A Discussion with Sergio Pradena, Teacher of History and Geography and Coordinator for 5th-8th Grade Students, San Luís Beltrán School, Santiago, Chile

August 6, 2010

Background: As part of the Education and Global Social Justice Project, in August 2010 undergraduate student Cindy Shuck interviewed Sergio Pradena, teacher of history and geography and coordinator for fifth through eighth grade students at San Luís Beltrán School in Santiago, Chile. In this interview he discusses the school's founding, its outreach to the community through a neighborhood association, and the challenges of working in a poor community. He also outlines changes in the students and their behavior over the history of the school.

What is the history of the community of Pudahuel?

I have been in Pudahuel for more than 35 years. Before, the community was bigger and called Barrances, and besides being large it was a community of very poor families. Almost all of the area was against the military dictatorship of Pinochet, so Pinochet divided Barrancas into three smaller communities: Cerro Navia, Lo Prado, and Pudahuel. Each one became a new community.

What is your background and your educational experience?

I’m from a place called Talcahuano in the south, and I have a teaching degree. I came to this school by luck. In that time, the majority of schools were partially-subsidized and only contracted teacher for one or two years in order to avoid paying them more, so every year or two I had to look for a new place to work. I heard that here they were creating a school, so I applied and they gave me a general teaching job for primary school in which I taught many subjects, so I have been here from the beginning.

In my family, there were no professionals. My mother was employed in house work or in other low-paying jobs. My father was an alcoholic and absent; he never supported the family so my parents separated when I was 10 years old. We lived renting rooms or in a mediagua (a basic, hastily-constructed house). I have an older brother who worked from when he was very young and a sister who lived with another family so that she could have better conditions. My older brother stopped his studies in the 8th grade of primary school in order to work. I studied in a school while they were still run by the government, a technical school, and I stayed until my second year of high school. Afterwards I stopped studying for a few years, and eventually I finished high school with the concentration of social sciences (científico humanista) in night school. Once I finished secondary school I started at the university, I studied and received my degree in general primary education, and afterwards I went for a degree in History and Geography. I never stopped working so that I and my family could survive.

Since I was very little I had always worked in the street or on public transportation selling sweets or the newspaper as a street peddler. From 16 or 17 on I was a member of the Communist Youth Organization. Participating introduced me to the meaning of life and justice. Through the party I realized that I could study and have the possibility to change my situation. Many of my friends are drug addicts and alcoholics and have continued in the same situation since our childhood, but I had the opportunity to change my life and conditions through my education. In 1994 I began to work in this school, and I have already lived many years here in Pudahuel. My wife is from here and we have raised our two sons here as well.

What is the history of the school in the community?

At that time, when we began the school, we only had classes up to second grade, and it was a very small center with only 120 students. The school has always had a direction towards serving the community, since from the beginning it was a community center first and a school second. At that time, since the area was so poor and rural, we offered food and other services for the community. Now those types of services are not as needed because the community is not as poor and has changed a lot, but we still count on help from the parents.

How did the school impact the community?

Before, there was no school dedicated to the poorest people, and many were simply out of the educational system. In this school we dedicated ourselves to support the family in its professional growth, health, and through other workshops. We still have a night school that we created for the parents and older siblings of our students, which has helped many in the community to improve their educational level and find better work. The work we did with the families was very intense, and many were able to establish themselves better financially. Some even came to work at the school. We made them believe that life could change and that there could be better conditions. In sum, the school was a pole of training, education, and work in the community, and therefore the school had a significant social component. Through the cooperation of the school, the families without homes formed an association named the San Ignacio neighborhood. They organized activities to raise money, like raffles and Bingo, and applied for a subsidy from the government. The school obtained the land, and afterwards a company was contracted to construct the houses. Many of the future owners worked for the company that built the houses, so they were practically constructed by the owners themselves.

How is the community’s situation now different from before?

The link between the school and the community is not as necessary today. Now, we consider our job to be the improvement of the academic level, and there one finds the new link. It is more necessary to have a higher academic level so that the students can have success in the working world and continue their studies if they choose to. This change is reflected in the fact that now we offer not only the concentration of technical professional in telecommunications, but also the social sciences, which requires that students study beyond just secondary education in order to have career opportunities. Moreover, the majority of the people who come to Pudahuel today come with a better economic situation than before. There are even “richer” sections on the other side of the school where the Enea Industrial Park is located. Thus, there are some students of a better economic situation coming to the school now, especially because they see that it is a good school. However, we have to continue attending to the poorest students in the school so that we don’t lose the original mission of this place.

Why did you choose to work here in a poor community?

Before, schools in Chile were run by the State, but Pinochet changed them to be either partially subsidized or run by the municipality. The government wasn’t interested in educating the poor, and the only thing they were interested those who founded the new schools was earning more money, because the more students they had, the more money the government gave them. For me, from how I see education, I didn’t want to work in a school where the only interest was to make money. Moreover, new teachers like me were only contracted to work one or two years in order to avoid paying us more years of settlement, and for that reason I didn’t have work at that time. Here in San Luís Beltrán I fell in love with the educational project and how it was focused on not just academics but also social issues. I was also born in a poor community with many people, and working here was a form of commitment to my people. I also knew this community, the language, and how things were done, and I wanted to be a part of the transformative education that we try to deliver to the children because education transformed my life as well.

Was it difficult to work with the community? Were they skeptical?

At first, the people of the community didn’t understand why people had come from so far to help them, because the project of the school was one of the Christian Life Community (CVX). There have always been very organized groups in this community because they were born under the Church in opposition to the dictatorship. In general, it was a very political and organized community. The school began in Saint Francis Chapel, people who were nearby brought their children to study here, and little by little contact with the people of the community increased.

Another characteristic of the school is that it has always offered a full school day for students, which has always helped mothers who work full time so the children are not home alone. Today the full day schedule is more common, but not at that time, and many families were (and are) left with only the mother or the grandmother to take care of the children. These aspects of the school helped us gain the trust of the community throughout its establishment.

What was it like to work here at that time?

We all did a little bit of everything in those days, and always with the help of the parents. Without the human resources of the community, we never would have been able to advance with the project of the school. I taught all sorts of classes: language, history, geography, and even physical education. But we all worked in the construction of the school as well and in anything that was needed.

How have the students changed since the school was created?

The conduct of the students has changed a lot. The first few years, all of them were very naughty, and they were in need of care and affection. We were all very close to the students here. But also the lack of rules meant that there were not norms of conduct for the students and it was madness. The kids were everywhere, running in the halls, throwing rocks, total chaos. Now, that has changed a lot, gradually the students had to grow accustomed to established rules and norms for the smooth running of the school.

Today we also have more access to technology and the students are more inclined towards that. Also, the “tribes of style” rule the groups of the school because a “tribe” defines what type of music one listens to, their culture, language, and even how they dress. The kids are more enclosed in their circle of friends and less participative in class. The tribe business creates an atmosphere of enemies, and now group work in class is more difficult. I note them less committed to their futures and more individualistic now. In addition, I note them to be very racist towards foreigners, and one can see the treatment they give to students from Peru and Bolivia, they make fun of them and don’t include them.

Today there is also a lack of respect, and those who aren’t interested in education, but now we also have large teams to help the students, like psychologists, and the students are learning how to talk more about their problems and worries. We try to maintain the emphasis on the tradition of the family and supportive, collective work through the social education of the students, and we have been able to eradicate violence at the school.

What is the schedule or a typical day for teachers at the school?

We begin at 8:00 a.m. every day, and three days of the week we end at 4:30 p.m., but on Tuesday we end at 3:35 p.m. and Friday we end at 1:20. The majority of teachers work 30 or 40 hours each week. On Tuesdays we have teacher and grade-level meetings and on Friday we have cycle meetings to talk about problems with the students, the classes, or course planning.

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