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In the past two days, I have been able to gain greater insight into the educational system of Peru. Yesterday, we met and listen to a talk by Peru’s Ex-minister of Education, Martín Vegas. Mr. Vegas explained that there is a problem with gender differences in education, especially in the rural areas of Peru. Girls are often ashamed or nervous to participate in the classroom, and often times they do not enroll in secondary school because they are expected to take care of the home. There are also class inequalities in the education system of Peru; there is a disparity between the quality of education in the rural areas and the urban areas, as well as among districts in Lima. The extremely stratified class system makes this disparity even greater. The rich tend to send their children to private schools, and thus privatization and commodification of education is a prevalent issue in Peru, as it is in the United States. The Ministry of Education is attempting to close both the gender and class gap in education, and yet they are still both dominant problems in the Peruvian education system.
With that context in mind, we visited a prek-10 Jesuit school called
Colegio de la Inmaculada. Inmaculada (featured right) is in La Molina, which is the same wealthy district of Lima in which Colegio Roosevelt resides. Inmaculada, much like Roosevelt although less expensive, is a school for rich students. Inmaculada is an extremely unique school; it has the most expansive grounds of any school in Lima, containing both a zoo of endangered animals and a water treatment plant on a mountain.
Pictures from Inmaculada’s Zoo
Picture of the Water Treatment Plant
There is a wall on the outermost edges of the school grounds, and nestled on the other side of the wall is a neighborhood stricken with poverty and a lack of resources. Once again, the clear dichotomy between the wealth and the poverty in Lima is made apparent via a wall. We were assured by those giving us a tour of the grounds that Inmaculada does not forget the surrounding communities; students do service and build relationships with the people in those areas. However, none of the children from the poorer areas surrounding the school attend the school itself.
On the Other Side of Inmaculada’s Wall
My impression of Inmaculada was that it had many impressive features, and that it was very much service and solidarity oriented. Its students are asked to be a part of their community in a way that is very similar to the way students at Colegio Roosevelt are asked. They are to live in solidarity with the communities; whether or not this actually occurs is a different story, and one that I could not possibly see in a day.
Our school visit today was to a public school, Colegio Cesar Vallejo, which lies in between the districts La Vittoria and El Agustino. Colegio Cesar Vallejo is a prek-10 school that services children in those areas. The circumstances of these students (who are mostly of class D) are vastly different than those students who attend both Roosevelt and Inmaculada. At Cesar Vallejo, we mainly participated and observed in a kindergarten classroom. When we got a tour of the “initial” school, which is for 3, 4, and 5 year-olds, the kindergarten teacher told us that much of the curriculum is based on providing the structure that students don’t receive in the home. She explained that the reason they have a mock kitchen and a mock store set up is so that students can have practice with situations they will deal with in real life. The curriculum is very community focused, much like Inmaculada, but in a different way. Students learn about keeping peace and keeping their own community clean. In this way, the focus is not so much on serving other communities but beautifying and bettering ones’ own community.
Cesar Vallejo
So, now, the question of the day: what makes for a quality education? Is it having a zoo and a water treatment plant like la Inmaculada? It is having a focus on community, like Cesar Vallejo, or having a focus on individual inquiry, like Roosevelt? Is it teaching students to occasionally think about the other side of the wall, or teaching them how to tear the wall down? I would say that a quality education is an education that best serves its students and their needs. The students at Cesar Vallejo need order because they may not have stable home conditions. They need to learn how to succeed in the day-to-day, but also how to make a brighter future for themselves and their community. In this way, students are being taught to be change- makers just as much as the wealthy students at Colegio Roosevelt. Students at Roosevelt and Inmaculada need a curriculum that turns them into leaders, but is also focused on service. They are the ones with the privilege and the ones who may have the power someday, so they need to be able to learn in a way that allows to anticipate needs and to make change on a systemic level.
To me, the goal of education should not be proficient scores on a standardized test. It should be the empowerment of students for success. This empowerment, I believe, will look differently for different schools. At Cesar Vallejo, empowerment means giving students stable conditions to grow and take control of their own learning; it means forming a community that will flourish together. At Colegio Roosevelt and Inmaculada, the empowerment of students should come from teaching them how to truly live in solidarity with others and how to use their privilege to question and change the system instead of simply solve problems caused by the system. Quality education that truly benefits each individual child takes culture and socioeconomic status into account. As educators, we must reform education in a way that does not ignore who the children are and where they are from, but that views these backgrounds as assets to grow upon. This is how empowerment occurs. As we look at more schools in the Lima and Cusco areas, I will be keeping an eye out for this kind of empowerment. Until then, adios!