Open AccessRural, Poor and Mapuche: A Window into the Power of Caring Education
Author(s) -
Rosita Puga
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
encounters in theory and history of education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2560-8371
DOI - 10.24908/encounters.v20i1.13527
Subject(s) - ethos , mainstream , sociology , poverty , competence (human resources) , power (physics) , context (archaeology) , work (physics) , economic growth , political science , pedagogy , psychology , geography , social psychology , law , physics , archaeology , quantum mechanics , economics , mechanical engineering , engineering
This article goes deep into the process of turning around a marginal and precarious school, into one with high quality learning results and an ethos of caring and competence that echoes and celebrates the life, insight and work of Nel Noddings, in particular her 17 years of teaching and leadership in elementary and high schools, and her philosophical work on the ethics of caring and its implications for education.
The article gives an account of the context, process and results of the radical transformation of a rural school serving a Mapuche community in the south of Chile, which in 2007 had the worst learning results of the country. A decade later, against all the odds of territorial isolation, socio-economic poverty and cultural distance from the mainstream, the school is consistently achieving results equivalent to the average of upper middle status schools in the main cities of highly urbanized Chile. At the heart of the change is ambitious and effective teaching that both cares and is able to help students substantially grow in terms of their fundamental skills. The article examines the forces and actors involved, the concepts, moral orientation, means and strategies through which they acted, and the time-scale of the project.