Escuela Corazon de Jesus

After our trip to the Children's Museum, we made our way to one of the local public schools, Escuela Corazon de Jesus. One of the teachers at this very small school, Ms. Damaris, greeted us warmly and showed us around. We first toured the 2nd-6th grade building. This building had 5 classrooms, one for each grade level, a teacher's lounge/lunch room, a student lunch room, a gym, computer lab and "La Soda Escolar" which is a "snack bar" run by a third party inside the school. We then walked across the street to the Kindergarten and first grade building. This building had two classrooms, one for each grade, and a playground/ramada area where the kids could play.

After our last two school visits, Escuela Corazon de Jesus was a very welcome surprise. Lincoln and Country Day Schools were very kind and welcoming and featured beautiful campuses, but Escuela Corazon de Jesus gave us our first real look at what an authentic Costa Rican public school education is like. This school spoke Spanish in the classrooms (a practice forbidden at both Country Day and Lincoln) and had nowhere near the same amount of funding. Four hundred students in grades K-6th attend the school under a two session system. In this system, students attend school during one of two sessions: either 7 am - 12 pm or 1 pm - 5:30 pm. Ms. Damaris said that because of restricted access to resources and this two schedule system, the school does not have any extra curricular activities. The students at this school were all local Ticos and Ticas who walk to school daily. It was very interesting to learn that two of the teachers had to take a sick leave for two weeks ane, because the Ministerio did not provide the school with a substitute, these two grades simply are not in school for this two weeks. Although it was immediately apparent we were not in the private Country Day or Lincoln Schools anymore, it was truly inspiring to see how much this school does with the minimal resources it has.

Overall, we really enjoyed this school. The students and staff were so friendly and welcoming and immersing ourselves in a school where Spanish, not English, is the primary language, was a very unique experience for the majority of us. We're excited for the last of our school visits as we continue to note the differences and similarities between the United States and Costa Rican systems of education.