Mexican officials applaud 'Ninos Del Rio Bravo' lift-off in Acuna

March 14, 2008
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer

An extraordinary bi-national partnership of philanthropy, civic leadership, educators and volunteers breathed life, Wednesday (March 12), into an unprecedented educational thrust – Niños del Rio Bravo – in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, Mexico.

For two years, Dr. Carolyn Boyd, founder and director of Shumla School, and supporters on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, have dreamed about taking the school’s unique qualities of educating children from the desert campus near Comstock, Texas, to the barrios of Acuña, Del Rio’s sister city south of the Rio Grande. Wednesday morning, Boyd welcomed Manuel Jaime Castillo Garza, secretary of Education and Culture for the State of Coahuila, and a coterie of teachers and student volunteers to the inaugural workshop of Niños del Rio Bravo.

Parque Braulio Fernandez Aguirre, a once-neglected crescent of open space on the Mexican banks of the Rio Grande – or Rio Bravo, as it is called in Mexico – was deemed a practical and appropriate place to launch the program’s first teacher training session in the field. Fernandez, governor of Coahuila, 1963-1969, is remembered here for devoting 60 percent of the state’s budget to education and public works.

At the cobblestone base of the Teachers Monument, 20 educators from Acuña’s Instituto Tecnológico Superior gathered to practice a simple garden planting technique they will teach to as many as 1,500 Acuña schoolchildren between April and June. The Nativo Jardín de Niños (Children’s Native Plant Garden) will be sited beside the monument depicting Aztec teachers nourishing the tree of knowledge. “I think that’ll be so appropriate,” Boyd said, beaming. “The kids giving back to honor their teachers!”

Twenty teachers and student volunteers begin learning simple techniques of planting a native garden in one of the hands-on action and learning stations of Niños del Rio Bravo, Wednesday (March 12). Appropriately, the Teachers Monument, background, depicts ancient Aztec educators nourishing the Tree of Knowledge with the ABCs. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)	Shumla School teacher Jack Johnson instructs teachers and volunteers from Instituto Tecnológico Superior about soil depth for their planting of corn kernels. Attention was rapt as some students admitted they hadn’t planted anything since they were in grade school. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)
Teachers and student volunteers drizzle water into their planting cups, preparing to contribute to a food garden in Parque Braulio Fernandez Aguirre on the banks of the Rio Grande, or Rio Bravo. “We want to really see these things grow!” said one student. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)	Teachers practice musical techniques with primitive instruments – in this case a drum with a hide head – in preparation for instilling concepts to schoolchildren of sound energy and characteristics such as pitch, vibration, frequency, amplitude and wavelength. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

 

The garden was the second “station” of six hands-on activities the teachers and student volunteers from the Tecnológico would huddle around to hear and participate with Shumla demonstrators in preparation for titled thematic endeavors tilted toward subject topics: “The Mighty Rio” (ecology); “Friction Fire” (history and physics); “Music from the Past” (physics, history and music); “Paint-Making Experiment” (chemistry, art, ecology, and history); “The Atlatl Advantage” (physics, math and history); and “Nativo Jardín de Niños” (ecology and math).

As 100 Acuña schoolchildren per day – for 15 days spaced into three weeks – participate in the Niños project, several gardens will be cultivated in the park. Wednesday, Shumla teacher Jack Johnson guided the Acuña Tecnológico teachers through a simple exercise of planting seeds of corn, bean, squash and sunflower in cups of moistened soil. The traditional food garden, Johnson explained, will demonstrate the evolution of corn, for example, from native maize to the staple commodity it is today. A truly native species garden to be developed at the park will include sotol, prickly pear, lechuguilla, yucca, carrizo cane, Ashe juniper, and leatherstem.

Monica Lopez Negrete teaches basic research methods, psychology and marketing at the Tecnológico, and giggled, Wednesday, as she watered her seed cup: “I don’t think I’ve planted anything since we planted some beans when I was in kindergarten.” Lopez clustered with Eduardo Marentes, math, statistics and English-as-a-second-language teacher, Bertha Ybarra, English and ESL, and Luz Salas, English, all in training to teach station activities to fifth-graders in about a month.

Nearby, watching with satisfaction and anticipation, friends Kim Canseco, Del Rio, and Roberto Garza Crosby, Acuña, remembered their pivotal roles in the beginning of the Niños project. In 2006, Canseco, civic leader in both cities, accompanied her son, Willie, then a fifth-grader at Sacred Heart School, to the Pecos River Kids program on the Shumla campus, 15 miles north of Comstock, and marveled at the impact the program had on all the kids. She still thinks of the day as “one of those goosebump experiences.”

Garza, owner of El Patio outdoor furniture and indoor décor shop and civic leader in Acuña, saw a Shumla brochure in the office of Blanca Larson, manager of the Plaza Del Sol Mall, Del Rio, thumbed through it and was impressed. Later he asked Canseco if she knew Carolyn Boyd, only days after Canseco’s eye-opening trip to Shumla. Together, with Hector Arrocha, tourism director for Ciudad Acuña, Canseco and Garza met with Boyd, Oct. 26, 2006, to pitch the idea of taking Shumla principles and techniques across the river. “Well, she just lit up when I mentioned the idea to her,” said Canseco, lighting up herself at the recollection.

Asociación Vida de Acuña (AVA), a civic organization dedicated to quality life in that city, is another key member in the Niños partnership. Garza has been a member for seven years. “One of our goals is cultural events and recreation, and it just seemed like this park was the perfect place for Shumla,” said Garza. AVA’s headquarters are in the park, and the group has transformed the sprawling acreage with litter cleanups, brush removal, and recreational equipment.

Garza recounted that Boyd applied for a grant from the Alcoa Foundation, with local assistance from Alcoa Fujikura Ltd. Community Relations Director Linda Giles, and the group came through in October 2007 with an $89,500 grant. “Raul Sergio Farias, director of the Tecnológico, put them in touch with Manuel Jaime Castillo Garza,” said Garza. “And he just went overboard with the idea, with his enthusiasm and commitment. He just grasped the concepts so well and pledged all his support.”

Primitive technologist Neal Stilley curls his toes around a stick with depressions in which he hopes to create a burning ember, demonstrating friction fire-starting to the future teachers. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

A student takes his turn at trying to make fire while Stilley, another student, and Shumla School Director Carolyn Boyd encourage the effort. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

A relieved Stilley applauds Fabian Martinez as his ember is nourished into flame in the hollowed juniper log. Shumla School Director Boyd chided students, “You guys are making this look way too easy. It won’t be so for the little kids, and you’re going to have to give them lots of positives for encouragement.” Stilley credited student enthusiasm and low humidity for the success. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

Blanca Lopez, treasurer for Asociación Vida de Acuña, a civic group aimed at restoring the park, jokes with other leaders in the Niños del Rio Bravo workshop, Wednesday. The women, each part of a bi-national partnership that works toward implementation, are, from left, Lopez, Linda Giles, community relations director, Alcoa Fujikura Ltd, Dr. Carolyn Boyd, director of Shumla School, and Valerie Varner, Shumla education director. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

 

Garza looks to a bright future for Niños. “Yes, we’re aiming for 1,500 kids this year, but we’re also looking for more sponsorships so we can raise that to 2,000,” Garza said. Boyd’s intention is to reach 6,000 Acuña schoolchildren in the first three years of the program, after which she hopes Niños will become a “sustainable, on-going educational program.” Garza says Acuña business leaders are jumping in to help, including – as one example – Manuel Ramon, owner/manager of Rio Grande Motors. Ramon, Garza explained, donated a new car to the effort, to be raffled off with proceeds dedicated to operational costs of Niños del Rio Bravo and maintenance of the park. In addition, Garza said, the Amistad Foundation, founded by industrialist Jesus Maria Ramon, has weighed in with a donation of $15,000, but to sustain the program more assistance is needed.

Boyd says a combination of an on-site program evaluation with each child, an academic performance evaluation of school grades, and an independent mission evaluation by the Carbondale, Ill.-based Center for Instruction, Staff Development and Evaluation will assess the success of the program in achieving established goals. In her introduction letter to the teachers and volunteers, Wednesday, Boyd stated the Niños goals:

• Students will re-discover the joy of learning and return to their schools with a renewed interest in and desire to learn.
• Students will gain new knowledge about their culture, community, and environment.
• Students will gain new knowledge of the Rio Bravo and how its health (and that of the community) is directly related to the actions of individuals and the greater community.
• Students will gain new understanding of how past cultures survived using the natural resources of the region.
• Students will achieve increased scores on nationally-mandated exams and demonstrate improved academic performance in the classroom.
• Students will have a greater sense of pride in terms of caring for themselves, their park, school, and community.

Fabian Martinez Lira, Tecnológico student volunteer majoring in industrial engineering, has a personal understanding and commitment to Boyd’s goals. “I am a completely outdoors guy. When I was just a little kid, my dad used to bring me to the park – this one right here, in fact – and over to Lake Amistad, too, and he taught me a lot about these things,” Martinez said. He expects participation in Niños to continue that family tradition among kids he’s never met before.

Manuel Jaime Castillo Garza, secretary for education and culture, state of Coahuila, far left, pauses to watch teachers-in-training for the Niños project learn primitive paint-making techniques as employed by ancient civilizations in the Lower Pecos region to create elaborate, artistic images on cave and canyon walls. The group is under the tutelage of Shumla teacher Angel Johnson, kneeling, second from right. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

Tecnológico English teacher Luz Salas gently stirs the ingredients of an ancient recipe on a palette of stone to make art in a style of paintings seen in this region that are 4,000 years old or more. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

Dr. Carolyn Boyd and Secretary Manuel Jaime Castillo Garza exchange information about Niños del Rio Bravo and its future implementation in Acuña schools. Boyd and all the partners in the enterprise have worked on the project for two years, and Castillo expressed his appreciation and optimism for the effort, pledging support as it goes forward. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

Acuña businessman and civic leader Roberto Garza Crosby, far right, explains the interplay of improvements of Parque Braulio Fernandez Aguirre and the evolution of Niños del Rio Bravo in the open space alongside the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo. Crosby spearheaded efforts on behalf of both projects with his membership in Asociación Vida de Acuña. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

 

In a private closeout session with Castillo, Boyd articulated one more ambition for the Acuña children to the secretary: “Our goal is to make them feel loved. We want them to feel special, and to engage them with the lifeways of people of ancient civilizations.”

For his part, Castillo told LIVE! that his long-range goal is to encourage the spread of the Niños del Rio Bravo concept throughout Coahuila, but to begin with a careful assessment of its implementation and coordination with schools in Acuña.