Cloud Forest

Cloud Forest

Banana Splits

Banana Splits

Zipline

Zipline

Bilingual Classroom

Bilingual Classroom

Bilingual School with its Own Windmill

Bilingual School with its Own Windmill

Arenal Volcano

Arenal Volcano

Costa Rica National Curriculum

Costa Rica National Curriculum
Honoring United Nations Agreement

Experiential Learning

Experiential Learning
One of Many School Gardens

Coffee Plantation

Coffee Plantation
Coffee Picker

La Carpio

La Carpio
Home

La Carpio

La Carpio
Home

Energy Savings

Energy Savings
Which number is today?

FAITH

FAITH
Resiliency

LOVE

LOVE
Scarlet Macaws

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
Professional, Casual, Beach-Will it all Fit?

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

¨No Mechanica¨

Today I worked alongside a new friend on a coffee plantation digging holes and planting 12 inch coffee plants. The weather was hot, the hillside was steep, and the work eventually bécame tiring. At the same time, the surrounding mountains, the rising clouds, the variety of bird calls, and the sound of the nearby rushing stream were incredibly enjoyable. My new friend shared that when one´s family brings a big lunch after a long morning, it is fantástico!

All is well with the world when you listen to many Tico conversations. It is a choice to appreciate cold showers, to hang wet laundry all over the house instead of using a dryer, to flush the toilet seldom because it is a way of practicing a responsible lifestyle that respects the environment. The missión statement of one prívate school we visited states that they will ¨…encourage a new generation of ecologically aware, bilingual individuals with the skills and motivation to make environmentally and socially conscious decisions on a local, national, and global scale.¨ The national curriculum for public schools here includes environmental education for all grades and is taught weekly and often daily. The results of these efforts are a genuine love and respect for one´s natural surroundings and earnest endeavors to conserve and protect those surroundings. There is a true understanding that what one person does affects others in the immediate community and the global community. So when I see less than beautiful homes, observe fewer modern conveniences, learn about $500 monthly salaries, eat beans and rice three times a day, I become aware that this is not poverty but this is a lifestyle of consciousness. My reactions to my initial experiences here were based on my perspective of what is necessary to live comfortably in the United States. Here, it appears that the definition of comfort seems to include more than what is comfortable for one´s self.

We have seen tiny schools throughout our our travels of very rural areas. We have seen homes that are hardly big enough for two people. So what are the resiliency factors for the folks who are challenged here? Are they different from the resiliency factors of anyone who is challenged in the United States? The conversations I´ve shared reveal that the family´s loyalty and devotion to one another sustain them. It is a beautiful and refreshing experience to see extended families enjoying one another often-sometimes weekly or daily.

Observations about ¨how one learns¨ this week include: engagement promotes motivation and there is a difference between strategies and activities. At the prívate school some of the science included a grey wáter study, a cloud monitoring station with reports to NASA, and a windmill and solar panel project that allowed the school a zero grid practice. Students engaged with meaningful projects tend to be motivated to comprehend the concepts and procedures. They then accelerate their learning to the next step. In my Spanish class, the teacher has sëveral ¨activities¨ for us, but they are all based on the strategy of memorization. As a learner, I have found that I am not always engaged in the activities. One might ask at what point is it the student´s responsibility to progress with learning instead of the teacher´s responsibility to engage, prod, coax, instill, or motívate the learner. Good teachers know that teaching is an art. It requires skills to master strategies that engage the student in learning activities. The student must feel safe to take risks and trust must exist between the teacher and student.

If more engaging strategies were used in my Spanish class, I might not feel so resistant to tackling my challenge of pronunciating my new language. However, taking turns at rote memorization responses does nothing to boost my confidence and nothing to motívate my joy of learning or my need to know the content. The ¨formula¨ questions only require formula answers so there is no need for or evaluation of conceptual knowledge.

¨No mechanica¨ was the phrase used by our salsa dance instructor and how true that rings for the lifestyles lived here in the Cloud Forest and for my personal classroom experience. I respect the individual choices of the Tico lifestyles here. And I want my classroom learning experiences to be rich with exciting and engaging steps of learning just like a spicy salsa dance. "NO MECHANICA!"

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