And we have a high school!

Friday marked the end of the third week of high school classes in my town. We have over 30 students, aged 14-40, and coming from the surrounding 3 towns, enrolled in the program. The program is called tercer ciclo, or third cycle, and is available to anyone over 14 who wants to study 7^th – 11^th grade (this is considered high school, or colegio, here). The way the program works is that the students buy 6 work books, which basically teach each material and include practice questions. The idea of tercer ciclo is that the students do most of the studying at home, by reading the week's chapter, and then they come to class each week with their questions. The six different subjects are: Math, Science, English, Social Studies, Spanish and Civics. The students have class 3 times a week:

Wednesday, 3pm to 7:30 pm – Math and Science

Thursday, 3pm to 4:30 pm – English (with yours truly as the teacher every other week)

Friday, 3pm to 7:30 pm – Social Studies, Spanish and Civics

Here is a background of the prior educational opportunities for members of my town: The nearest official high school is 8 kms away by bus, which isn't that far, but costs each student $2 a day in travel expenses. This is extremely expense for members of my community, who on average make about $120-$150 a month. There are national scholarships for students, but not even those cover the transportation costs for the month, let alone the extra expenses like uniforms, notebooks, photocopies etc. For this reason, very few kids have continued on to high school after graduating from 6^th grade. For example, last year only 1 of the 5 graduates is currently studying in the high school; and the year before that 1 out of 6 graduates went to high school. Therefore there are a lot of young people in town that were denied the opportunity to continue their studies based on financial reasons, and who are now able to study just a few blocks from their house 3 nights a week. There are also a lot of 20 and 30 year olds who have decided to study here because when they graduated 6^th grade there wasn't even a bus to take them to the high school.

I have been very encouraged throughout the process of opening this high school, which took about 5 months of constant communication with the Superintendant, by the enthusiasm that everyone has to learn. I am constantly stopped on the street, on the bus, or people even come to my house, to ask how they can sign up to study. I am really happy with the success of this project, and just hope that the students keep up their motivation to learn and that this will be a permanent institution in my town.