Scale up, then down
On Monday, Vicky Colbert, founder and Executive Director of Escuela
Nueva, stopped by for an informal chat in the green pod over wine and cheese
sticks. Charlie Leadbeater guided the conversation, with about 15 others asking
questions about her journey of creating an innovative and viable educational
model, scaling up to Colombian national policy, then shrinking down to an NGO
when the government decentralized.
In a nutshell, Fundación Escuela Nueva is a
Colombian NGO that offers a model of cooperative, self-directed, democratic
education aimed directly at the child. Realizing in the 1980s that teachers
were ill-prepared and using teaching-centered pedagogies, Vicky and her team collaborated
with local governments and civil sector partners to restructure the classroom
with round tables where students problem-solve together, built learning corners
for science and art using local materials, and set up voting stations to
practice democratic rights. The emphasis on leadership skills through empathy
is prevalent in other Escuela Nueva models, like EN for emergency situations,
and EN for women (you can read more about the models and their recognition here).
Flies
So what do collaborative, self-directed, empathetic, democratic children
look like? Let’s apply the Escuela Nueva lens to the boys in William Golding’s
classic Lord of the Flies. The novel
addresses the age-old struggle between good and evil, represented as
civilization (good) vs. savagery (evil), embodied by adolescents and little boys
(Littluns).
Golding’s argument that humans are inherently savage, kept in check
only by society, is played out between a few boys: we have Ralph, who represents
civilization and order; he leads the boys to build huts and find a way to be
rescued. When Jack – power-hungry and violent – becomes obsessed with hunting
and preys on the group’s fears, the boys ditch Ralph and turn to a life of
destruction and blood-lust with Jack at the helm. Then there’s Simon – spiritual,
human goodness – who believes in the inherent value of morality. He is kind to
the Littluns, and recognizes that the Lord of Flies is the beast inside
everyone; still, Simon is killed at the hands of the others.
Skills, not spears
If their boarding school had followed the Escuela Nueva model, the boys
would have been more productive in their group work. Instead of relying on one
leader to tell them what to do, the Littluns would have known how to work
together using materials at their disposal to find solutions.
Their
self-regulated learning would have prepared them to be more confident and less
distracted, ultimately saving their new homes – even a friend – from a raging
fire. With a profound understanding of democratic education, Jack would have been
more gracious when losing the election, and found other ways to be an effective
leader, while the voters would have respected the outcome instead of destroying
their fragile system. Hunting still would have been a struggle, but their
empathic mind-set could have supported Jack and not let him get isolated with his
violent obsession.
Equipped with analytic thinking skills instead of spears,
the boys would have questioned the sudden appearance of the beast instead of blindly
accepting the parachute to be evil. And the officer who rescues them would have
been proud to see proper British boys building a society, instead of appalled
by the destructive nature of the blood-covered, barbaric little boys crying
with fear and shame at the depths of their inhumanity.
Open-source wounds
The Escuela Nueva model is already in over 16 countries, helping 5
million young people realize their potential for good through collaborative
problem solving. In Colombia, rural students outperform their urban peers in
all but the largest cities. The peace-building efforts to rebuild the social
fabric after decades of violence are literally grassroots. It is a testament to
Vicky’s vision and drive that the organisation is the longest running
successful NGO coming out of the global south, but the road ahead for Escuela
Nueva promises to be difficult.
As Charlie Leadbeater said in our talk, Vicky
was open-source before open-source really existed. This has led to widespread
use, but the same openness has distanced the organization from potentially
useful feedback (and profit). The lack of access to data outside of the
Colombian context means Escuela Nueva doesn’t know how the program has been
adapted, and to what ends. As they join forces with new partners to spread the relevance
and ride the wave of digital education, the organisation’s scaling strategies
will be crucial for its continued success.
