El Chaparral

A Visit to a Mexican Public School

We went on a school field trip organized by the "Values" committee at our school (yep, same ones who publish those awesome phrases). All the second grade classes - each class of 26 + 4 adults in their very own luxury coach buses - went to visit a small, low SES public school in the village of Santiago.

The school itself is what you would stereotypically expect to see in every-day Mexico - the classrooms are small, but not in bad shape.

One of the classrooms.

As we approached the school, some women were walking their goats. Other goats and dogs were roaming around the fence that surrounded the school.

Our greeters - the goats.

Several cows moo-ed non-stop throughout the morning, and tried to get past the fence to eat our lunches. The bathroom is what I would call a modern-day outhouse. Let's just say you need to manually flush.

Note the outhouse.

The kids are all from poor families - you can see their aluminum shelters not far from the school.

Mothers walk from nearby homes to pick up their kids.

I was proud of our kids - they really showed they cared for these kids they didn't even know and probably never have to know if they didn't want to. But they took them under their wings, and shared lunches and love with them.

The kids in white are from our school.

The funny thing was that while I think they got the message of their privileges and luxuries, they also got the message that teaching and parenting were difficult: many of them came running up to me throughout the day, saying things like, "My kid won't listen to me!" and "He doesn't want to do what I ask him to!" Haha... welcome to my world.