The Irony

I had long conversations with the teacher during this visit. One of the issues we discussed was the difficulty designing activities. He told me "I am trying to design activities, but it is very hard to integrate concepts from different areas".

The curriculum for rural school is organized in thematic units (i.e. human body, energy, environment, etc.), which include the concepts of the different domains. The teacher has to design and facilitate activities for each grade (first to six) in math, science, social sciences, Spanish and agriculture, keeping in minds the guiding topic.

Given the material he has to propose activities that integrate concepts from several areas, I can see the difficulty he faces. I encourage him to think beyond what it is propose in one week and look at the material as guide to propose activities that may be of interests to the students. I also tell him that it is ok (and good) to revisit a concept more than one time because students will be able to make even deeper connections.

As we work on this issue I can’t stop thinking about the irony: we don’t experience life as a series of disconnected facts, we artificially created the division, but somehow we lost the ability to go back. I don’t know if it is because we have a hard time making explicit the concepts on a given activity, or because we still think that “real” learning happens in a vacuum.

Reunited at last

I came back to Costa Rica one more time. It is the last official visit with the project. I was great to see the children again. After the first hour.. I felt as if I had never left. I have been communicating with the students and teacher over the internet, but seeing them again feels great.

I found the same entusiam and motivation.. the students continue to do projects... some of them at the school, but the most interesting ones get done at home when they take the computers. They actually keep the computers during the vacation period (December to February). The teacher asked them to use them the way they wanted, but he recommended turn on the computers at least three times a week.

The students told me they worked with their parents and siblings. They also did a variety of projects.. solar system, games, tv program, weather, etc. One of the students told me he left the computer home, but he spent some of the time with some family, far away from home. He said he called his father and asked him to turn on the computer. He said he didn't want his computer to break. He gave his father instructions over the phone of how to turn the computer one and off and he even told him hoe to open Microworlds, create a turtle and give instructions... unbelievable!

I will be here this week... visiting the school and also visiting other school that work with the Omar Dengo Foundation.