“It’s my son’s school,” the Pakistani businessman smiles at the journalist who asks for the address of the Escola Cervantes. Her pride is not surprising. This is a unique center, located in a mansion in the Gothic quarter, awarded with different awards for the educational quality of its students. The basic skills in Catalan, Spanish, English, mathematics and science exceed those expected for a highly complex qualified center like this one, due to the socioeconomic and cultural characteristics of its students.
“More than ten years ago we were not satisfied at all,” explains director Magda Martí, “the faculty made a lot of effort but, from the management, we saw that educational success depended on the teacher. “We needed a clear pedagogical methodological line.”
The school is one line, it has 20 teachers and 225 children, from 5 to 12 years old, who, in the playground, speak 15 different languages. They are the children of a neighborhood where immigration based on the search for a better life coexists with expatriates from rich countries and a group of Catalan students. “We had twin brothers in school, of lineage from the Spanish royal family, and their best friends were from the family of the corner shopkeepers, Pakistanis.” Now the children of European or Latin American couples who are studying master’s degrees at business schools also come.
But overall, the vulnerable student weighs. 60% are below the poverty line. “I don’t know how long because the tourist apartments are kicking them out. Cases of real estate bullying occur daily. Families who return home after picking up the children and find their things thrown in the doorway, with the dog in the street, the lock changed. People who pay their rent and the most they can hope for is to get their furniture back. Our children live with these dramas.”
School, like your second home, should be an inclusive, safe and welcoming space. “Not only that,” the director stops her speech, “it must be your guarantee for the future.” In this way, teachers maintain high expectations for the educational level of each student.
Ten years ago the educational project was reformulated. The division of schedules was eliminated, leaving only the hours of specialists (music, English and others). We worked on projects, respecting the children’s approach to knowledge. “They can solve a mathematical problem with drawings,” says Martí.
The point is that the teachers are clear about the knowledge that the children have to learn in that course. And they have to be meaningful.” In each area there is a teacher leading. In the case of linguistic competence it is Estafanía Medialdea.
“In 2013 we began testing the innovative methodology of Pycto in a course, an organization that proposes teaching by connecting drawing with oral and written expression, through a digital platform full of resources,” he explains. “And it is already extended to all courses.”
The little ones, who do not yet know how to write, separate the words with bumps of the hip. They already like the discovery of units in a sentence, but what truly excites them is creating with their own imagination.
The images, rich in details, stimulate participation. “We teach them that speaking is as important as listening, respecting the views of others, reframing. Nothing is wrong or right. It is not about arriving first, nor about imposing. “Everyone’s opinion counts.”
The little ones create choral stories, inventing their own characters, the older ones make their own books. A cartoonist recently arrived in 2nd grade. The children invented their characters and for each new trait they attributed (“joker”), the illustrator enriched the figure with details. This is how they named 14 possible protagonists who, after a vote, ended up with 4: Cruspi, Basurilis, Cantina and Antagonista.
Cantina, which is a microphone with a face, has a bar at the end, and jumps to move. She sings very well, but suffers from “stage fright,” the children themselves explain. “That happens when you are afraid to show yourself,” clarifies one of them. “But if you shake your body a lot and say ‘brrrrr’ with your lips, it can go away,” she recommends. And Antagonist… “In this process, the vocabulary improves the drawing and it stimulates the lexicon,” describes Martí.
“In the hour and a half of class everything is raised hands, you don’t stop, it is so intense that it flies by,” says the language coordinator. In the remainder of the course they will invent a story that will take place, as they have agreed, in Glasgow, in Catalan and English. While they speak, the teacher repeats a phrase in another language, so that they transition from one to another without thinking.
The 6th grade students (11 or 12 years old) are already in a circle with their teacher, waiting to explain last year’s project to the visitor. A few students have arrived at the school a few years ago, they do not write long subordinate clauses, but they are as proud of their ideas and texts as the others. “They can arrive halfway through the course, at 9 years old, without having set foot in a school, but they participate and by participating they progress,” says Martí.
Among several cities and historical times, they chose New York between 1880 and 1930.
–Sacha: “There were important buildings and, divided into groups, we documented ourselves and shared it with others.”
–Mayra: “When we already knew the city well (they saw photographs, documentaries, read texts) we decided to create a triptych as a travel guide.”
–Amina: “In this, we had discovered different characters. “We each chose the one we liked the most.”
–Ainoa: “With our character we think of a story. We draw it in vignettes, like a comic. The more details, the easier it was to write it later.”
–Abis: “The vignettes helped us write the text. “We could add drawings and think of a title.”
–Julia: “And then, we modeled it. That takes a bit, you have to adapt to the phrase, lower it if it doesn’t fit, or cut it, but then it is the photo that is left in the middle…”
–Leo: “We also put the bibliography. And, then, each one read the other’s. It wasn’t worth saying ‘I like it’; you had to think and say, for example, ‘how poetic’.”
–Aloma: “When we finished everything, and everyone had their book printed, we invited the families to a party. We decorate the classrooms and we dress up with period mustaches, fabrics and pearl necklaces.”
That day, the parents and grandparents bought a cardboard ticket, simulating an antique one, which gave them the right to eat cupcakes and take the guide triptych to walk through the classrooms as if they were walking through New York in the 1920s. In the Cotton Club, with the curtains hanging, a video of a musical could be seen.
–Aina: “In the end, the best thing, we showed the book and they were as excited as we were.”
The class debated, the day La Vanguardia visited them, the city in which they wanted to work. “Pompeii!”, “Venice!” “Baghdad!” The classroom was filled with sound suggestions when, probably, the most nostalgic student was heard: “What if we choose New York again?”
The school’s new challenge is to incorporate the most vulnerable families in learning Catalan and Spanish. “For us it would be important for them to learn languages, it would accelerate and further consolidate the children’s education,” explains Martí. But, he admits, it is difficult.
The school offers free courses and childcare services while adults are in class. However, it does not fill up. “University parents who come from Latin America sign up, but not from other nationalities.” On some occasions Muslim women have been interested, but they are concerned about the fact that men can attend.” The result is that there are parents who after 9 years still ask for a translator at school meetings.
