Major Alcoa grant takes Shumla School to Mexican schoolchildren

October 31, 2007
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer

"Niños del Rio Bravo will be a shining example of what partnerships can do to build bridges, instead of walls," Dr. Carolyn Boyd said Tuesday (Oct. 30).  Even as she whispered it, Boyd fretted that her language might carry unintended political baggage.

But walls come in as many shapes as there are diplomatic struggles between the often reluctant neighbors, the United States of America and Los Estados Unidos de México.  Monday (Oct. 29), Boyd received a long-awaited reply to an international appeal for financial assistance to bring the tried-and-true teaching methods of Shumla School, founded by Boyd in 1998, to the children of Mexico.  Her grant application to the Alcoa Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Alcoa Fujikura Ltd., got an $89,570 nod, Monday, and the good news spread through cyberspace across Texas like the smell of rain after a drought.

Niños del Rio Bravo will touch the lives of 1,500 Acuña schoolchildren, according to Boyd, with hands-on, experience-based science and cultural awareness activities to be launched at Parque Braulio Fernandez Aguirre.  The large, popular open-space, below and just east of the international bridge, will also be the center of development of a children's garden.  But for as many as 15 days of visits by school classes and their teachers, it will be transformed into a learning center featuring the same activities as Shumla School presents during the very successful Pecos River Kids programs for Del Rio, Eagle Pass and other regional student classes.

With Alcoa employee volunteers, bi-lingual Shumla school instructors, volunteer Del Rio teachers, and Casa de La Cultura Ciudad Acuña helpers and the children's classroom teachers, the kids will rotate in groups through eight learning stations.  The stations are appealingly named:  "The Mighty Rio," "Friction Fire," "Music from the Past," "Paint-Making Experiment," "The Atlatl Advantage," "From Rock to Tool," "Cordage-Making," and "Nativo Jardín de Niños."

Tempting titles notwithstanding, Boyd said the lessons are far more instructive than students may suspect.  "Niños del Rio Bravo educational stations will use features of Native American lifeways as hands-on illustrations of basic principles of chemistry, physics, ecology, geology and math," Boyd wrote in her Alcoa grant application.  "Each station also will demonstrate the importance of art, music and history to the community."

Rio Bravo, the Mexican name for the Rio Grande, is an historical reference to a time a few hundred years ago, before millions of people, shoulder-to-shoulder farms and ranches, dams and hydroelectric plants took all the "wild" (bravo) out of one of the major rivers of North America.  But the idea to take experiential teaching methods connecting Mexican schoolchildren with their heritage and modern learning was as bravo – and yet as logical – as they come, even for Boyd's fertile imagination and renowned determination.

Del Rio civic leader Kim Canseco has been an enthusiastic, pivotal catalyst, bringing Boyd together with Acuñense civic leaders to brainstorm the possibilities of taking Shumla teaching and learning methods to Acuña.  "My first awareness of Carolyn was when my son was in the fifth grade at Sacred Heart, his class went to Shumla, and I went along.  It was one of those goosebumps experiences as I watched the impacts this was having on the kids," Canseco recalled.  "Toward the end of the day, we met Carolyn and Phil [Dering, archeobotanist and Boyd’s husband], and we talked a little."

Canseco asked Boyd if she had considered taking the Shumla teaching concepts to Mexican schoolchildren. "Carolyn just lit up, smiled real big and said she’d love to do something there," Canseco said.  Next, Canseco talked with one of her close Acuña friends, businessman and craftsman Roberto Garza Crosby, about Shumla.  "And he got very excited, and asked me to set up a meeting for him and Hector Arrocha [Acuña city tourism director], so the four of us met, and we started making plans," Canseco said.

Boyd commended Garza’s important leadership.  "Roberto has arranged meetings with interested parties in Mexico, and he has really been a driving force for me to make the connections with community leaders like himself there," Boyd said.  To date, leading civic organizations and political entities that have offered support and backing include Asociación Vida de Acuña, Instituto Tecnológico Superior de Acuña, Cámara de Comercio de Ciudad Acuña, Club Rotario de Ciudad Acuña, Club de Leones Internacional Acuña, Presidencia Municipal de Ciudad Acuña and Casa de La Cultura de Ciudad Acuña.

Linda Giles, Alcoa Fujikura Ltd. community relations coordinator, was the corporate shepherd here for Boyd's application, but it was not an onerous task.  "Dr. Boyd's proposal was very complete and thorough, so there weren't many questions that needed answers," Giles said, Wednesday (Oct. 31).  The Alcoa Foundation, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa., began in 1952 as an arm of the company, but now serves as a stand-alone foundation operating off of the interest earned from investments by the original funds.  According to Giles, other grants from the Alcoa Foundation here have benefited the Del Rio Council for the Arts, St. Henry de Ossos tutoring project, and development of a storm and disaster alarm siren system in Ciudad Acuña.

Giles is optimistic that the ready cadre of Alcoa employees – all encouraged to participate in community improvement projects – is eager to assist the Niños de Rio Bravo effort.  "We have quite a few employees who I'm sure will be interested in participating in this," Giles said.  And, since this grant must be spent within a year, what are the prospects for Alcoa support of the Niños project in succeeding years?  "Well, we evaluate how all the projects are coming along before any decision is made, but I don't see any problem with this one.  This project has a lot of good things going for it," Giles said.

Boyd expects to be geared up and ready to roll with the first classes in Acuña by mid-spring, thanks to all the volunteers and support organizations on both sides of the border.  "We always underestimate how much we can get done until we work together," Boyd said.  "To me, this is one of the most exciting things Shumla School has ever engaged in.  It's an honor to be able to work with these kids and help connect them with their cultural heritage."

Boyd and her regiment of helpers and volunteers on this side of the border will cross the international bridge three or four times enroute to Acuña for five days of work each trip.  "We'll go over on Mondays and set up everything, work with the kids and teachers, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and return on Friday.  We'll be staying in Acuña each night," Boyd explained. 

"Right now, we don’t plan on doing the Niños programs more than a couple of years, and by then we'll get a community organization going in Acuña to take it on and keep it going, hopefully in perpetuity," said Boyd. 

"I don't believe there's anything at all like this going on anyplace else in the United States with Mexican communities.  Our hope is that the idea gets some national exposure as an example of what can be done when communities across the border from each other put their minds, their skills, and hearts into working together," Boyd said