Christian School

I've been at a Christian school filming their work for the past week.  It's impressive as it has only been here a bit over a decade yet is considered to be far and away the best school in the city of Villarrica.  It's not hard to see why as it has teachers who are actually interested in their students' education (which is not common!).  Paraguay has quite a poor education system where it's usual form for teachers to just write a lot on the blackboard, then leave the class for the rest of the period whilst the students just copy down what has been written into their own jotters, and that is it.  This system of copying information is widespread (although I'm not saying it's necessarily bad or doesn't work, it's just very different to what we're used to in the North West).


One SIM worker talked about a knitting class she took for mothers put on by Catholic nuns.  She was expecting hands-on demonstrations and practice.  What it turned out to be was a series of instructions written down which the women were expected to start copying word-for-word on their own paper, phrases like Hold the yarn and loop over the needle and pull. Although she thought this was ridiculous compared to the quick learning a physical demonstration would result in, the Paraguayan women happily took to writing everything down as it was normal to learn this way, which is odd considering it's quite an oral society whereby reading isn't emphasised or encouraged, or even much liked generally.


The Christian school is much different and the teaching style has much more of the American style (which I think is just naturally more engaging).  It's like the Asuncion Christian Academy in that the kids seem to really like being there and there is a friendliness and joyful spirit there.  I'm probably leaving tomorrow and going back to Asuncion, and I'll miss the kids and the teachers who have been so much fun to work around. :)


Here are some pictures: