Wednesday night at dinner, Cynthia and Liz’s aunt who is a math teacher invited us to be guest teachers at her school for girls on Friday. We’re going to teach four 40-minute classes to students who are high school freshmen and seniors. The school is located in Callao, a neighborhood in Lima that struggles with drug issues; the girls mostly come from broken homes and don’t have positive role models, so Tia Abelina asked that we do a motivational lesson.
Elvira Garcia Garcia was a "first" in Peru who pioneered education for women...thrilled we just discovered her legacy and will be teaching at a secondary school named after her on Friday!
Come to find out, the school, named after Elvira Garcia Garcia, has a history that’s very special to She’s the First! Cynthia and Tammy are going to teach the girls about famous firsts from Peru, and then lead the girls in a workshop to declare what they want to be the first to do.
We did some Wikipedia research and found out that Elvira, born 1862 and died 1951 in Lima, was the pioneer of education for women in Peru! Some fast facts:
- She was founder of the first kindergarden (for ages 2-7) in Peru
- She was the first to receive a degree as Professor of Secondary Education from a university in Peru
- She was a journalist! She had many published works about girls, women, and education, and she ran The Home and School magazine
- She started out as a teacher at the young age of 18!
- There is now a national association of women in Peru that carries her name
- She introduced physical education to her schools, which was groundbreaking at the time for girls
Do you have any other ideas for our lessons on Friday? Or did you ever think about guest teaching English or another class when traveling abroad? Try it — the schools welcome speakers from the US warmly!
