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In this article, I share two inspiring formal and non-formal educational models, which seek to redefine the meaning of success to promote children and young people to become change agents. I summarize the most relevant ideas presented in the webinar of the Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education at Tecnologico de Monterrey in collaboration with Ashoka, which is an international organization known for promoting social entrepreneurship and change agency to develop citizens who have the tools and capacities to transform their environments.
Peraj <<Inspiring futures>>
Peraj is a program that provides mentoring to boys and girls in 5th and 6th grades in primary school by university students who perform their social service commitments. This accompaniment is called BINOMIO, which comprises a mentor and a child.
This program aims to help primary students pair with a university “change-agent” student to develop skills that motivate them to continue their studies and avoid dropping out. The mentoring work can be done in different modalities (face-to-face, virtual or hybrid) depending on the needs of the participants. This accompaniment lasts ten months, following the SEP school calendar.
Peraj facilitates the integral development of children whose socioeconomic environment limits their opportunities for better economic, academic, social, and emotional conditions. Peraj is incorporated into many Mexican universities and allows children attending the primary schools closest to the participating university to benefit in their development and learning.
“To innovate in education is to have confidence in children and youth so that they have an active role.” – Josué Eduardo Luna, Peraj, Mexico.
Support is provided for child development in affective, social, motivational, communication, academic, and cultural areas. The scope of this program in the last school year (June 2021-August 2022) included the following:
- 1,546 binomial relationships.
- 38 participating universities in 24 states of the Mexican Republic.
- 204,072 binomial session hours.
Mentoring is provided in a personalized way in three stages:
- Recognition. In this stage (where resistance occurs), the child perceives that working with an adult is mostly still and silent.
- Impact. In this stage, friendship is strengthened. Children manifest their emotions more easily because they are taught to identify and channel them by the mentor, who is experienced in life.
- Separation. At this stage, the progress made during the school year is seen, highlighting the significant changes the children experienced. Also, the child is taught how to live with the separation from the binomial bond.
To know more about this model, I invite you to consult the complete webinar session and share it with your colleagues.
Prepa UMA <<Preparatory School of the University of the Environment>>
The Prepa UMA promotes, supports, and accompanies young people developing as agents of change through its educational model, which contains the elements that promote the XXI century skills necessary for today’s world. This model poses four main challenges.
Four main challenges proposed by Prepa UMA
- Challenge 1. Connect young people with nature and conscious development.
- Challenge 2. Develop young people’s thinking skills for better decision-making.
- Challenge 3. Generate in young people enthusiasm for self-directed learning.
- Challenge 4. Develop young people’s potential to be effective change agents committed to a better future for the country and the world.
“In education, we must incorporate knowledge and voices that have not been included in educational systems.” – Karina Gutiérrez, principal of UMA Prep School.
Community learning allows students to know how things work in the real world, collaborate, and be empathetic, which are essential skills to function in an authentic context. When we learn in the community, we establish common interests with our peers, try to solve things together and achieve essential commonalities. Over time, this community matures; such education is how we change our lives and society, explains Karina Gutiérrez, principal of UMA Prep School.
Five pedagogical strategies to face current challenges.
- Self-directed, active research. Make the student ask himself who he is, his values and wants, and what he commits to, to the community and environment. See that the student observes, does the practices, and understands them.
- Coexistence in community. Guide students to identify elements and values that constitute their ways of life, create new ways of living together inside and outside the school, distribute activities equitably, and solve problems that occur in daily and academic life.
- Expression and communication. The students should express themselves through different languages and contexts.
- Production and Education. The students should recognize the usefulness of knowledge and the sustainable use of natural resources. Also, they should develop skills to generate products, produce a book, a documentary, a project, or even microenterprises.
- The autonomous student is at the center of these four strategies. The student learns dialogues, collaborates, knows, and acts.
Dr. Karina Gutierrez commented that learning in dialog and practice communities is essential. An innovative educational model must have these elements to promote change agency, autonomy, collaboration, empathy, and creativity in students to solve the problems they will face.
To know more about this model, I invite you to consult the complete webinar session and share it with your colleagues.
To view this webinar. If your native language is not Spanish, you can turn on the YouTube instant translation subtitles to read the content of this article. To activate this option, select the Subtitles option on YouTube (Spanish subtitles will appear), then the Settings ->Subtitles -> Automatically Translate option, and then the preferred language.
About the presenters
Josué Eduardo Luna has a degree in Pedagogy. He works in research and preparation in non-verbal communication, psycho-corporality in educational media, and emotions in the classroom for Peraj in Mexico.
@perajmexicoac
Karina Gutiérrez, Principal of Prepa UMA, oversees the curricular axis of Thinking Skills Development through the learning methodology of Philosophy for Children and dialogic communities.
@PrepaUma
Breda Villegas leads the area of Children and Youth for Ashoka in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. She facilitates collective intelligence spaces to promote change agency.
Translation by Daniel Wetta
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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
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