Integral Education: Strategic Challenges & Road-map ahead (XVIII). Strategic Innovation Design for Secondary schools of the future (Part N)
Have a beautiful week!.
Today I would like to stop talking about my personal experience at Externado San José. The whole idea to share those years has been with the purpose to guide you with an example in relation to how important is to start our strategic innovation efforts, considering the past to understand the present and swivel for the future. We can´t move on in life without connecting the dots of time. We can´t fix our current problems or try good decision making without connecting the dots of the time, the contexts and integral aspects of each society.
Externado San José has evolved in its education. The stories I told you on my last two publications are part of the past. Nowadays, Externado has evolved in terms of quality and plan of studies. Externado and the top private schools in El Salvador are using new books of reference and new methodologies, in comparison to what I received 30 years ago. Top schools in El Salvador are an example of a good educational system in Latin America, which produces students who are accepted to study in top universities. We also are capable to win scholarships based on merit. Salvadoran top schools are a sample of what could happen when schools are excellent despite their condition of low-income countries all over the world. I will be more than delighted to see public schools being at the same level or given better results than the traditional top schools in our country.
Let´s start to connect the dots.
The past:
Thirty years ago, Externado San José educational framework was good enough to help us to be seen in America and Europe as potential applicants and win scholarships. Thirty years ago the Externado coined with us a CSEM model of education (Christianity, Sciences, Engineering, and Math). Technology understood as ICT, was not included (just because it was not required at that time). The CSEM model had the following characteristics:
- Rigorous and strict
- Each course in high school has his-her own specialized professor (as in tertiary education-universities)
- Reward system: pass or fail.
- Tests, homework, team-work activities, class participation
- Christian centered: It is oriented towards Christian values, proposing Christ as a model of life. It recognizes that each human being is unique and created by God, and his mission is to work freely and in the community, at the service of the Kingdom of God. It offers adequate pastoral attention, in order to awaken and strengthen in the entire educational community a commitment of personal faith.
- Critical Thinking: It stimulates the real knowledge and analytical capabilities of the person and the world in which the students live.
- Pursues human excellence in its formative action. The courses were oriented to trigger the most complete possible development of the individual capacities of each person in each stage of their life, and as the motivation to use the qualities developed at the service of other people.
- The Jesuits are interested in professional preparation, permanent training in pedagogical techniques and the spiritual formation of staff, students and parents.
- Math and Engineering courses were core in our education during the last two years of high school. We received Calculus with Leithold book (which was more difficult than all the current Calculus textbooks designed for high school).
- Philosophy, Literature, and Psychology were an integral part of the educational system.
- The methodology of all our courses was implemented to create strategic innovation.
- Arts were an integral part of our curriculum.
- The Jesuit schools infrastructure is whole.
But the Jesuit School in El Salvador is only capable to produce between 100 to 150 high-school graduated students per year.
The Present:
Today, many top schools all over the world are designing and implementing a STEM framework. Technology is included. STEM means Sciences, Technology, Engineering, and Math.
El Salvador educational system brief is introduced in the slides below. Please read these slides carefully. The reference sources are in each slide. Otherwise, if the reference is not stated, visit the Ministry of Education Statistics website: https://www.mined.gob.sv/index.php
If you wish to download the last presentation in PDF, click here: Eliescalante El Salvador Education System Brief 2017.
The Future:
Eleonora Escalante Strategy is proposing a new model for the future. The integral ESTEAM model (Ethics, Sciences, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math). We have already seen this when we were in Newport stopover some months ago. Please visit the website to refresh it:
Now we have seen the Salvadoran reality is not the Externado San José reality. Let´s see what should be the ideal model for public schools in El Salvador. Eleonora Escalante Strategy understands the budget restrictions for the Ministry of Education, but if we wish to develop our teen brains with a strategic innovation mindset, there is a need for strategic innovators as educators. Professors have to study, re-learn and be better than Google. Without any proper analysis, and out of the loop, I believe the official budget per year for Education has to be double than what it is at the moment if we wish to create an El Salvador educated for the future. Professors have to update their knowledge and wisdom. And the reward should be reflected in their salaries. A better or excellent professor (in teaching methodologies and content) has to be rewarded with an excellent salary. An ethical professor should be rewarded accordingly.
Every single public school in El Salvador has to be built and organized thinking at least in 100 years ahead. The demand of students and teachers have to be projected for each school. Some schools will require more infrastructure than others because there are crowded villages and deserted ones. The basic arrangement is to come up with one classroom per each grade. Primary education must include pre-school courses (nursery and kindergarten). In addition, it has to hire one professor per each grade for the primary levels. It has to include professors for each course at the secondary or high school level. In addition, each public school must have:
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Well prepared professors, better than Google!. Each professor at every school must be well prepared in their own specialization or level, with cutting-edge methodologies to teach and state of the art content for their subjects. In addition, they should be paid well accordingly to their workload and competencies or capacities. Public professors have to receive constant reinforcement of their knowledge, to update their wisdom and didactics. There must be a transparent performance review system in place for each professor linked to their monetary retribution.
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North Natomas Sacramento Public Library, California.
A proper library and technology facilities (with internet included). The library must be the place for those who can´t afford to buy books or computers to be visited daily. Only 21% of schools have libraries in El Salvador (the majority are private schools). I understand the Government of El Salvador has provided 75,574 laptops to students during the last 4 years.
- All basic services installed. Electricity, water (drinking and sewage), internet, etc.
- Optimum infrastructure. Each school must have the required number of independent classrooms with an optimum good LEED design and fully equipment. The classrooms must have proper windows. If the Ministry of Education budget can´t afford this amount of classrooms, the school has to function in two schedules: Pre-school and Primary levels in the mornings. Secondary –High school in the afternoons. The bottom line is that each course or level has to function with a separate space room. Please visit this link to see the 30 most amazing high-school campuses in the world.
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Designing the school of the future: Project title: Sentia School. By 1+1>2 Architects Location: Ha Noi, Viet Nam
A good auditorium which can be utilized for team-work experiences, and cultural activities.
- Chemistry and Biology labs.
- Full equipped Toilettes (a W.C. for girls and a W.C. for boys )
- Arts-crafts and music room. Arts is as important as sciences and math.
- Sports Facilities. One football court, one basketball court, play-park games, jogging track around the school
- Recreation areas with trees and gardens. Crop gardens for vegetable harvesting (for school students consumption).
- Plano Aquatic Center, Dallas, TX.
- Swimming Facility. Each village (Municipio in Spanish) must have a semi-Olympic pool (25 meters). The school students can visit the pool one time per week to receive swimming training.
- Ethics at the core. Each grade and level requires ethics as an independent course. The ethics are so important in our professional life, that the moral values can´t be dismissed from the core or required courses. Hopefully, Christianity values can be saved.
More to continue… we have to continue connecting the dots. Stay tuned!
Thank you.
Source References used to write this article:
https://www.transparencia.gob.sv/institutions/mined/documents/presupuesto-actual
https://www.transparencia.gob.sv/institutions/mined/documents/estadisticas
http://escuelas.elfaro.net/post/radiografia-de-un-sistema-educativo-en-ruinas
https://www.laprensagrafica.com/opinion/Las-estadisticas-del-MINED…-20180911-0233.html
http://fusades.org/lo-ultimo/blog/es-imperativo-rescatar-la-escuela-p%C3%BAblica-salvadore%C3%B1a-0
https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2016/04/21/prayer-police-and-punishment
https://www.amschool.edu.sv/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=621281&type=d&pREC_ID=1095299
http://7s.laprensagrafica.com/el-pais-donde-8-de-cada-10-escuelas-no-tienen-biblioteca/
https://www.mined.gob.sv/index.php/estadisticas-educativas/item/8001-botetines-estadisticos
https://www.mined.gob.sv/index.php
Disclaimer: All the presentation slides shown on this blog are prepared by Eleonora Escalante MBA-MEng. Nevertheless, all the pictures or videos shown on this blog are not mine. I do not own any of the lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated.
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