Day 3 June 26

Day 3

June 26

Today we had an increase in the number of students from the two we had on Monday now we have four for the morning class and from zero we went up to one in the afternoon class. The classes are going well but we have been running into problems when we try to register the students with Facebook. It keeps telling us that the page is having issues. For this reason we are having to make the students Gmail accounts to be able to access the academy. But all in all it seems to be going smoothly.

EWA

Day 3

Today Ian and I (Elahdio) went on a trip to one of the communities where many of the students come from. This community is called Arani and is about an hour and a half out of town. The reason for our journey was to film both a Bolivian elementary school and high school. While we were filming we were surprised that the directors and teachers of these schools were eager to grant us interviews. Thanks to this we discovered a different view point of Bolivian education. Most of the students that attend this program say that one of the reasons they don't understand a specific subject is because their teachers  don't explain it well, and the teacher does not spend enough one on one time to help them with their difficulties.
However yesterday we also leaned about the difficulties Bolivian teachers face. In the elementary school of "Socrates G Torrico", there are 200 students from preschool to 6th grade while there are only 13 teachers. In the secondary school of "Nemesio A Mariscal" there are 700 students from 7th to 12th grade. Every teacher we interview was overwhelmed because they have to teach four different grade levels of approximately 30-35 students per day, they are poorly paid by the government, and they are not granted sufficient materials or support to teach properly.We asked different teachers what subjects most students struggle with, and every teacher answered the same thing - math. Professor Nivardo Rojas Rioja from Nemesio A Mariscal secondary school said in his interview that "Not all students are in the same math level, 20% of kids from 7th-8th have problems with adding and subtracting, and a number of students in 9th-12th have problems with fractions." Not learning this material correctly in their early education accumulates and hinders students trying to learn new material. State schools in the provinces lag behind state schools in the cities because of a number of reasons that can not only be contributed to the lack of teaching material or teacher to student ratio.
Province schools also face lack of parental support because most kids are left by themselves. This is because their parents are working in a different country. Many of the parents migrate to Spain, Argentina, Italy and various other countries looking for work. The lack of parental presence leads to these children being left alone. Among the problems they face is that they are malnourished. In school the students also face a language barrier because Spanish is not their first language. Many of the interviewed teachers thought that a complementary math program would definitely help students understand the subject better. Hopefully the pilot program we are trying can accomplish this, and possibly lead to the implementation of the Khan Academy's curriculum in Bolivian State schools.

EA & IP