New Friends and a Research Project

Criollas in Villa de Leyva

My best friend here is Natalia!  She was born in Colombia and moved to New York with her parents when she was 5.  She is about to finish up her last year at Clark University in Boston with a psych degree and received a grant to spend 2 months studying with the same professor as me at Universdad de los Andes (more on the research project later).  We met the first week we were in Bogotá at los Andes and became instant friends.  Our third weekend here, we took a trip to the beautiful town of Villa de Leyva (pics on FB!).  Little did we know there was a huge festival going on that weekend, so our time there was supplemented by live music, fireworks, around the clock dancing, 75 cent beer, wonderful food and artisan markets, and tons of partying Colombians.  I am so thankful that Natalia is here and SO bummed that she is going back to the states on August 24^th!!  

 

Many people have asked me, “So what exactly are you doing there?”  The answer has fluctuated quite a bit over the past year and even since my arrival.  The most updated answer has two parts:

(1) I am partnering with a professor who is nothing short of an expert in the area of peace education, Dr. Enrique Chaux at la Universidad de los Andes, to conduct a follow-up study on a group of students and their families who received the intervention of a program called Aulas en Paz  (classrooms in peace) in 2006.  These students were 2^nd graders at the time and the idea was to reduce the amount of aggressive behaviors and increase the amount of pro-social behaviors in students identified as particularly at-risk to succumb to violence as a means of resolving conflict.  The results of that year of intervention were outstanding.  We will now be looking at the longer-term impact of the program now that these kids are in 7^th grade.

With a group of happy kids at an Aulas en Paz school in Cali

(2)  I will also be studying a handful of other programs and curriculums that, similar to Aulas en Paz, seek to teach school-children the Citizenship Competencies (these are guidelines for citizenship drafted by Colombia’s ministry of education) in the classroom.  I’ve learned that education in Colombia is highly decentralized, meaning schools and teachers have total autonomy over what they teach and how (high-stakes tests wouldn’t really fly here).  Therefore, these Competencies are not mandated – in fact, schools that are participating in these programs are doing so entirely on their own volition and are thereby super invested in these programs.  Mainly, I’ll be looking at the teaching methodologies that schools and teachers have adopted, the way the impact of these programs is evaluated and also the longer-term and community impact of these programs.

If you want to learn more about this work, google “Enrique Chaux” and “Aulas en Paz” and you’ll get more than enough reading material! I am SO privileged and fortunate to be working with Enrique.  Not only is he a leading researcher in his field and so knowledgeable, he is an all-around wonderful, compassionate person.