Bienvenida a Lima

As we drove from El Aeropuerto Internacional Jorge Chavez to our home stay in Jesus Maria (a bustling and lively district of Lima, Peru,) I knew that my peers and I were in for an adventure. The streets of Jesus Maria were full of action, even though it had already been dark for several hours. Our home stay “family” is a group of kind, welcoming people. Our house mother and our host brother made us quickly at home. I expected myself to be on edge, as I am an anxious person and have never left the country. Yet, I felt perfectly at ease thanks to the hospitality of our host family and the impending feeling of excitement that came with knowing I was out of North America for the first time.

Yesterday, our first full day in Lima, we took a tour of the district Jesus Maria, led by our host brother, and discovered the many treasures of the area. My personal favorite was La Parroquia San Jose, which is the only gothic church in Peru.

The streets are vibrant, the buildings are colorful, our neighbors are riendly, and after the tour I could not be more excited to live in Jesus Maria for the next three weeks.

Yesterday, we also had an orientation at the university that we will be studying at a few days out of the week, Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya. UARM is a Jesuit University, much like Marquette, and I can see the same values carried over across continents. UARM is a charming, and close-knit university of around 2,000 students. Its motto, similar to Marquette’s “Be the Difference,” is “Atravete a Ser el Cambio,” which mens be bold enough to be the change.

We met the school's director of the department of educational studies, as well as a panel of education students. After we had lunch together, we listened to them present about UARM’s mission and their personal experiences as educators in Peru. We learned about the BECA 18, which is a scholarship that is offered to students from all around Peru, including in students in the Amazon and in the mountains, to come to universities in Lima. Education is extremely expensive here, and there are many disparities in quality and materials depending on where in the country one lives and what class (A, B, C, D, and E) one belongs to. Many people in the mountains or jungle regions are indigenous and part of the C, D, or E classes. They don’t speak Spanish (or Castellano, as it is referred to here); contrary to what is believed by many United States citizens, there are multiple languages spoken in Peru. This includes Quechua, the language of the Inca Empire. Students who are a part of the EIB program at UARM become teachers and then go back to their communities in the mountains or Amazon to teach in their native languages. This program amazed and inspired me. Within the program, there is an emphasis on preserving the many, diverse cultures of the country while promoting education equity. This is a concept that we, as students in Milwaukee, have also confronted. In both the United States and in Peru, there is inequality between cultures and between neighborhoods fueled by discrimination and lack of resources. We wish to promote educational equality without enforcing Eurocentric concepts and squelching other cultures. Unfortunately, this happens all too often.

Today, we visited an educational program called MLK Sociodeportivo School in a district of Lima called “El Augustino.” MLK is one of the many programs that are working to promote local educational equity. “El Augustino” is a district that, from what I could ascertain, has a thriving and close community (with AMAZING ceviche!) However, the citizens of El Augustino experience poverty and sometimes violence. Programs like MLK provide children with a chance to have a safe space, reflect, and learn life skills.

MLK was started by ex-gang members in El Augustino as a way to spread equity for students who may not receive quality educational services through the government and to keep them out of gang activity. The students play soccer, but as they do, they learn values, sportsmanship, and conflict management. During their soccer games, they earn points not only for goals they make but for upholding these tenets. Before every game, the students create a list of rules together that include the values that they would like to uphold, and after every game they reflect upon how well those rules were upheld and why it is important to show the values they expressed. As we played soccer with them, it became apparent that the students were learning reflection, metacognition, and conflict resolution skills without even realizing it and while having loads of fun. I think that it this kind of innovation and integration of education in accessible ways for all children that will be essential to aiding the inequality of education in both Peru and the United States.

So far, it has been amazing to see how educators in Lima, in accordance with the Ignition Pedagogy, have taken action in spreading educational equity, whether it be spreading this equity to indigenous communities or to districts within Lima. I am looking forward to meeting more amazing people who I could only ever aspire to be as an educator. The school I will be observing at for the next two weeks is called Colegio Roosevelt, and it is for the very elite class. I am curious to see the other side of the educational disparity in Peru, and to see if the socioeconomic problems of Peru are mentioned in these classrooms. I am also wondering if the kind of innovative implementations of education that I saw in El Augustino will be carried over in a school with abundant resources and money. Until I discover these answers and more, adios!