ARMENIA, Colombia — IN a
one-room rural schoolhouse an hour’s drive from this city in a coffee-growing
region of Colombia,
30 youngsters ages 5 to 13 are engrossed in study. In most schools, students
sit in rows facing the teacher, who does most of the talking. But these
students are grouped at tables, each corresponding to a grade level. The hum of
conversation fills the room. After tackling an assignment on their own, the
students review one another’s work. If a child is struggling, the others pitch
in to help.
During my visit to one of
these schools, second graders were writing short stories, and fifth graders
were testing whether the color of light affects its brightness when seen
through water. The teacher moved among the groups, leaning over shoulders, reading
and commenting on their work. In one corner of the classroom were items,
brought to school by the kids, that will be incorporated in their lessons. The
students have planted a sizable garden, and the vegetables and fruits they
raise are used as staples at mealtime, often prepared according to their
parents’ recipes.
During the past four
decades, this school — and thousands like it — have adopted what’s called the Escuela Nueva (New School) model.
A 1992 World Bank evaluation of Colombia’s schools
concluded that poor youngsters educated this way — learning by doing, rather
than being endlessly drilled for national exams — generally outperformed their
better-off peers in traditional schools. A 2000 Unesco study found that, next to Cuba, Colombia
did the best job in Latin America of educating children in rural areas, where
most of the schools operate with this model. It was also the only country in
which rural schools generally outperformed urban schools. Poor children in
developing nations often drop out after a year or two because their families
don’t see the relevance of the education they’re getting. These youngsters are
more likely to stay in school than their counterparts in conventional schools.
Escuela Nueva is almost
unknown in the United States, even though it has won numerous international
awards — the hyper-energetic Vicky Colbert, who founded the program in 1975 and
still runs it, received the first Clinton Global Citizenship prize. That should
change, for this is how children — not just poor children — ought to be
educated.
It’s boilerplate
economics that universal education is the path to prosperity for developing
nations; the Nobel-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz calls it “the global
public good.” But while the number of primary school-age children not in class
worldwide fell to 57.2 million in 2012 from 99.8 million in 2000,
the quality of their education is another matter. Escuela Nueva offers a widely
adaptable model, as Unesco has described it..
In the schools, students
elected by their peers shoulder a host of responsibilities. In a school I
visited in a poor neighborhood here in the city of Armenia, the student council
meticulously planned a day set aside to promote peace; operated a radio
station; and turned an empty classroom into a quiet space for reading and
recharging.
PARENTS become involved
in the day-to-day life of these schools, and the educational philosophy
influences their out-of-school lives. Research shows that the parents of
Escuela Nueva students are less prone to use corporal punishment; more likely
to let their youngsters spend time at play or on homework, rather than making
them work when they’re not in school; and more likely, along with their
children, to become engaged in their communities.
Decades ago, John Dewey,
America’s foremost education philosopher, asserted that students learned best
through experience and that democracy “cannot go forward unless the
intelligence of the mass of people is educated to understand the social
realities of their own time.” Escuela Nueva puts that belief into practice.
I’ve witnessed the demise of many ballyhooed attempts to reform education on a
mass scale.
There’s solid evidence
that American students do well when they are encouraged to think for themselves
and expected to collaborate with one another. In a report last year, the American Institutes
for Research concluded that students who attended so-called deeper learning
high schools — which emphasize understanding, not just memorizing, academic
content; applying that understanding to novel problems and situations; and
developing interpersonal skills and self-control — recorded higher test scores,
were more likely to enroll in college and were more adept at collaboration than
their peers in conventional schools.
But these schools are far
from the mainstream. “It’s really different and quite impressive,” David K.
Cohen, an education professor at the University of Michigan, told me. “I know
of no similar system in the U.S.”
Rachel Lotan, a professor
emeritus at Stanford, added, “Doing well on the high-stakes test scores is what
drives the public schools, and administrators fear that giving students more
control of their own education will bring down those scores.” Officials, and
those who set the policies they follow, would do well to visit Colombia, where
Escuela Nueva has much to teach us about how best to educate our children.
David L. Kirp is a professor of public policy at the
University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “Improbable Scholars: The
Rebirth of a Great American School System and a Strategy for America’s
Schools.”
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