Immersion in the Guatemalan Education System

Rafael Aguayo
Learning Equality
Published in
7 min readJul 19, 2017
Learning Equality and Google team members after FUNSEPA presentation, Guatemala City

In May, Learning Equality team members were joined by Googlers to visit Guatemalan schools to see first hand how KA Lite is used in the classroom.

What started off as a user research study, evolved into an immersion experience like no other. Here is my story…

Monday: Understanding the Context

Today we were introduced to different organizations and people who work in Guatemala that are similarly committed to enhancing quality education for all. FUNSEPA is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to providing a high-quality education through technology in the classroom. They have successfully deployed KA Lite in several hundred schools throughout Guatemala. One of the first meetings we had was with the President of FUNSEPA , Salvador Paiz. He talked about the initiatives FUNSEPA is undertaking, such as training teachers how to be efficient in the classroom. He also mentioned problems in the education system, such as the lack of consistent teacher training.

After his presentation, we hopped on the bus and were on our way to meet the President of Guatemala, Jimmy Morales. When we arrived, we were escorted into a conference room where the president arrived shortly after. The meeting with the president was an exciting opportunity for us to present our mission and the reason for our visit . After this meeting we visited the Empresarios por la Educación (Entrepreneurs for Education),a group of business people who work to better the education system in Guatemala. One of their initiatives is to recognize and reward some of the top teachers in Guatemala who go above and beyond to help their students. The last meeting of the day was at the FUNSEPA offices, where we learned about their work on teacher training, computer refurbishing, and lab setups in the school. After sitting through all the presentations, meetings, and discussions it was inspiring to see just how passionate people are and how much they want to make a change in their country.

Tuesday: First School Visit

Today was an exciting day, as it was our first day in Antigua, and we had the opportunity to visit one of the schools in the area. This school was in a rural area surrounded by farmland and makeshift houses. To get started, we split into groups according to a schedule sheet, which also told us what activities we would be doing throughout the day. My first activity was sitting in on a first grade math class. During this time, I observed and took notes on the teacher’s actions and how the students were interacting. It felt similar to me to my own classroom experience, where the teacher is explaining how to do a problem on the board and the students are yelling out answers. Afterwards, the students pulled out their workbooks and started doing the problems independently. After the observations, we interviewed the teacher of the class and the principal of the school. Both had positive feelings about using technology in the classroom. The teacher did express concerns about the gamification of KA Lite, in which students receive points for answering questions and watching videos. She felt students were worrying more about getting points than about learning the material. This was exciting because this is the type of feedback that we will take into account as we develop Kolibri. It was a busy and immersive first day, but it was helpful for me to experience a classroom observation, and I was ready to do the same thing the next day.

El Cubo Primary School; Photo provided by FUNSEPA

Wednesday: Continued Feedback for Kolibri

After an overwhelming first school visit, we felt a bit more prepared to tackle a different school. This school was very small, compared to my own elementary school, as it only had three classrooms, a basketball court, and a playground. Only one classroom had a dedicated “computer” lab, provided by FUNSEPA, which contained around 15–20 tablets connected to a local server with a range of educational content for both, students and teachers. Due to limited technological resources, two separate grades, such as 4th and 5th, using the tablets at the same time. Without these tools, students would have to use and reuse outdated workbooks; this appeared to be a positive alternative that both the students and teachers felt to be impactful.

We continued to gather important observations which will help us in our development and improvements of Kolibri, and this school visit moved a lot more smoothly than the first. When observing the classroom using KA Lite, some students were blazing through the fraction exercises, while others needed to repeatedly ask the teacher for help. There seemed to be no separation of students by aptitude in this school. Also, when using the tablets, students had to scroll on the screen in order to enter an answer and scroll to another part of the screen in order to submit the answer. This seemed very inefficient, which could be due to tablet size and design interface.

Thursday: Refresh and Regroup

Of course we couldn’t keep this trip going with all work and no play! Today we had the afternoon off for different activities. A group of us went to hike Pacaya Volcano. I think I can say we were all pretty excited since none of us had previously hiked a volcano. We had tour guides showing us the way. They took us to one part of the hike where we were able to roast marshmallows with some small pieces of magma that were in a hole. At first we were unable to see anything because it was so foggy, but it eventually cleared up and the volcano was right in front of us the whole time. To our surprise, we were also surrounded by all the cooled and hardened lava. It really was amazing to see such a thing of nature. The fun was over for today as we had to rest up to get ready to head to Lake Atitlan the next day.

Friday: Final School Visit

In order to reach the final school, we had to travel far through the mountains. We rode the bus for several hours, but due to the steepness of the mountains, we had to switch to riding in the back of trucks for the final leg of the trip.

This more difficult journey was met with probably one of the more emotional school visits. As we interviewed the parents, they expressed their positivity about the computer labs and how the kids felt encouraged to learn from them. We learned that some of the children even go to local internet cafes after school in order to continue learning. One parent commented that it would be ideal to have computers in the home so that they do not have to worry about their kids being out in the town.

We were also met with gratitude when interviewing the principal. She kept mentioning how thankful she was to organizations which provide resources to the students who have very little, in a school that is so remote. As I sat there and listened to her, I had a greater appreciation for the work that we are doing and a better understanding of the people we are trying to reach.

Saturday-Sunday: Lessons Learned and Culture Immersion

As a group, we came together one last time to debrief and reflect on all the work we had done. We obviously had lots of great feedback, but it was scattered in a culmination of notes, audio recordings, and video recordings among different people. We collected everyone’s notes and devices together, but we did not compile the data until we returned to the U.S. Looking back on the school visits, we gathered valuable insight on schools in low-resource contexts and on the education system in Guatemala. The interviews and observations will inform our implementation and design going forward.

On our second to last day, we departed from Lake Atitlan back to Guatemala City. On our way we visited Chichicastenango market. This market is filled with local people from the region selling handmade souvenirs and varieties of food. At every street in this market, there are vendors lined up waiting to sell you their goods. The Guatemalan culture is very colorful. This is evident in the garments that the people are wearing and the souvenirs they are selling. Cool (blue, green) and warm (red, orange) colors are used often in their craft. Most interesting were that the people of the region spoke Kaqchikel, which is a Mayan dialect, as a first language and Spanish as a second language. Since I speak Spanish as well, I feel fortunate that I can connect and engage with locals in a more sincere way. Talking with one of the vendors she stressed the importance of speaking Kaqchikel with the children in order to preserve the culture and dialect of the Mayan people. Being able to walk around the market and talk with some of the vendors was a culturally enriching experience.

Learning Equality and Google team members at Google offices in San Diego, CA

Final Thoughts:

Overall, I am sure I can say this was a life changing experience. I got some real insight into the types of problems that our organization is trying to solve, as well as the people we are hoping to help through our technology. Learning about the different organizations in Guatemala made me understand that there are organizations everywhere in the world that are trying to advance education in many different ways. I understand that we are only a tiny part of the solution, but we are all making small dents in the world, working towards the common goal in providing a better future for everyone. Guatemala is a beautiful country enriched with culture, so if you ever have a chance to go, I would totally recommend it!

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Published in Learning Equality

Learning Equality is committed to enabling every person in the world to realize their right to a quality education by enabling teaching and learning with technology, without the Internet.

Written by Rafael Aguayo

Rafael is a software developer with Learning Equality. When he is not trying to change the world, you can find him dancing in the salsa clubs! 💃

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