“Education does not change the world, it changes the people who are going to change the world.” – Paulo Freire
For about a year and a half, in a community not far from San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, 10 families (parents, girls and boys) have been co-constructing a shared dream, and more importantly, the right of every child to have access to a decent education.
Chiapas has the highest rate of functional illiteracy in Mexico, reaching 24%. In addition, 17.8% of the population over the age of 15 does not know how to read or write, with a higher incidence among women. This is two times higher than the national average in Mexico, and 6 times higher that what the UN considers free from illiteracy (less than 3%).
“Well, the need here is for the children, because we see that they are growing up and they don’t know how to read or write,” says Cristóbal, a parent and education-promoter-in-formation.
The education to which the families in this community had access did not correspond to their reality, their language or their culture. Indigenous peoples face barriers, such as linguistic and cultural discrimination, to their participation in State schools.
This is why they decided to organize and build their own school, a space that truly represents their history, their worldview, and where learning is according to their context and needs. With effort and great determination, several parents are in the process of learning to become “promoters” of education for their children. As they learn, they are also overcoming their own educational limitations, as several of them did not have the opportunity to attend school as children.
“We got together for several days and thought about what could be done. We got together those of us who know how to write a little bit, and we all went and selected seven people who do know how to write. And from there we thought about how much each of us could contribute to teaching the children, how many days we could do it. Or we thought about each person, we said that it would only be one day a week, but since there are seven of us, we would have one day each week, that’s what we came up with for teaching the children,” Cristóbal shares.
Marisol, an education promoter and teacher-educator, who is in charge of teaching the 7 parents, tells us that it has been very nice to be part of this process, to be able to see how parents are able to understand some of the learning that they only vaguely remember from their childhood. It was learning they struggled to grasp at the time, but now they understand it.
“It has been a new experience to work with parents, parents who have not received any training on the educational aspect, on academic matters, it is starting from scratch with them, but also explaining how we should start working with children, how to treat them, how to promote cognitive development activities, this as a lifelong process,” shares Marisol.
This project has a completely different vision from that of a traditional school, learning is done through play, with local resources, clay from the earth becomes putty, pine cones become balls, using what is available to the community, what is in their environment, in their daily life…. In this school learning is through observation, in touching objects, in doing things.
“It helps us a lot in that part of counting grains, seeds or sticks. The children like it when you explain it to them in real life, because if you put numbers on the blackboard and they don’t understand them, it’s easier to get them to count seeds or grains and they already understand them. And they can put them in units and in hundreds and even in thousands.” Cristóbal says.
Marisol talks about why she is passionate about being a teacher-educator. “For me, education is the fundamental basis for a better coexistence in life with others, with other beings, with other people. I think it is the way for us as human beings to be able to live in harmony, in coexistence, I dream that I would like the children to be treated with dignity, with love, respect, one where there are also limits or a little order with the children, but from a place of affection, because many times we were also taught using violence, cruelty, the hardness of the heart of the educators.”
The dream is that every morning, the 30 children and youth will arrive at school. In this project, they learn in their mother tongue, Tsotsil, strengthening their identity; they discover the world without losing their roots. Education is no longer imposed by a State that does not acknowledge them, but a path they travel together, as a community.
In addition to learning how to become promoters of their own children’s education, the families have been organizing for the past couple of months to raise funds to obtain materials and build a house for the school. Almost every Sunday, when they are not in class with Marisol, or working at their weekday jobs, they meet to work on the construction of the building.
The first floor classroom, now nearly complete, will be a welcome move from the kitchen area where the classes have been taking place. And on the second floor, the community wants to equip a library, with resources and games, which will allow for the weatherproof storage of books and materials, but also provide extra space for activities during the rainy season, and the space for learners of different levels, when necessary.
This little school is not just a school: it is an act of resistance, a seed of autonomy and proof that when a community unites, there is no obstacle they cannot overcome. They do not have vast resources or governmental support, but they do have a heart and the strength of a collective us that seeks to be able to provide tools which are more familiar and more relevant to the surroundings of the children in their community.
“The idea of autonomous education for them is also like recovering this part of what the ancestors, grandparents, parents and adults knew, to be able to bring back a little bit of care for Mother Earth. So it is not so much to see it as a career, but more than anything as something that will be useful for personal life, and also for the community,” says Marisol.
