Meeting between students from two school communities

Enraizando Project at the Inocencio Cintrón Zayas School in Barranquitas. 

At the end of last year, two schools from the Public Montessori project had a long-awaited meeting, which began with an exchange of letters. 

In February 2024, Instituto Nueva Escuela (INE) Volunteer Program held a letter preparation workshop with volunteers from Banco Popular, in which students from Elementary I and II from Juan Ponce de León Montessori School (JPL) in Guaynabo and Inocencio Cintrón Zayas (ICZ) in Barranquitas participated. 

After the workshop in which they learned the parts of the letter, the children had the opportunity to write it, with the hope that the recipient would be a student from another public Montessori school. The JPL students first wrote to the ICZ students, and then they responded. 

Up to that point, the activity carried out by the Volunteer Program with the support of the INE Academic Program had fulfilled its objective: to educate about this communication tool, reinforcing writing, reading, the use of language, among other areas.

However, this went beyond the paper. Carmen Iraida, the ICZ school librarian, extended an invitation to the JPL students to visit her school so that the students could meet each other.  

And so it was. This meeting began on the morning of December 5th at the San Cristóbal Canyon nature reserve in Barranquitas. There, the friends on the road from the Montessori public school project, Para La Naturaleza, welcomed them to give them a tour full of much learning. 

Students on their tour of the San Cristóbal Canyon in Barranquitas. 

Students had the opportunity to have their community meeting there, sharing and learning about environmental conservation, the history of the place, reforestation of Puerto Rico and botany. 

They then headed to the ICZ school, which is located in the same municipality, and upon arrival were greeted with great enthusiasm by the school community. The ushers' club gave a tour of the school to the students and guides who were visiting them. 

For the adults who accompanied them, the day was exciting for the students. These are two communities from different geographical contexts, but with very similar stories; a community that cares for its school and seeks to make it the best for children. 

The coordinator of INE’s Volunteer Program, Alondra Ocasio, described this meeting as a big hug between two communities that share the same philosophy and methodology. 

“I am excited because these are meaningful experiences for the children. And because in each of these workshops, from the beginning, I was able to see the excitement that it caused them to think that another child would meet them. And that moves me a lot,” said Alondra about the point reached by this activity, which brought an emotional and community element in addition to the academic one. 

The Montessori public schools project began with one school in the 1990s, but currently there are 60 schools that are part of the project, which are described more as a large community than a project, having in common Montessori education as a tool for educational and social transformation.