab will be well prepared to continue into higher education or begin a career as a lab technician, a much sought-after skill in Central America.

Furthermore, the lab provides a much-needed community resource. Northern Morazán is replete with farmers, businesses, and organizations that need lab-testing done to determine water quality, soil-suitability, or plant health. Getting these tests done is, at the moment, only realistic for a lucky few, as the current labs are over-burdened and unable to manage the huge number of requests that they receive. Providing this service will give us a steady source of income to augment the donations that pay our teachers, allow us to give scholarships to our students, and generally keep us doing what we are doing.

The William Brinker Laboratory is an inspiring example of what your generosity can help accomplish, especially considering the potential for the life-altering changes that it may bring to our students. We are excited to see it grow and impact Amún Shéa and we hope you are too.

Now that the first week of the new school year is over, it is time to reflect on the developments that we have brought to Amún Shéa in 2017. Were you to take a walk through our campus, many changes would be very clear. The CIAC (Interactive Science Learning Center) continues to receive additions as we prepare for its February opening and our greenhouses become more and more efficient. To prepare for the huge number of visitors we anticipate the CIAC to draw from the surrounding school districts, our cafeteria got a face lift and is in the midst of a transition to a full-service restaurant (although our students will continue to be served as they always have been).

A tour of the classrooms belies the changes in our school-wide methodology for the 2017 school year. Each classroom is an open space with groups of students working together across grade levels. A series of learning communities (kindergarten, first and second grade, third through fifth grade, sixth through ninth grade, and high school) make up the school. Mixed-grade classrooms are a cornerstone of Amún Shéa’s methodology. They allow older students the opportunity to guide and mentor the younger students and, conversely, give the younger students a role-model other than the teacher, which encourages student independence and fosters social and emotional learning. Teachers become more like resources and students develop in whichever direction they chose.

Rather than students being confined to classrooms for the entire school day, you will see kids of all different ages working around the school in small groups. Sometimes they go with their computers or notebooks in hand, sometimes with art or technical supplies, and sometimes they bring only their creativity. They all have something in common: problem based learning (PBL). This methodology is something that we were developing throughout the past school year in a pilot classroom and we are thrilled to bring it to the entire school this year. Students work together with their mentors at the school to identify a real problem or project that can benefit the school or larger community and spend the semester or entire year developing a solution. The existing curriculum from the Ministry of Education, which is fully available to the students, is incorporated into the larger project. Theory is put into practice, learning is made tangible, and every student learns in the way that best suits them.

There is a palpable sense of positivity that pervades the air of Amún Shéa this year, and this has just been the first week! Stay tuned for more amazing developments from Amún Shéa.

It’s almost time for us to get rid of the “pilot” in “Pilot Project”! Come the start of the next school year in January, the nearly six-month experiment of the Pilot Project will become the full-fledged methodology for all of Amun Shea. We’ve come a long way with your help on this project but we still have a big task ahead of us in the formalization and institutionalization of our methodology.   

The cornerstone of our work with the pilot project is problem- and project-based learning along with a focus on our students’ autonomy and self-directed learning. At the time of this writing, we have two classrooms, 23 students in total, that fully practice this methodology. These students make up a third of the school and represent all ages apart from kindergarten. The progress that we have made has been hugely helped by the generosity of our donors for both the internet microproject and our donors for the larger Amun Shea project.

Beginning next year, we will divide all of our students above second grade into three classrooms, all of which using the methodology developed in the pilot project classrooms. One class will contain students from third, fourth, and fifth grade, while the two remaining classes will be made up of sixth grade through high school. This organization allows us to retain the multi-grade class structure without having a classroom where the youngest students are outpaced and discouraged by the oldest students.

We have also revamped the schedule to allow time for all aspects of what we are trying to realize. Three hours every day will be dedicated to core subjects and the requirements that come along with our agreement with the Ministry of Education. Each core subject (math, science, oral and written expression, social studies, and English) will get three hours of focus each week under the new schedule.

The schedule also sets aside one hour each day of self-structured learning for the students and two hours in the afternoon for student-led clubs. Both of these additions ensure that our students have a greater level of control over their learning and more practice in leadership roles.

So what do you think of the new Amun Shea?? Let us know by getting in contact with us on Facebook. We'd love to hear your feedback!