Education for All

NAIS Challenge 20/20

Palmer Trinity School partnered with Colegio Aquileo Parra in Bogota, Colombia, to participate in the NAIS Challenge 20/20 program. Together the schools chose the global problem “Education for All” to work on identifying and proposing local solutions.

The NAIS Challenge 20/20 program is an Internet-based international education program that partners schools from the United States with schools from other countries to work together on one of the 20 global problems described by J.F. Rischard in his book, High Noon: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them.

Under the guidance of Dr. Leopoldo Llinas at Palmer Trinity and Ms. Zayra Vargas at Aquileo Parra, students collaborated to learn about and find solutions to the global problem Education for All. Students created the Desafío 2020! Facebook group to communicate with their counterpart classes and shared ideas via Skype.

Students discussed documents by UNESCO and the World Education Forum and read passages from Jean Francois Rischard’s book. They conducted further research on the chosen topic by looking for inconsistencies or categorical statements made by different theorists and scientists. They analyzed the failures of the American public education system by viewing and discussing the 2010 documentary film Waiting for “Superman” that follows several students as they strive to be accepted into a charter school.

We were inspired by stories of people like Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani school pupil known for her activism for rights to education and for women. At the age of 15, Yousafzai was shot in the head in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus. The United Nations launched a petition using the slogan “I am Malala” demanding that all children worldwide be in school by the end of 2015.

The participants became part of a global movement committed to provide quality basic education for all children, youth and adults. After numerous discussions of this global problem and analyzing the pros and cons of their proposed solutions, students selected a pilot project: Education By Students For Students.

Education By Students For Students

Education By Students For Student is a video sharing educational project. The idea is simple: students create educational videos for other students. Each video is a 10-minute class where we students share what they know about a specific topic or interview experts on the field.

Colombia is Back