Posted on Jun 15, 2010 - 01:10 AM
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Love. It’s not a word you hear very often in professional settings. In discussions of education, “accountability” and “achievement” are far more common. It’s as if people are afraid to lose credibility by saying the word “love,” even if it’s what they know, deep down, that children need.
Justo Mendez and Ana Yris Guzman, the founders of Nuestra Escuela (“Our School”) in Puerto Rico, don’t pay this social convention any mind. They will tell you within the first five minutes of meeting you that Nuestra Escuela, the “Center of Sustainable Support for Young People and Their Families,” is based on love. They know that no matter how many resources they offer to young people, no matter how many opportunities, nothing is going to stick if the youth don’t have a sense of being authentically cared for and respected.
This spring, Justo and Ana Yris got to know the IDEA team at the IDEC 2010 in Israel, and they invited us to visit the Nuestra Escuela community in May. Dana Bennis, Jonah Canner, and Melia Dicker happily accepted and spent roughly a week visiting two of the five school sites and meeting students, parents, and community partners. We saw firsthand that not only is the organization changing the lives of the approximately 300 students and 300 alumni, but it’s also shifting the focus of the Puerto Rican leadership toward education.
The purpose of IDEA’s trip was for IDEA to further build a relationship with Nuestra Escuela, and for city and education administrators in Puerto Rico to learn more from us about the possibility of hosting the IDEC in a couple of years.
Mission, Vision, and Overarching Goal of Nuestra Escuela
Students who enroll in Nuestra Escuela are typically between ages 13 and 22 (though some are older adults) and have had major academic or life challenges. Many have been expelled from previous schools. Beginning with an intensive Esencia Vital (“Vital Essence”) retreat, students are required to spend time processing their own emotional issues and learning how to heal. The school employs full-time psychologists and social workers, some of whom are alumni, who offer ongoing counseling to students and their families. Each student also chooses an adult mentor from among the staff who serves as their main point of contact and support.
“We deal with dropout kids who have been hurt by life,” Justo says of Nuestra Escuela, which celebrates its tenth anniversary this August. “We start the healing process.”
The school’s stated mission, vision, and goal are as follows:
Mission
Our school, founded in love, where youth and adults, like Quixote, make their dreams and goals a reality by creating quality of life for their families. So help us God!
Vision
A great family, who believe in themselves and others, develop a sense of belonging, based on love, peace and service to achieve their goals with joy in life and win.
Goal
Ensure that 75% of students in our school and their families increase their capacities to obtain and retain employment or to generate employment opportunities enabling them to achieve social and economic self-sufficiency and a better quality of life.
“We don’t enroll students,” says Justo. “We enroll families.” It’s essential, he says, that families participate in the transformation of the student, and that they’re also willing to transform themselves. Family is so important to the school culture that any family member of any previous student is automatically admitted to the school, jumping ahead of the waiting list of over 2,000 willing applicants. Nuestra Escuela is a private non profit community based school, funded by the Alliance for Alternative Education, the Department of Education, foundations, and the private sector. Students do not pay a dime.
At its five sites located throughout Puerto Rico, Nuestra Escuela offers regular core academics like history, math, and writing, and many extracurriculars as well. The Alternative Communication and Popular Education Workshop, for example, encourages creative development through the arts and sports. Youth Serves trains young entrepreneurs in business skills and offers them employment in school services (such as transportation and maintenance).
Students are respected as full members of the Nuestra Escuela community who help to create many school policies. All students can be part of the school’s National Student Council, provided that they meet certain expectations regarding attendance, grades, and attitude towards the school. The National Student Council is the main vehicle through which staff work with students to improve the school and make important decisions.
At the Caguas site, the IDEA team met several parents and students who said that Nuestra Escuela had changed their lives. One woman, for example, had made a pact with her teenage son to enroll simultaneously and both get their diplomas, which they did. Another student had enrolled, ended up in prison for a couple of years, but found his spot at Nuestra Escuela waiting for him after he had served his time. He is now a well-respected artist in the school.
Community Partnerships
During our stay, the Nuestra Escuela staff took the IDEA team to meet many of their community partners, all of whom were supporters of both Nuestra Escuela and democratic education as a whole:
- University of the Sacred Heart, which is considering co-hosting a future IDEC with Nuestra Escuela
- Community Foundation of Puerto Rico
- Office of the Governor of Puerto Rico, Education Department
- Banco Popular, the only Puerto Rican bank and the largest company in Puerto Rico
- The City of Caguas, which is designating itself an Education City and working closely with Nuestra Escuela
Nuestra Escuela had impressively rallied these community partners around their vision for education for empowerment and social justice. They had built close personal relationships with the staff at these institutions and pride themselves on putting aside any political differences in service of improving education.
Pausa Evaluativa
The IDEA team was privileged to join Nuestra Escuela’s “Pausa Evaluativa” (an in-service day of evaluation) in the eastern town of Fajardo. Representatives from all five sites convened at the gorgeous Fajardo Inn, including around 60 staff and over 20 student members of the National Student Council. Nuestra Escuela was kind enough to have arranged live translation for their American guests.
After going through the 2010-2012 strategic plan, various other presentations about the past semester, and breakout groups on various topics, the IDEA team and Lourdes Aponte, a representative of the City of Caguas, spoke on a panel about our support of democratic education.
Finally, the meeting concluded with the presentation of a resolution that the Nuestra Escuela community had been developing together for some time, discussing it thoroughly and making changes to it. The Pausa Evaluativa was the time that Justo would present the final draft.
Justo read the resolution aloud in Spanish, which laid out a case for democratic education in a page and a half, including its focus on human development and equitable access to education. The document concluded, “Therefore: It is proposed to this Assembly to acknowledge Nuestra Escuela as a democratic school.”
“Those in favor, please raise your hands,” Justo said. Hands around the room flew up.
“Opposed?” Not a movement.
“The resolution passes unanimously,” said Justo, and staff and students burst into applause.