A school in motion | Teresa Punta | TEDxRíodelaPlata

Teresa Punta shows us how the school can be transformed from within when teachers and parents are on the same side of the desk. Teresa is a teacher, school principal and supervisor in Chubut province. She was part of the team of technicians of the Ministry of Education of Chubut between 2012 and 2013 in charge of the Teacher Professional Development program. She is the tutor of FLACSO's Postgraduate studies and Specialization in Educational Management. As school principal, Teresa developed a new way to approach the classroom, which includes caring, accompanying and teaching, aiming at each child, each family, and she shares her experience in her book "Signs of life."

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Federico is my only son.

He misbehaved at school since kindergarten

and since then also,
he wants to drop his studies.

They called me every week of his life,

from any level of schooling
he was at the moment,

to tell me he was misbehaving.

I'd go and listen stoically
the complaints of the school

and then back home, I'd scold him
or hug him, alternatively,

I'd punish him, cry and explain to him
how important it would be for me

that he stops spitting pieces
of chewed paper

to the classroom ceiling, tripping

and later smoking under the tamarisks
or setting up a corn war.

(Laughter)

Around the second year of high school,
the school called me again.

And I went there again.

The person who spoke with me
on that occasion, a teacher,

suggested a new alternative
that had occurred to him.

An extension of Federico's school day

in which Federico and this teacher,

were going to clean the barns of the
agricultural school Federico attended

and meanwhile they were going
to talk for a while;

they were going to try
that this was not a time

like the typical school time.

I think that what Federico learned
in those barn afternoons

works on him to this day.

That was the end of the times
at the dinner table

when the main talk was how bad
Federico was performing at school

and his desire to abandon it.

While I was building my relationship
with the school

as Federico's mother along these lines,
I was becoming a teacher.

I have been teacher, vice principal
and then principal and supervisor,

always of public schools
in the province of Chubut.

And when I was a teacher,
and mostly as a principal,

I was on the other side of the desk.

I was as Federico's mom
and the school called me.

And remembering how I felt when
I was on that side of the desk

when the school called me,

it occurred to me to sit
on the same side of the desk

with the parents when I had to call them
to talk about something.

Especially, if I imagined that
what I had to tell them

may not be easy for them to hear.

This may not be a novel idea,

but it was like materialization
of this simple idea:

"we are all on the same side,
to think about the kids."

When I was already a principal
in a large school with many students

that had several shifts,
with several levels,

I met Joaquín.

Joaquín also behaved poorly.

And in this case the school
was using one by one,

all regulatory instances
to get to a suspension.

We discussed this a lot,
but Joaquín gave us no respite

and we had our backs against the wall

at a much higher speed than our
ability to think other options.

And then the day of suspension came.

The school suspended him,
and while he was suspended,

at a time when Joaquín should
have been in school,

during school hours when
we should've been taking care of Joaquin,

Joaquin stole a car,
the police caught him,

Joaquin got scared, ran away in the car,

crashed and killed himself.

These two scenes of my life at school,
or with the school,

Federico and Joaquín, left a mark
in my way of thinking the world

with school kids forever.

Because I understood that sitting
with them on the same side of the desk

to think about life could be the
difference between life and death.

Sometimes, metaphorically
and sometimes literally.

(Applause)

Thinking of Federico
and thinking about Joaquín

it came to me the idea of a school
that never again rushes or puts aside,

takes away, expels or suspends,
nor asks for a reduction in hours,

nor kindly requests to pass
to another school no kid ever.

(Applause)

I never wanted to push away again
another kid from school.

And neither the instances in between
before expelling them.

When I met her, Nebai was 6 years old.

She was the smallest of a family

that lived in a corner
of the Valdés Peninsula

and with his brothers they jumped
from the cliffs to the sea

and they would gather in their backpacks
the largest amount of mollusks

their little hands allowed them
and the air in their lungs.

One morning I woke up

and I saw Nebai doing lines
of snails in the sand.

I came closer and asked her what
was she doing, she answered: "Tens."

Nebai was in the Valdés Peninsula --
have you ever been there?

it's declared natural human heritage,

making lines of ancient shells in the sand

and calling them tens!

What an impact the school has, I thought.

A ten and two loose snails
form this, she told me,

while drawing it in the sand.

In fact, every line had 10 snails,

we made many numbers from tens
and loose snails,

and Nebai put them together correctly
and wrote them in the sand.

But I don't know the names,
she'd say to me.

And the letters either, I don't know
it well. Do you know them?

I kept thinking about Nebai insistently.

Nebai can be just an anecdote, of course.

Sometimes the anecdotes can help us think.

I think a lot about a phrase that says

that we have to take care
that our mind doesn't turn into

a given, closed, already-made mind

because if that happens,
its activity is over.

Nebai repeated first grade because
she didn't know the name of the numbers.

I suggested Nebai's mom
to pass her to our school,

to see if we could work so that Nebai
would not repeat first grade.

She replied with a text
several days afterwards:

"If there's still time, I want to try that
the Nebai doesn't repeat first grade."

If there is still time, Nebai's
mother was asking.

Yes, there is still time!
I wanted to answer her.

Yes, that the school becomes that accent,
that coma, that pause.

A school that explores ways
to be together,

that digs in the problems,
that makes them their own.

(Applause)

When all these movements

began at the school
where I was principal,

several teachers quit at the same time.

They went to more orderly,
more compliant schools,

more driven by the curricula

and comfort, I would say.

Work licenses and changes of roles
crowded our work days

and luckily they arrived
to put their body and stamina,

very young and soon-to-graduate,
Roberta and Marisol

and Carina, and Silvina,
to put all their intention

at that school time that came afterwards.

After Fede, after Joaquín, after Nebai.

(Applause)

We wanted to think up ways and experiences

to include all the kids at school.

That everyone could be inside.

To be able to sleep protected
at the principal's office

or at the school's kitchen
if for some reason

they had not been able to sleep
at home the night before.

Or to wander from classroom to classroom
looking for the learning context

that fits you best.

To attend school only the months
of the cherry harvest

or every month except for shearing time,

are perhaps another stories
I could tell you

of that time that came afterwards.

A time that completely drilled
the box of possibilities

univocally shaped
by traditional school.

Some teachers said
that in the end it was unfair

for those who studied
or for those who behaved well

because then we rewarded them

giving them the opportunity
of wandering about

and staying all day with them.

That it was more work for us

and that we were much more tired.

The kids started to stay all day
if they needed to

and moms had to get organized

to come assist us at lunchtime.

The pumpkin puree flowers
drawn with the sleeve

over mashed potatoes

or songs to poetically ask the food --

Laughter and love were born
of that domino effect time

in which the school started to think

how to be a school that
could host all the kids.

It is true that it is much more tiring.

It's true that sometimes we felt
that we were not prepared for this

and that our bodies would hurt so much

that we no longer felt them.

But there was now a discussion
and an idea installed

where before there was
hardness and certainty.

I come across Nebai occasionally

walking the streets
of the city we live in,

already going through adolescence,
finishing high school,

without having repeated
one year of her schooling.

And also sometimes I run into Ayrton.

He is a boy we designed activities for
when he attended school

that would last 45 minutes,
which was his attention span,

as his educational psychologist
explained to us.

And now, almost a man,

he works in his neighborhood's bakery,

45 minutes kneading,
45 minutes on the counter,

45 minutes distributing --

he learned how to drive,
he's got a license --

45 minutes wiping the bakery.

I also run across from time to time
the moms of Alma and Gonzalo,

who are still friends
since the school proposed them

that Alma's family
shelters Gonzalo

the time that his mom
couldn't take care of him

because she worked and
they were new to the city.

The academic performance of Gonzalo,

when Alma's family
started to take care of him,

improved significantly,

for those who believe that this is
the fundamental task of the school,

or of all schools.

But also those two families

find one another in this infinite
loop of giving and receiving

because the school proposed
to look at themselves in a way

that is not a traditional way
to see each other from school

The one I bump into the most

is Federico, my son.

He has already grown up,
he behaves quite well.

He is a teacher, he works with children
who behave badly in school.

(Applause)

He works with children who have
difficulties to adjust

to that univocal format that
the school keeps proposing them.

And I know that this has everything to do

with that teacher that instead
of throwing him off,

got him even more time in school,

with the excuse of cleaning the barns.

Thank you.

(Applause)

Thank you.