The photo above shows some of the teens that Dr. Brian Cook and I taught while we were in Nazca (Nasca) Peru in June 2019.
Youth concerns and issues discussed post- teaching assignments:
- Racism and prejudice in when visiting Lima (racial profiling)
- Keeping language and culture of their areas
- Need for basic infrastructure – water, shelter, roads
- Teen pregnancy
- Planned marriages at 11 or 12? Young girls to older men for financial security
- Limited opportunity to attend public universities because so few are accepted
- In the Highlands the student’s progress was delayed
- Balance of home responsibilities and parental expectations that do not always support education
- Male voice was much more prevalent than female voice in classes
- Teachers may have been biased toward male learners
- Accessibility to basic needs
- Access to books
- Lack of technology
- Unequal distribution of resources
- What does it do to society when you take the cream of the crop, Top 10%, and put them in COAR, and the other 90% have lack resources
However, I do need to point out that the students in the two schools we visited in Lima as well as the students we taught in Nazca were interested, attentive, kind to each other, non-competitive, and respectful of their teachers. We decided that they must be trying to impress us, so we asked their teachers who replied, “No, they are always like this, they know that it is a privilege to be able to learn in school.”
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