As a public education, Fe y Alegría’s educational proposal is always aligned with the official educational proposals; However, from our experience, we contribute elements that can enrich it.
Fe y Alegría shares its way of doing quality public education, through its educational proposal, the transversal approaches it assumes and the pedagogical principles it applies.
Our pedagogical proposal
Fe y Alegría’s educational proposal describes approaches and options that characterize the institution’s priorities in fulfilling its mission to achieve contextualized, inclusive and transformative education.
In addition to having a common educational proposal for all the educational institutions that it groups together, it is at the same time flexible to respond to the various realities where their are located.
The three pillars of his proposal are: popular education, education in values and education in and for work.
To form:
>> People aware of their potential, empowered ,leaders of their personal development, and open to transcendence.
>> People with an attitude of growth, self-improvement, respect, appreciation and commitment to cultural diversity and search for an answer to the challenges of reality.
>> People with civic and democratic training who seek to influence and transform the historical reality and overcome exclusion and injustice.
To form:
>> People capable of thinking for themselves, discerning and making critical decisions and assuming responsibilities out of personal conviction and seeking the common good.
>> People aware of their transforming capacity, which is based on the ethical principles of the primacy of the person, solidarity, fraternity, justice and equity.
>>People committed to those around them and to their natural and social environment based on the discovery and assumption of human and Christian values.
To form:
>>People who discover their capacities and positive attitudes towards work to transform reality and be an agent of change.
>> People who develop skills to adapt and create technological resources that contribute to the competitive insertion of the country in the international market and to forms of sustainable development of a society with equity and justice for all.
>> People with entrepreneurial capacity through the adaptation and creation of technological resources that contribute to the development of the country.
Transversal Approaches
Fe y Alegría defines in its educational proposal, as an ethical principle, the primacy of the person. The rights approach conceives men and women as holders of rights, including girls and boys and adolescents and their communities. At the same time, it understands governments and the State as guarantors of law.
Fe y Alegría assumes the notion of citizenship based on being and doing Popular Education, that is, within the framework of rights and human dignity and from a political, ethical and cultural commitment that contributes to the construction of a society fair and democratic.
An education based on human rights and for citizenship helps to strengthen the democratic system of a country that is committed to the generation of educational processes by promoting citizen training and the generation of spaces for participation in schools and communities.
The school and the organized Community must bet on the generation of educational communities that promote being, thinking, feeling and doing among all.
At Fe y Alegría, inclusive education is a requirement for the construction of just, equitable and democratic societies. Inclusion is a call and a response of our identity within the framework of Sustainable Integral Human Development that implies looking at the person in all its dimensions.
At Fe y Alegría, we seek an inclusive education based on the problem of exclusion to meet, with creativity and audacity, the people and communities that today constitute the new frontiers. The multiple and varied areas of exclusion that need to be visible to give a relevant and timely response.
Inclusion presents us with difficult challenges: economic, cultural, political, religious, gender, due to special educational needs associated or not with disability, geographical situations, for reasons of forced human mobility, etc.
Intercultural Education for All (EIT) and Intercultural Bilingual Education (EIB) challenge us to provide educational and pedagogical responses to diversity throughout the educational system with an open attitude to recognize the other as a valuable person with whom we establish relationships of complementarity and reciprocity, consciously freeing ourselves from prejudices that lead to discrimination, racism and sexism.
The primacy of the person is the ethical principle that guides the educational action of Fe y Alegría. We consider women and men to be of equal value and therefore have the same dignity. It is from this dignity of being people that ther relate to others, assuming care and respect for their lives, that of others and that of humanity.
We assume the definition of gender given at the IV World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995 where gender is understood as
“the social roles constructed for women and men based on their sex [which] depends on a particular socio-economic, political and cultural context and are affected by other factors such as age, class, and ethnicity ”. We have made this definition our own because it emphasizes the social learning of being women and being men, therefore, inequality and inequity can be transformed from a personal and collective, intentional work.
As Fe y Alegría we are committed to the transformation of the realities of inequalities, discrimination and violence experienced by women in order to move towards a society in which equality, equity, respect and inclusion are promoted and experienced.
This approach challenges to Fe y Alegría to train people in a different worldview, to transform ways of life, take care of resources and achieve the development of an “ecological citizenship” that means creating an alliance between humanity and the environment that promotes a solid training in values and attitudes of commitment for the valuation, conservation and protection of the environment, in search of a balance with the human being.
Pope Francis in the encyclical Laudato Si’ speaks of an integral ecology that is not limited to the environment but assumes the different dimensions of the human from the ethical principles of justice-equity and solidarity-fraternity with the poor, who are the ones who suffer the most from the depredation of nature. Caring for nature means fighting poverty and restoring the dignity of the excluded. The Pope urges us to assume this challenge of assuming ecological conversion by listening to “the cry of the earth and of the poor.”
Pedagogical Principles
Fe y Alegría promotes the empowerment of all students from the strengthening of self-esteem, appreciation and respect for differences; learning that helps them to become aware of their own potentialities and limitations. It also encourages them to share the hope that it is possible to intervene in reality to improve it and help them understand that history is made by all people, with each other. All of this involves learning that leads us to asume that we are builders of our destiny capable of thinking, transforming, creating, realizing dreams without excluding others and that we are subjects of history.
For Fe y Alegría, learning as a construction process is an experience of empowerment and not of reproduction which implies creating or appropriating new knowledge, making it meaningful, understanding its relationships with the world and with the history of humanity. As a deconstruction process, it means leaving behind, dispossessing of what has been learned, recognizing that science and technology advance and make new contributions, that reality is constantly changing and it is necessary to establish new responses.
Finally, as a reconstructing processes, learning helps to become aware and responsible for the opinion-acted and its implications and confronts us with the future perspective that requires recreating, renewing and innovating the knowledge learned.
Fe y Alegría develops in the students the relevant learning they need to function in life. From this point of view, the educational institution is called to generate pedagogical and management practices that provide learning opportunities beyond what the educational system requires.
It is important that the students make contact with reality for a better understanding and analysis of what happens in it, so that they can solve problems and commit to transform their personal reality and also the family, local, regional, national and world.
From its option for justice, Fe y Alegría undertands by positive discrimination to offer preferential treatment, special specific attention to those most in need and to all people and groups who are subjected to discrimination so that they can exercise their citizenship and have a dignified life.
Being faithful to the original charism of Fe y Alegría requires discerning where the new frontiers are an which are the sectors that suffer from poverty and the greatest exclusion, who fight against social structures that deny them the free exercise of their rights.
At Fe y Alegría we consider that every learning situation should be a gratifying, joyful experience. For this reason, the pedagogy of tenderness, affection and respect is used, which facilitates establishing human relationships with mutual trust, demanding relationships that help to grow, learn, increase expectations and to unfold potentialities.
We believe that learning should take place in a positive, pleasant, motivating climate, where each member of the educational community in their role finds satisfaction and encouragement to continue in the achievement of new knowledge and development of skills and attitudes; accepting new challenges and challenges without getting discouraged.
At Fe y Alegría, the commitment to build a democratic society with justice and equity guides educational action. We understand democracy as a culture, a way of being and acting, which translates into participatory, collaborative, fair, ethical and supportive relationships in all areas of life.
Recognizing that democracy is learned by practicing it, we see that educational action must promote various channels and spaces for participation by all actors, which leads to the development of awareness of the common good, a sense of belonging and co-responsibility with a common project and conviction that only in the autonomous exercise of freedom can build democratic relationships.
Fe y Alegría teachers are the cognitive and affective mediator between what each student is, knows and has developed and the learning they hope to achieve. They are responsible for guiding, leading and facilitating the construction of their own knowledge in students; also, they pose situations that are real challenges to trigger learning, develop skills and discover values that guide their lifestyle.
Teachers are responsible for generating a favorable affective climate, carefully planning meaningful situations that generate learning taking into account individual differences, stimulating the systematization of what is being learned, applying active methodology strategies and a formative evaluation. Likewise, they accompany the personal development of each student and their group and strive so that all students to achieve the planned goals.
Institutional Programs
This institutional program will develop a practical model of digital schools for public education so that its students do not remain left behind in today’s technological world. This great challenge implies offering the country concrete proposals, which have been tested in our school institutions, in order to ensure access to internet connectivity as a fundamental right, and to equip schools with Internet, a relevant pedagogical plan, personal development (PD) for teacher, and educational resources that would foster digital skills for development. See more
This institutional program develops an inclusive school model that is based on the analysis of actual practices of inserting students with disabilities and of various excluded or discriminated social groups into regular schools. It seeks to implement a curriculum with pedagogical management strategies in order to attend to the school’s diversity while developing their abilities. It promotes diversity, coexistence, and the framework of ethics and civic responsibilities. See more
Provides a vision of understanding and valuing rural areas, with a focus on rural development, based on an education that provides real opportunities for students’ personal and social growth. It includes 4 complementary projects: 1) creating rural networks and mini-networks for learning achievement, 2) pedagogical plans for multi-grade classrooms, 3) personal development (PD) for rural teachers, and 4) high school programs in the Amazon region. See more
Proposes renewing and strengthening Alternative Basic Education (ABE) by making it more flexible to respond to the needs of the population it serves and thus achieving the enrollment of students who were prevented from following the regular educational route for whatever reason. Through diverse experiences, new ways of inserting or reinserting students into school will be developed by validating experiences of community education and integration. See more
Aims at strengthening the skills necessary for teenagers and adults to face the changing work world and the challenges of human development in each region. It offers a comprehensive training for dignified jobs by combining elementary education, advanced technological and productive technical education, and promoting lifelong learning in work spaces or in managing their own businesses. It is implemented in partnership with companies, associations, farmers, families, schools and sub-regional governments from the area. See more
Consider a master plan for continuous personal development (PD) for teachers. With its diverse and flexible program with the ability to create customary curricula for each teacher, it includes various training modalities, from classes and workshops to specialized programs. It provides action learning, pedagogical accompaniment and the development of professional learning communities. See more
The program is dedicated to creating a solid civic education at school by generating a culture of daily practices of responsibility, participation, decision making and co- responsibility. It develops a political formation for school leaders from the standpoint of educating those on the margins of society. It promotes each student to construct a life project with social commitment and openness to making a difference in society. See more
