How the First Classroom Was Built
In 2017, Escuela Caracol celebrates its 10th year. In honor of this anniversary we are recounting our history and remembering how this happy sanctuary came to be, with a campaign called “10 Years of Stories.” To begin, here’s our origin story, from Dr. Allen Wilson, father of co-founder Joshua Wilson: When my wife, Suzanne and I, first visited the property on which the school exists, the only building existing was what is now the office and area outside the office (plus a small bodega). This building was the home of Joshua and Courtney, the founders, for many months. The first classroom to be built is the classroom which is adjacent and just down the steps from the the kitchen. At that time there was only a couple of trees and lots of boulders and rocks on that site. Josh’s vision for the classroom was that it be built as a Golden Rectangle, whose dimensions are based on the Golden Ratio, also known as the Divine Proportion. What exists today is the result of this vision, and the hard work done by the first Guardian of the school, Nicolás Sacach Mendoza. Nicolás had been working on the property where the school is located since 2001, and continued to do so when the school was founded in 2007. The memory I want to share is of the groundbreaking for the new classroom in July of 2007. From the moment the first shovel full of dirt was lifted, we realized that building a classroom on the existing property would be a huge task. Every thrust of a shovel seem to hit rock. The more we dug,...
Vermont Meets Guatemala
In February, Escuela Caracol was fortunate to host a group of Waldorf students and parents from the state of Vermont in the US. The family who organized the visit is a Caracol alumna family, the Devoe Tallutos. Their family of five spent a year at Caracol in 2009, and since then they have returned to visit us many times. This year they decided to invite members of their community at the Lake Champlain Waldorf School in Vermont come along with them. In total, they were a group of 14 students and parents who were interested in both Guatemala and Waldorf education. While at Escuela Caracol, the group worked tirelessly on a number of projects: they built a new coop for our chickens and a small pond for turtles, they designed and made costumes for our class 4/5 play, and they refinished the doors on the primary grades classrooms (which were in a sad state from the extremities of sun and rain here). They even took their break times to play with our students and show them how to make jump ropes. During their weeklong visit, they also found time to pour the foundation of a local home, climb a moutain peak to watch the sunrise over the lake, attend a dance class at La Cambalacha, learn how to make tortillas, kayak on the lake, take in many sights, and of course go swimming. Their work was a huge help to Escuela Caracol, and the visit was equally meaningful to the group. Many of the students are already talking about their next visit to Guatemala. Escuela Caracol sends its thanks to this...
What’s Rome Got to Do with It?
Several years ago, after my class 5/6 had completed their performance of a Roman history themed play, a local indigenous parent at Escuela Caracol asked me, “Why are our children even studying Roman history? It feels so foreign and remote from our Mayan culture, and its legacy of conquest is such an ugly stain on the Americas. What does Rome really have to do with us anyway?” I contended that one could not fully understand our modern globalized world without some knowledge of and feeling for Ancient Rome. I also pointed out that he himself is a member of the (Roman) Catholic Church. It was a healthy interchange that left a lasting impression on me of the critical importance of bringing such historical studies into living conversation with our local Mayan context. At the start of this year, our current sixth grade teacher, Diego Sacach Mendoza, approached me for help in planning his first block of the year: Ancient Rome. He was enthused and energetic to learn more about this subject and bring it to his class of all indigenous students. So we started at the beginning, with the founding myth of Rome: Romulus and Remus. These two boys, fathered by Mars and raised by a she-wolf, eventually decide to lay claim to their respective territories. Romulus builds a wall to keep out uninvited guests, Remus flaunts his disrespect for this wall by jumping over it, Romulus slays his brother Remus, and thus Rome is founded. Diego stopped me there. When he was a child, he said, there were no walls whatsoever in San Marcos. People had lands that...
Shop to Give
