San Lucas Toliman Montessori Photos

I found this mission when I agreed to go on a school trip with my daughter who was taking a college class, Peace and Justic, in 2004. After that, my husband and I returned as a couple to volunteer in the many programs that have helped the indigenous people since the early 60's. Father Greg stayed with this community protecting them through a war lasted that 40 years.

As a trained Montessori teacher, I was very interested in their educational system. My first invitation to visit the school left me both appalled and amazed. I was appalled at how little the teachers had to work with and the old style method of teaching ... by rote. Teachers would write information on the board and students would write it in their notebooks. Questions would be stated with the question and the correct responses would be "Si" or "No". I was amazed by the relationships the teachers had with the students. They obviously cared very much for the students. I was also amazed at how hard they worked to give the most they could to the kids.

I befriended a young teacher named Patti who was at the time about the age of my oldest daughter, 22. She had been teaching for four years! In Guatemala, most of the teachers, especially indigenous, are trained to teach in high school. Of course, they were all taught by rote themselves so that was all they knew.

Over the years, I developed a close relationship with the teachers and we were able, through the help of Rotary, friends, and our own donations, to supply library books in Spanish, teaching materials, classroom reference books in Spanish, world maps in Spanish. These books and materials were all brought down in suitcases over the several years we have been visiting San Lucas.

Father Greg's dream of opening a Montessori preschool at the Mission was realized in January of 2010. We were very happy to have helped play a part in its opening. With the help of fundraising, over 300 pounds of Montessori materials went down to Guatemala while the school converted an unused building into a Montessori classroom. I helped provide training for the teachers on Montessori educational philosophy and training on the use of the materials in the classroom. Together with another trained Montessori teacher from North Dakota, the teachers were prepared and the school opened without a hitch. It continues to be a wonderful place of peace and learning which is rich in indigenous Guatemalan culture, it is a joy to help with the children and provide additional training to the teachers each time I visit.

One day my husband, Jack, asked Father Greg what else he could use for the school. Without pausing to think, he stated that he would love to have used turf for the schools futbol field (soccer field). He had heard that Universities often donated the used turf when they replaced their fields. So Jack was able to secure a one-year-old football field full of fantastic artificial turf for free and had enough shipped to the mission by container to cover two small futbol fields. We were lucky enough to visit while the field was being prepared by hand by the local employees of the mission. Volunteers hauled gunny sacks of sand. It was a tremendous undertaking but today the children have an amazing place to play.

We have learned that the way to help people in need is simple ... walk beside the people, don't tell them what to do, wait until they tell you what they want help through an expressed, felt, need. That is the way you can help when people are suffering the process of poverty without taking away their self respect. It and your comfortable bed just to be with them. It raises their self esteem in a country where the indigenous people have been thought of as less than cattle for centuries.