Respecting Parents, Teachers
and Staff Helps Children to Learn
By Freda Wolf de Romero
San Juan de Miraflores is a large area within Lima, Peru that suffers from endemic poverty and crime. Remarkably, Ana Bertha Quiroz, principal of the Jose Antonio Encinas public school, has created an island of cleanliness, order and mutual respect here, enriching many lives beyond
her school's 1,672 students and their families. She has done this by making partners of her staff, parents, teachers and students, working with them to improve the quality of education – with a special focus on basic health and hygiene.
Not all children eat every day in Peru. Fifty percent of the population of 27 million is poor, and impoverished children know – from their earliest, most profound experiences – how hard it is to break the cycle of poverty. They dream of becoming soccer stars or bullfighters, of making it big in international show business, or of winning the lottery. Closer to home, but still a long reach away, they put their faith in education as a way out.
Children from all economic backgrounds, but especially poor children, are constantly urged to better themselves, to "overcome" their circumstances, and to study hard and stay in school. But their ability to get an education is undermined by low self-esteem, hunger, poor health, unstable family lives and other aspects of poverty. There is little to support them in the environment, and much to frustrate and discourage them – or to lead them astray in their struggle.
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Artwork Replaces Graffiti
Schools are poorly equipped, often lacking such basics as books and desks, and they suffer from chaotic, crowded, dirty, and unhealthy conditions. Teachers and staff are frequently demoralized. There is crime, violence, alcohol and drugs in the surrounding environment, often among young people, age 12 or even younger, who are already disenfranchised and embittered by the system.
While many of the schools in the Peruvian state school system show signs of administrative neglect and student aggression, there is no graffiti at José Antonio Encinas School. To the contrary, artwork is found everywhere, in the form of drawings hanging on the walls and murals painted by art classes.
Encinas School is a 35-year old sprawling compound of neatly painted red brick buildings, located in the pueblo joven ("young town" or squatter settlement) of Pamplona Alta. Named in honor of an influential Peruvian educator, the school sits on rocky hills several blocks above the business district of San Juan de Miraflores, in Lima, Peru.
Photo by Ursula Caceres
José Antonio Encinas School with the hills of San Juan de Miraflores in the background. Great pride is taken in the clean grounds. Trash barrels help keep the grounds tidy.
Students, ranging in age from 6 to about 17, are clean, polite, attentive and busy in classes. There is mutual respect: everyone is smiling and students, teachers and staff are on a first-name basis. They use the familiar "tu" form of Spanish to address one another.
In the school, older children are paired with younger ones to help teach principles of hygiene and health, and a protective attitude seems to carry over outside school, too. When school was out for the day, a few overly adventurous 9- or 10-year-old boys, anxious to hitch a short, exhilarating ride, grabbed onto the rear bumper of a lone car slowly passing the school. Older boys stopped them, telling them it was dangerous and the younger ones stopped, with no backtalk.
The experience of Encinas School shows that having a voice in school affairs and being treated like a person with feelings, albeit young, leads to self-esteem, Quiroz said. Being clean and healthy, and wearing a nice uniform, leads to self-respect.
When a new school uniform was designed by the young women in the final year of the high school's sewing classes, it was approved by popular student vote. The young people are very proud of the new uniform. It consists of light gray pants or pleated skirt, a dark blue sweater, a white shirt, and a dark blue tie with the school initial "E" embroidered on it.
Photo by Ursula Caceres
Students in a classroom, wearing uniforms
In a world of make-dos and hand-me-downs, a new uniform is very special. Ana Bertha, as she likes to be called, has tried to get uniforms for some of those who can't afford them, because she says it is so important to the children and how they feel about themselves.
Children Under Pressure
Most of the students attending Encinas School come from the San Juan de Miraflores neighborhood. But the school is not a neighborhood school in the North American sense. There are other schools in the area, and many children do not attend school, usually for economic reasons.
For most areas of Lima, parents have difficulty finding a state-run school with space to enroll their children. They often are put on a waiting list for the school closest to their home for at least one year. There simply aren't enough schools, and there are many poor families.
Although primary school is mandatory in Peru, it would be difficult to enforce the law. Generally, any family that can possibly send their children to school does so, even at tremendous sacrifice, but economic reality prevents many from enrolling their children.
Encinas School has two daily sessions of primary and secondary classes in the morning and afternoon. Young people who work usually attend the afternoon session, although, as Quiroz points out sympathetically, "Sometimes they are so tired from working since dawn, with little food, that they fall asleep in class."
Quiroz is sensitive to the reality faced by young people in her school. "There is a lot of pressure on the children," she said. "In many houses there are no parents, and both parents are working until late just to maintain the family. There are many single mothers."
Photo by Ursula Caceres
Ah, a drink of purified water
Malnutrition is widespread. Most children have internal parasites and lice. Infectious diseases are common. The incidence of tuberculosis is very high in Lima. Children do not always get even one meal a day.
Violence at an Early Age
There is also a lot of violence among young people of primary school age in the neighborhood. Some of them are homeless, or their home structure is inadequate to contain them.
Some youths are cynical, rebellious, and delinquent. Many young people, age 12, 13 and younger, use alcohol and drugs, mostly smoking "pasta basica" (the cheapest form of cocaine) mixed with tobacco.
Uncontrollable civil violence often erupts, usually at night. Occasionally, gangs of large numbers of young people stride through the area in the daytime, carrying long sticks and stones, breaking windows, and stealing from stores. They take advantage of their status as minors.
Photo by Ursula Caceres
High school art students' murals use figures from Peru's famous Nazca lines to brighten up a hall
These street toughs put a lot of pressure on the young people from the school, taunting the boys and calling them "little girls." They are a powerful menace.
The local police station is right across from the school, just 300 feet away, but the police aren't very supportive of the school. They say that they don't have money to buy gas for the patrol cars, and they must send one-third of their cars and personnel to protect officials and important people in the government.
Back to the Future
Quiroz came into this tough environment with memories of schools that had worked better. When she was a little girl, Quiroz said she always wanted to be a teacher and she loved playing school.
"I went to a pretty school," she said. "It was a state school, a poor school, but it was pretty. It was very orderly, organized."
In 1995, Quiroz entered the first open, nationwide competition for promotion to principal in the state school system (previously the Ministry of Education appointed principals; the position was generally not open to people from poor backgrounds like hers) after some 15 years experience as a classroom teacher. She placed number one in the nation, which meant she could choose any school she wanted in Peru.
Photo by Ursula Caceres
Good habits formed early: washing hands
Nobody, not even her mother, could believe that Quiroz wanted to be principal of a school in San Juan de Miraflores, known for its dangerous shantytowns and extreme poverty. "I have a big mission to carry out in my life," she says quietly with a little shrug, by way of explanation.
"It seems to me that when schools began to lose their cleanliness and order, they began to deteriorate. The bathrooms become places you can't enter. There was more respect for children when I was a child. I try to go back to the way things were then, to what functioned in the school I attended."
Encinas School emphasizes health because "health is the starting place for children to be able to develop their capabilities," Quiroz explains succinctly. "When I first got to Encinas School in 1995, it was a disaster. It was filthy. The patios were full of trash. The bathrooms were in unspeakable condition. Why did they have to be that way?"
Treating Staff With Dignity
As principal, the first thing she tackled was the bathrooms. "I called together the cleaning personnel, who were badly treated, having the most lowly job," she said. "They said they had nothing at all to work with, not even cleaning cloths. There is no apportionment for cleaning materials in national school budgets."
Noticing that even the most basic equipment, such as brooms, was missing, Quiroz ordered supplies and equipment from a list drawn up by the cleaning staff. "I made sure the janitorial staff were treated as human beings with feelings," she said. "They were divided into committees: each person had a specific duty and title like 'Chief of bathrooms' or 'Chief of patios'. They went happily and proudly about their work.
"Now, every year, I try to get everything we need in the first month for the whole year. I start by writing some 20 letters to local businesses, factories, parents, NGOs, and political figures, asking for cleaning supplies for the school. Sometimes they give me three brooms here, four brooms there, until I get enough for the year."
"The cleaning staff are very important because they are the only ones in touch with all different parts of the school. They hear what the parents say at the door, and they hear what the young people and teachers are saying. They are an important link." A few of the janitorial staff and teachers are also parents in the school, which strengthens those links.
"Then we discovered the students didn't keep the bathrooms clean," she said. "It was an important lesson. Young people are the protagonists of education. They should have a say in it." So Quiroz asked the young people, "How can we better share the responsibility for clean bathrooms? What could the school do in return for the students' taking more care in using the bathrooms?"
"Mirrors," answered the young people. "It was not anything we had thought of, but then I remembered the young people were always coming up to the glass-covered case across from my office where announcements are posted," she said. "Then I realized it was to look at their reflections."
Photo by Ursula Caceres
A sparkling clean bathroom is reflected
in the mirror requested by students
So Quiroz got mirrors for the bathrooms. Now the bathrooms are used more carefully, and students are asking for liquid soap in dispensers on the wall. Quiroz is trying to get dispensers.
Next: Tackling the Teachers
Changing human relationships in a school takes about three years of sensitizing and building a commitment, according to Quiroz. It requires laying the groundwork in the following order: 1) teaching staff, 2) parents and 3) young people.
"Change is a process; it takes a good deal of patience and work," she said. "A lot of the work is with teachers, treating them well, with respect, sensitizing them, building a commitment, and listening to them."
The principal's relationship with teachers is crucial, and a principal should pay particular attention to teachers' mental health, Quiroz said. "Teachers often take things out on students because of their own problems. It is important to listen to them."
"Teacher morale is very low in this country because no one listens to them. They give up. Administrators give up for the same reason. And I think that is why many young people are attracted to gangs: no one listens to them. In a gang, there is somebody to talk to and who listens to you."
Building strong relationships with teachers has paid off, she said. "There are teachers who aren't interested. They come for two years and then they leave. But the ones who are interested, stay. We have some who travel from far away, every day, to teach here. The ambience of the school is agreeable and healthy."
Enrolling Parents
Next, Quiroz works with the parents, using meetings to sensitize and interest them in she is trying to do. "The young people help educate the parents, but you have to work with the parents," she said "Their interest is necessary to reinforce what their children are learning."
For each classroom, there is a parents' organization directed by the classroom teacher. The teacher familiarizes the parents with the subjects that their children are learning during each three-month period. In math, for example, when students are taught addition, the teacher also reviews their addition lessons with the parents.
Photo by Ursula Caceres
Washup corner: colorful bags brought from home with the essentials for personal hygiene
"The parents enjoy the meetings," Quiroz said. "We have about a 90 percent attendance rate. We try to build the meetings around themes that interest them."
In addition, a "School for Parents" provides classes for parents on Saturdays during one month in each three-month period. "For example, in October the theme was sexuality," Quiroz said. "We worked through questionnaires because many people are embarrassed to talk about sex. We discussed all the different stages of sexual education for different ages of children."
The School for Parents has also taught courses on family life and nutrition. "The only way the school has been able to combat the problem of malnutrition is by educating the parents about cheaper nutritional sources, such as beans, soy, wheat, and high altitude native grains like tarwi and quinua," Quiroz said.
Parents in each classroom organization elect representatives to the Parents' Association for the entire school. "Parents participate in the Parents' Association largely because they want to make sure their money is being well spent," Quiroz said.
Each family pays a one-time, flat fee of S/ 30 (US$ 8.50) when one or more of their children enter the school, plus an annual fee of S/ 20 (US$ 5.70) per family. The funds buy materials for repairing the school, and all the labor is done by parents, some of whom are masons, carpenters and plumbers. Parents who are gardeners work with the school's plants and trees.
When parents cannot attend work days on Sunday because they work in the market, "we make it easy for them to come anytime during the week, even at night, when they help cover books with plastic for the library and for classes," Quiroz said. "Everyone helps. The school is everybody's responsibility. We try to make it a pleasant time and we always serve hot tea. We want the parents to have a chance to get to know each other and the school."
Photo by Ursula Caceres
José Antonio Encinas School. A portrait of influential educator José Encinas, painted by young people, decorates the wall by the entrance, center.
This attitude, on the part of school administration, is a sharp contrast to the procedure usually followed by Peruvian state schools where the parents are called, on certain Sundays – especially at the beginning of the school year – to help get the school in shape for the year. Fines are imposed for those who don't come.
Parents are always made welcome and are treated with a great deal of affection at Encinas School. At other schools, it is common to ignore or discourage parents from visiting or participating, because the administrators and teachers are afraid of the parents' criticism and interference.
Parents participate in all school meetings at Encinas School. "We try to form a team where everybody participates," Quiroz said.
Stimulating Everyone to Get Involved
Encinas School's governing structure is relatively flat, rather than hierarchical. It consists largely of committees whose members are representatives from a cross section of the school. They include Quiroz as principal, two teachers from different parts of the school, one parent, one student, and one member of the janitorial staff, all of whom are elected democratically by an assembly of the educational community (consisting of teachers, parents, and student delegates).
Quiroz follows some basic guidelines that she repeats when necessary. These include: "Evaluate activities and not people, because when a person is criticized it causes resentment. All economic decisions and transactions must be carried out with compete transparency. Stimulate everyone to get involved; everybody has his or her function. Most important, everybody should listen to everybody else, and everyone should be treated with respect; try to get things done together."
The Health Committee is at the center of the school organization because health issues are taught across the curriculum in the school. It includes a Health Coordinator from the Ministry of Health.
The Health Committee meets to evaluate the school's problems and organize its health programs. Quiroz spends a lot of time researching government ministries and NGOs to discover what is available for health and for education.
The school has opened a dispensary that provides medicines. "Nothing is given away,' Quiroz said. "Everybody has to pay for his or her medicine, but we get medication from the pharmaceutical companies and make it available at cost. The medication for the young people with epilepsy, for example, we get at 20 centavos ($US .06) per pill. It costs S/ 1 ($US .29) sol per pill in the pharmacies. Sometimes the pharmaceutical companies donate medication to get rid of internal parasites, or shampoo to get rid of lice and antibiotics."
Photo by Ursula Caceres
"Where does it hurt?" The infirmary
nurse administers medication at cost.
The school dispensary administers, but does not prescribe medicine. Students use medical services at public hospitals, or visit the doctors at PEBAL Inmaculada, a nearby adult training program run by the Jesuits where adults can get their high school degree and learn a trade such as baking or cosmetology.
Quiroz persuaded Cayetano Heredia University, Lima's best-known medical school, that it would be mutually advantageous to place a dental unit in Encinas School. This dental unit is a great source of pride, and Encinas School is the only school in Lima offering dental services. Here dentistry students in their final year of studies gain practical experience while poor youths can get dental care not otherwise available to them.
Photo by Ursula Caceres
"Hold the brush this way and . . . ." Enthusiastic dental students in their final year teach new ways to keep teeth healthy.
The dental unit has just received a donated dental x-ray machine from a local Rotary Club. "Right now we need S/ 250 ($US 71.40) to buy fluoride to treat the young people's teeth in our dental unit," Quiroz noted.
Strong Enough to Move Mountains – with Help and Time
Quiroz is an energetic middle-aged woman, simply dressed with hair pulled back and no makeup or jewelry. She is soft-spoken, and an alert and intelligent listener with empathetic eyes and an easy smile.
One gets the impression that Quiroz is used to being more than a few steps ahead of her audience, but she is a skilled teacher who leads others to learning without making them feel diminished in the process. One also senses the quiet dedication and persistence of a woman strong enough to move mountains, but wise enough not to try to do it either by herself, or in a single day.
The mother of two children, now 25 and 20, Quiroz is the widow of a lawyer who worked in the national congress. All her working life she earned "the 500 soles."
She laughed, noting that teacher's monthly salaries are almost always this amount, despite inflation and currency devaluations. At present, 500 soles is equivalent to about $US140, but it invariably ranges in buying power from being inadequate to nearly adequate to maintain a family with the barest necessities.
"For most of my career my husband's salary covered our basic living costs and my salary was for the children's education and other things," she said. "Since he died five years ago, we have only my salary. My daughter, 25, will finally graduate as a teacher next year. She lost time for lack of funds. I am worried about my son, who is just 20 and studying computer science – he has several years yet to go."
Photo by Ursula Caceres
"Open wide!" A dental student treats a student at Encinas School's dental unit
Quiroz usually is at school when the morning session starts at 7:20 a.m., and she stays until the afternoon session is over at 7 p.m. To keep going, "I give myself strength," she says. "I move myself. And some days, when I get tired, I go home a little early and rest."
Quiroz said she is pleased with the changes in the school, but she much work lies ahead. For example, there is a pressing need for a lunchroom program where the young people can get at least one meal daily at school. They sometimes go to the infirmary with stomachaches caused by hunger, or they faint in class, Quiroz said.
The school has the necessary stove, cooking pots, plates and eating utensils, but there are no government programs for food. Private programs say the serve the provinces, not Lima; or that they serve only the poorest schools. Encinas School has too much to be eligible for food, and this seems to be the downside of its achievements thus far, Quiroz said.
The school's sole achievement regarding nutrition has been classroom education for students in the School for Parents. Otherwise, there are a few community dining rooms in the area where a basic meal can be obtained at low cost.
Too Good to be True?
Despite the challenges that remain to be solved, Encinas successes have made an impact on Peru's educational system and have attracted support. After working at Encinas School for a couple of years, Quiroz and members of her staff presented their experiences to a group of administrators from 21 other schools, illustrated with slides, to show how the school worked. The administrators were so surprised that they began to drop by Encinas School without making an appointment to see whether it was really true – especially the clean bathrooms.
Representatives from other institutions also made visits to learn about the school's experience with basic sanitation, and later an exposition was organized at a Ministry of Education center for 300 other schools. Association KALLPA, an NGO, volunteered to help raise funds for the school's dispensary, medicines, and a health coordinator trained in first aid and preventative medicine.
In recent years, Encinas School has become a training center for teachers from other areas of the country. The model developed by Encinas School has been adopted by 180 schools throughout Peru, including the cities of Cuzco, Apurimac, Ayacucho, Iquitos, and Piura.
Quiroz's outreach efforts target both schools and government ministries, and she has spent much time visiting schools in other parts of the country. With assistance from KALLPA and Ashoka, which Quiroz says "pays a stipend to people with dreams," she is working to develop, and lobby for, schools that promote health. Her aim is to have health and health education programs established in every school in the country.
Photo by Ursula Caceres
Busy young artists
Although Quiroz has been collaborating with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education for several years, mounting a national health education program will require cooperation between the two ministries. As in most countries, bureaucratic stumbling blocks in Peru can sometimes approach Kafkaesque proportions. The tradition of competition and rivalry between ministries is deeply entrenched, leaving little space for cooperation.
Considering the many obstacles, Quiroz perserveres with insight, interpersonal skills, a calm sense of mission, a positive can-do attitude, and faith in mutual respect and democratic procedures. If anyone can get two government ministries to work together, it is probably this quietly dedicated, resourceful, hard-working woman who believes in better health and a better life through education and mutual respect.
Needs:
- Most of all, food is needed so the young people in school can have at least one meal a day to help combat malnutrition.
- Also needed: medicines and vitamins, clothes, shoes, school supplies, and books for a school library that is still in the incipient stage.
- New classrooms that are better adapted for elementary children need to be built because the elementary classrooms are old and are getting beyond simply repairing.
- Musical instruments of any kind for a new musical program that has just begun, instituted by an ad honorem teacher.
- Small scholarships to allow young people, who are graduating from high school, to make the transition to employment by attending a short course of studies that will qualify them for jobs.
Contact:
Ana Berta Quiroz
Colegio Nacional 7059 José Antonio Encinas Franco
Sector Nuevo Horizonte
Pamplona Alta
San Juan de Miraflores
Lima 29, Peru
Encinas School tel 511 285-2113
Ana Bertha home tel 511 450-1425
Email: anaquiroz2003@yahoo.com
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