The Zapatista school.

The teacher who was a bit pressed for time gave us a brief overview of Zapatista primary education:
“In these classrooms we teach children of all ages and prepare them for our secondary school. They are taught in Spanish and their mother tongue; in this area it is Tzotzil. We use objects, tools, foods animals and natural elements to teach them pronunciation, spelling and writing. We feel it helps them to memorise what they are learning and at the same time the direct relation between these elements and their lives.”
“Older children are also taught about communitarian life, democracy and justice the principles of the EZLN; we explore with them the benefits of working for the good of the community instead of focusing on an individualistic triumph.”
“The enrolment fee for each child is one chicken.”

Below is an account from the Zapatistas own literature about the creation of their education system and the founding of their first secondary school in Oventic:
SERAZLN (Zapatista Educational System)

Education has been one of the demands of EZLN, and since 1994 we have been looking at ways of organising it.
At the beginning we made a call for teachers from official schools. We invited them to participate in a different education. More than 100teachers volunteered their services. Difficulties experienced not from lack of willingness by teachers but because they were used to being salaried. Facing this problem we put out a call for young volunteers (teaching students) from the area who arrived here on December 12th 1998. They were students and not yet salaried. They were 19 in total and agreed with out principle about the need for education. After 2 years of preparation the first Zapatista secondary school opened in September 2000. The planning of the courses was a collective job, there were endless meetings with representatives from all the communities who analysed the needs of their communities and from there the courses and study programmes were planned. At the secondary School students learn grammar (both languages) and communication, maths, social sciences natural sciences humanism and production. Humanism is about the Zapatista philosophy. In these classes pupils and teachers reflect about the struggle, our main objective is for the youngsters to end their studies with a different vision of life so they don’t follow an individualistic life but that they live and work for the benefit of the people and the communities. This allows the youth to understand more about our struggle and who is dominating and exploiting us. After three years our experience is very positive we can see that they have a better understanding of the reality we are living in. It is creating a different conscience and mentality. They are not here to be convinced about the need for our struggle. What happens is that here they get more elements and tools that help them to know about their rights and ways to defend themselves. There is no doubt that education motivates us to fight and strengthens the autonomy of our people. When pupils finish their secondary education they are asked as part of their graduation to decide how they can help their people. Options available to them include agriculture, ecology, primary education, pharmacology, and administration to name but a few. Two generations with these characteristics have graduated so far. From the creation of the good government Juntas a single educational system was created for the whole area. There are now over 100 teachers providing educational services in as many communities.

The secondary school was built with the assistance of an American initiative called schools for Chiapas. Because of the distances involved it works as a boarding school this is expensive because on top of the usual running costs the children have to be fed. To solve this problem the ever creative Junta have founded The Institute Of Mayan Languages where foreigners can learn Tzotzil for a small enrolment fee which in turn helps cover the cost of feeding the children at the Zapatista School. The families of the students are asked to contribute 5 pesos (about 25p) and 2 kilos of beans a month.

Because we believe that autonomous education has to be open to everyone not just indigenous and not only Zapatistas in this area an adult education programme is now operational.

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