School ranking

Among the five schools our globetrotter boys attended up to now, the Rwandan  one was the biggest and a very good school (some could think "of course", being it a private school for rich kids, but that is not necessarily a guarantee), not only with good facilities but most of all with good teachers, or wonderful ones for Michele in 2nd grade and Sam in 1st. The kids both loved it, it was hard for them to leave it and they remember it fondly, for the place, the teachers and the friends. 

As far as teaching and teachers are concerned, the one they went to in Italy, even if for only a month, was just as good, and not because we're partial to it, having it been Mattia's, Giacomo and Marta's school, but because they were learning well and in a nice environment. Once again, they both had a good experience, as they would have liked to finish the year there and would gladly go back when we return to Europe. 

In England, for those four months, we ended up in a low class school, in an area of popular housing, last in the preference lists of the area, but we didn't mind and actually we didn't dislike it at all, for the facilities, the overall organisation and most of all Michele's great teacher; sure, many of his classmates' academic level was very low and the class was a bit too rowdy at times, but he could learn anyway; Sam was unlucky with the teacher, as she was very nice but would soon be off for maternity leave and that might have stopped her from striving to make that pre-elementary class into something different from a pre-school, but it was still OK. All in all, it could have continued as a good school year, as they boys were both happy, learning and making friends and we were content too. 

School in Ireland was good as well, but Sam hadn't started at all and Michele hadn't entered proper primary yet when we left, so we can't really say much and most of all we'll have a lot more to say  about it in the future, because they're going to study some more time there, sooner or later.

The one in Guatemala has been the worst, as Michele explicitly commented: "Dad, why isn't this school like the others?" He was referring to the lack of discipline which makes everything hard and therefore not worthy, but unfortunately it applies to every aspect; you might tell us it was to be expected, in a disadvantaged area of a developing country, when it's not a high-class institution however, being private it was supposed to be much better than standard public schools and according to what we had been told it was so, but sadly it doesn't seem to be true: the facilities and, partly, the materials are better and some other aspects might be as well, but in general terms there's not much difference, as kids are just as badly behaved and violent, if not worst (as here they are spoilt and display the arrogance of kids knowing they are in a private schools) and the learning is not more advanced, or in some cases is even less, than what is achieved in nearby schools. What's really worrying is that being a project started by Westerners and still run with Westerners' support and partly with Westerners' funds, it should definitely be a high quality, proper, "different" school, but unfortunately at the moment it's only a wasted opportunity because it looks more like a summer camp with some educational themes rather than an educational and learning institution. 

Moving on to more general reflections on education in Guatemala, let's answer a question put to us by Lukas, the Belgian volunteer, when he was here a month ago: how do we compare it with Rwandan education? We must start saying that we haven't got any similar direct experience of other developing countries "normal" schools, as we didn't send our boys to national or low level private schools in Rwanda. However, we were thinking those schools could be an option for our boys if we had remained there without our two high salaries or our free house, so we enquired about them; most of all Mattia visited them often for his work and we knew plenty of kids studying there (our "adopted" ones plus those of Mattia's groups and those we helped financially), so we have some basis on which to draw a comparison and we believe schools in Rwanda, despite worse overpopulation issues and worse facilities, are better than Guatemalan ones as there is definitely a stronger emphasis on learning, with simpler, maybe old style but more effective methods, and kids were better organised and more focused; on the other side, the worst aspect of Rwandan schools is hard physical punishment, but, surely to a lesser degree, that is still present in Guatemalan public school too and the absence of it in private schools is not enough to make them better than Rwandan ones.