Transform Education for 90 Children in El Salvador

Pilot Project Update

If you’re passionate about education, and you probably are if you’re a supporter of Amun Shea, I think you’d be interested in hearing about how your support has helped the Pilot Project, our experimental classroom methodology, to progress. Seeing as this past week marked the conclusion of the penultimate semester of the school year, now seems like an appropriate to check in!

As an entirely new venture for the students and teachers, and as a method that holds huge potential for the future of Amun Shea, myself, our school director, and the other teachers were hugely anxious to hear what the students thought about our progress so far.

We sat down on Wednesday to hear just that and, to our immense relief and satisfaction, the response was overwhelmingly positive. In fact, we couldn’t get them to give us any constructive criticism because they couldn’t think of anything to criticize! Here are a few student quotes and feelings about the Pilot Project:

“99% good and 1% bad, just because nothing can be 100% perfect”

“I wouldn’t change a single thing”

“The class has allowed us to control what we’re learning and practice teamwork, critical thinking, and self-control. I feel much more in control than before”

“We’re definitely learning more than we were learning in the traditional classroom setting”

It is wonderful to hear these things, not only because they are so positive, but also because the results we’re seeing (e.g. a greater sense of autonomy, self-driven learning, critical thinking, teamwork skills, and more effective learning) are exactly what we were looking to develop when we first set out on this venture.

I want to finish up this report with a little vignette from the last day of the semester. The previous day was our STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) fair for the school where all of the students presented their projects from that semester (see Facebook for pictures!), there was nothing left for us to do save plan for the next semester. We started the day off with brainstorming for projects for the next semester and then took a hike around the Amun Shea property.

When we got back in the afternoon, the other teachers wanted to get all of the students together to play games, a nice way to close out the semester. When we told the kids this, though, there was a number of them, about a third of the class, who would rather work on their projects! Perhaps even more astounding was that these kids were not entirely the type that would always want to sit on the sideline or shy away from games. Some of them came into the class being troublemakers or kids who seemed apathetic about learning. Yet, here they were, wanting to work on their schoolwork rather than goof off, even though they had our explicit permission to do so.

This was absolutely incredible for me. More than perhaps all of the other goals we have with the Pilot Project, inspiring genuine curiosity and love of learning is the ultimate achievement that we can reach. Knowing that this new methodology is really reaching the kids is absolutely inspiring and I cannot wait to get back into the classroom next week to see what will happen next.

If you are as inspired by this progress as I am, please consider donating what you can spare to help us further our goals in this area. As always, keep in touch with us through email or our social media pages, and if you have any questions or suggestions about the Pilot Project, we’d love to hear from you. You can contact me directly at anbuzek@email.wm.edu.

Thank you so much for your support

Links:

• The school website

I want to tell you a story. There has, up until now, been a conspicuous lack of personal narrative to our mission. We can talk about our goals, what you’re making possible at Amun Shea, and why we need your help all we want—and we’ll keep doing it. It’s a vital part of our work and our outreach process and it’s something that you rightly care about. But it’s high time that we bring you a firsthand account of the impact that your generosity has had.

I do want to say a word about this story and its protagonist, and more particularly about my process in picking this story and this protagonist: I didn’t have a one. It was getting towards the end of school today and one of the students had finished his work before everyone else. I saw this as an opportunity to do an interview with him, something I had been (and still am) planning on doing with as many students as possible. I didn’t have many expectations going into it, but I definitely wasn’t prepared for what I got. This is Diego’s story.

We walked outside of the classroom into the bright afternoon and quickly found a spot in the shade on some nearby steps. I had prepared a set of questions in my notebook but I felt silly using them here. I just wanted to talk with him. So I just jumped in.

“So, Diego. Tell me a little about yourself.”

He looked a little caught off guard by such a general question but he jumped in quickly. “Well… My name is Diego. I’m a student in seventh grade but right now I’m in the pilot project class. I’m twelve years old.” He paused briefly, contemplating what to say next.

“My mother’s name is Elsa. And my father… I never met him. He left my mother and me when I was two months old. It’s always just the two of us now. But my mom, she made it possible for me to study at Amun Shea. She’s studying to become an engineer.”

 “From kindergarten to second grade I went to a private school (colegio) where I suffered from bullying. In third grade I started at a public school where I was bullied. They told me to give them my money, my toys, anything I brought to school. If not, they would hit me. I moved on to fourth grade at the same school and these two boys kept bullying me. Then I moved on to fifth grade but I only spent three months there in fifth grade.

“They broke my arm two times and on top of that they hit me in the mouth with a bat and now I have false teeth. I returned to that private school halfway through the year in 2014. I started here at Amun Shea for seventh grade and I think here I’m good.”

I wish I could say I responded elegantly or supportively but pretty much all I could do was stammer out, “Wow… But, um, you feel better here?”

“Oh yes!”

“What do you think the difference is between other schools and Amun Shea?” At this point I had just reverted to my prepared questions, being at such a loss for words.

“We learn better here, in a different way from other schools. It’s… I don’t know how to describe it. It’s… the education is through examples, through showing. It’s good.”

“I’m happy to hear that!” I say, because I am. All of the teachers here work so hard to provide a better, more hands-on learning environment. It’s hard to know if it comes across unless you actually hear from the students.

I already know the answer to the next question I have written down but I need to ask it anyways. This is the question that really matters, after all. “Could you say that your life has changed because of this school?”

“Definitely. Even though I was beaten up and have false teeth and don’t want to talk about it sometimes and push it down, I don’t want to cut it off completely. Yeah, it’s different here.”

“If you could change anything about the school, what would it be?”

“The truth is, I wouldn’t want to change anything.”

I chuckle, “Really?”

“Yeah, I think it’s good the way it is.”

“Good!” It’s always nice to know you’re meeting standards. “Is there anything new that you would want to see here?”

“Well, there’s one thing. One project we tried to do in 2014 a kind of playground out of recycled materials. Tires and stuff like that. A good place for us to play. That would be nice.”

“How cool!” That’s definitely a future microproject. I continue, “Well, Diego, this story is for our donors to see how the school has impacted your life. Is there anything you want to tell them?”

“Well, yes. There’s a good quality of learning and we all get along with the professors and the other students, and the volunteers too.” I think he snuck that last part in for my benefit. I certainly appreciate it.

“Is there anything else you want to say?”

“I think that’s it.”

“Well, thank you so much Diego. Thank you for sharing your story with us. I know it’s a difficult one.”

He nodded somberly and went back to class. My eyes were brimming with tears sporadically for the rest of the day.

I was flabbergasted. Not only was the story shocking and tragic, albeit with a happy ending, but Diego’s bravery, his ability to tell his story so openly and candidly was amazing. I hope not to come across another story like this at the school, but I don’t know if I will be so lucky. His spirit, though, is something that permeates the entire school.

Thanks to all of your generosity, we have been able to begin work on our newest Amun Shea venture! Several of our most ambitious teachers, as well as our school principle, Victoria, have been working tirelessly for the past weeks and months to create a new classroom model that we hope to implement throughout the school and eventually amongst the other schools in our region. The goal is to provide a quality, hands-on education that not only increases the students knowledge in traditional subject areas, but also develops critical thinking, teamwork, and the ability to self-direct their learning. So far the response from the students has been tremendous; students who struggled in the traditional classroom setting are beginning to blossom and students who had already shown great promise are thriving.

We have collected a group of sixteen students with a wide range of strengths that spans almost the entire spectrum of ages we have represented at Amun Shea: from second grade all the way up through tenth. These students have been organized into groups of four, in which the diversity of ages is preserved. The primary idea behind the pilot project is to take a long-term project (several months) and to teach all or almost all of their education in the context of this topic. 

Our first project is building bat houses; bats are a crucial aspect of Central America's ecosystem and, more importantly for us, eat around 1,000 mosquitos per hour. As much as we would all like to miss out on the summer tradition of decking up from head to toe in mosquito bites, this is not the entire reason behind our goal of limiting mosquito populations. As many of you are probably aware, mosquito-borne illnesses are a serious problem in Central America and reducing mosquito populations has a corresponding impact on the threat of diseases such as Zika, Yelow Fever, and Chikungunya, among others.

In addition, through this project we have been able to teach the students about ecology (focused around the idea of bats' role in the environment), evolution (including the incredible development of the bat wing, something completely unlike anything else in the animal kingdom), how the students would go about creating a business plan to create a business out of building bat houses, and the physics of echolocation and sound waves--and this is just been the first few weeks!

We can't wait to see how this project continues to grow and evolve and, even more importantly, how this new teaching model continues to bring positive changes to the students involved. We can't do this without your help, though. A new classroom means new educational materials, access to a wide range of information, and the equiptment necesary to turn the project ideas into a reality. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for your continued support. Stay tuned!

Thank you again,

The PEOF and Amun Shea Team

Applications Amún Shéa, Pilot for Relevant Rural Education, is the title of the official agreement signed recently between the Salvadoran Ministry of Education (MINED) and Perkin Educational Opportunities Foundation (PEOF). This agreement recognizes the potential for positive change in the focus on real world skills of the Amún Shéa. The agreement, in summary calls for 1) the systematization of the methodology developed at the Amún Shéa School, 2) the selection of best practices that could strengthen the relevance of public education in Morazán, and 3) replicate those good practices in 8 nearby public schools.

In this sense, your support to our Quality Learning project, will now multiply and benefit over one thousand students within the area. Please consider inviting your family and friends to join in as partners, and thank you for your continued support!

Just over one month now, we are back at school in this New Year 2016. Expanded now from kindergarden to the first year of high school, the range of academic activities and real-world application of what we have learned has broadened to agricultural production and participation in science fairs in the capital, San Salvador. It is precisely the application with our hands of learned knowledge which sets Amún Shéa apart. 

This application, or good practices as it is known here, has caught the attention of the Salvadoran Ministry of Education and we have been asked to take on the task of replicating them in local public schools. So, the very big challenge for Amún Shéa School in 2016 will be in the form of an agreement with the Ministry of Education to replicate selected good practices into the public school system.This brings on alot of responsibility to the school and increases the importance of maintaining a smooth operating educational program.

Your financial support is essential in allowing us to focus on the program and the process of developing materials and methodology for the replication of good practices. Help us build a solid base of support for the Amún Shéa scholarship program and be assured that your financial support has suddenly become even further reaching than before. Support Amún Shéa and help improve public education in El Salvador.

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