Port Chester, New York- From July 5th to July 29th, 2011, the Canadian Delegation of the Free School of Scientific Research for Children (ELIC, Escuelas Libres de Investigaciones Cientificas) travelled to New York City to provide 3 full courses for Port Chester Middle School's After School Program in West Chester County. Four days a week, four hours a day, the ELIC Foundation worked with students in grade 6 and in grade 8 in Ecology, Nutrition/ Science, and Leadership, working to help develop each child's potential and their TALENT, defined as when a child finds the way to unite their potentials with the needs of society.
The ELIC Foundation's innovative and vanguard methodologies and pedagogy captured the minds of the children and enabled them to identify themselves more with their classmates and their environment. Children who were having behavioural issues in the beginning ended by being some of the most helpful within the classroom! Children are natural researchers and once a child is given the opportunity to do so, with a goal to benefit society, great changes can occur. Many children and youth, growing up in our modern society, have troubles in sharing, working as a team and maintaining their state of awe. The children in this summer school program also reflected these characteristics. But as the students advanced in these courses, changes were seen thanks to our cooperative education methodology and the topics that the children investigated. These results show the truth in Dr. Serge Raynaud de la Ferrière's thought, which is what inspired the founding of the ELIC foundation in 1977:
“What is important is not solely teaching something to a child; it is shaping their spirit for observation and reflection, critique within investigation and the love for truth.”
With the ELIC Foundation, the children are no longer in a passive state but instead an active one. Teachers are but the facilitators to the learning experience of the child, as they enter into a world that unites Science, Art, Philosophy and Didactics.
Children undergoing water contamination Students playing a cooperative game
investigations
The students in grade 8 benefited from the exercises and concepts provided in Ecology and Leadership, thinking about practical ways of saving our Planet and critically thinking about what true leadership is and the importance of humanitarianism in America within this New Era of Thought and Knowing. We can see a long tradition of humanism within our ancient cultures such as the Mayans and the Incas that lies deep within all of humanity's past. A major objective in education must be to re-establish and integrate a sense of humanism within the national curriculum. If we do not teach our children to realize the detrimental affects that can happen and that are happening from a lack of including ecology in every sector of society what will happen to our Planet and all of us that live in it? Our lifestyles cannot be sustained by society's systemic self-interest based, mass producing standards. So, if we want to continue the way we are living, we would need multiple planets to do so! (some investigators suggest up to 5!)
Grade 8 student undergoing ecology Grade 8 students playing cooperative game
investigation
The grade 6 students enjoyed the Nutrition/ Science class, finding new ways in healthy eating and ways of looking at our world. A healthy diet starts with the lunch that what we pack our children in their lunch boxes. A healthy vegetarian lifestyle is the diet that is most beneficial to the development of our children in all aspects, the most ethical diet towards our environment, and the most ethical diet for our animals. It is surprising to many, but studies indicate that many of our problems with the environment today, stem from the meat-based diets that many have. The children at Port Chester enjoyed learning of more beneficial ways of eating. Many of them approached their teacher, Mr. Ivan Romo from the ELIC Foundation, during their lunch hours to ask about the food they were eating and were surprised to note that Ivan Romo's lunch was in fact vegetarian. The fact that the teachers at the ELIC Foundation practice what they teach, has always surprised students and parents. This aspect also comprises part of the ELIC foundation's methodology with parent education. Children and youth always follow from example, which is their parents, teachers, peers and other important figures in their life. With the difficulties of peer pressure and other societal factors that youth deal with, it is very important that they can at least find stability and coherence with both their parents and their teachers. With the methodology of the ELIC Foundation, their natural curiosity was stimulated within the different science topics and they began to develop a "love for truth", an indispensable quality for science for the present and future.
"I truly felt that what the ELIC Foundation provided these children was something that many of them will take with them for the rest of their lives in one form or another," said Mr. Ivan Romo, "we are sowing the seeds for the future, helping them not only to be informed, or acquire certain knowledge, but to actually be shaped for the development of their Talent, as defined by the ELIC Foundation. I truly felt something almost sublime when the children began to present the results of some of their investigations such as the ones they all did on sound. They were so excited as they began to talk about things that I myself didn't even learn until Grade 11, but with a distinct point of view and with something that you see less of as you progress through school, a love for truth."
Grade 6 students explainig to their peers the results of their science investigations
The After School Summer Program was a success and the ELIC Foundation extends their gratitude to Port Chester Middle School for allowing the ELIC foundation to facilitate our workshops for the seeds of our future, our children.
For more information on the ELIC Foundation, please feel free to browse our Web page (www.elicnet.org). As well, you can contact Ivan Romo of the ELIC Foundation in Canada at Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser..
-Written by the Canadian Delegation of the ELIC Foundation.