EDUCATION

So, new brief: EDUCATION.

What do I know and think about education today? My first thought about the subject, was about how education differs from country to country. In 2008 I spent some time renovating a small special needs school in Ecuador, I was shocked to see how different schooling is depending on where you are. This difference is what initially struck me and I considered my time at the school in Ecuador in relation to the education system in England and my experience of education in this country in relation to this brief.

Some of my group in the schools playground in Baeza

Painting the walls with murals and bright colours was one simple thing we did to brighten the school up 

One of four of the schools class rooms. 

I put some of the photos of the school in Baeza to help explain my first hand experience of the differences in schools and shooling systems across the world. The school in Baeza was run down with a few classrooms but very little teaching material. Because its a special needs school, which is rare in most areas on Ecuador and South America, the community support for the school was noticeable, and parents and teachers knew each other well, doing favors for each other and taking turns to look after the children. Because the children  that attended the school were at different levels of education making it difficult to have structured lessons that benefited all the children. After spending time there it became more apparent that for alot of the children there, the school was more of a day care, and a place for them to be looked after whilst there parents worked. The school doesn't have the resources to provide one on one education for all the kids there, so they teach what they can to who they can.

This is what I thought about when we were given this brief. Education in England is well funded, more schools, more learning resources and more teachers. Allowing schools to focus on the the specific needs of individual children, as opposed to the school in Baeza who have a huge range of children, with completely differing abilities and a lack of the resources that they need to teach alot of them.