About the CEDEI School

In 2000, CEDEI (Center of Interamerican Studies) began to investigate options for early childhood and primary education. New research in language acquisition showed that children begin to learn language from birth, yet traditional schools didn’t start to teach language until middle school or even high school. And even then, the instruction was uninteresting, the classes too large and the teachers unprepared. CEDEI constructed a natural approach, based on a child’s constant exposure, from the age of two, to English spoken by native teachers in the preschool and crafted a curriculum in which English would become a language of instruction.

Pedagogically, the CEDEI School is experiential. Following the educational philosophies of John Dewey, Maria Montessori, Rudolph Steiner and Paulo Freire, the curriculum is a forward-moving spiral, posing questions, trying answers, pausing for reflection and posing new questions. It means to engage children, to nourish their natural human curiosity. In a society that continues to value rote learning more than reflection, the school’s curriculum is unique and challenging, often more challenging for parents, who have grown up with the traditional educational system, than for the students themselves. Parents are very involved in the learning community at CEDEI School. They are asked to participate in seminars, where educational philosophy and methodology are discussed; they are asked to read to their children every night, to foster in their children a love of language and story and to encourage their creativity. The highest pedagogical goal of the CEDEI School, taken from John Dewey, is to foster in children a desire to continue to learn, a desire, we hope, that will last a lifetime.

CEDEI School seeks to involve children in learning by encouraging them to construct their own knowledge, by allowing them to learn in real life situations, and by exploring content, values, attitudes, and development in order to resolve problems. All activities take place in English and Spanish, in order to use English as a tool for learning and communication, and in order to reinforce Spanish as the children’s native language. The Spanish-speaking Ecuadorian classroom teachers and multidisciplinary team also serve as a valuable link between school and home.

CEDEI School seeks to examine the roles of the inherited culture and its values. Historically, ethical values in the Western educational system have changed very little since Socrates. Schools attempt to create just societies but too often fail to do so. CEDEI School questions why education has failed in that aspect. There are more poverty, more hunger, and more wars than ever. It seems that education has been too focused on knowledge, content, and standards rather than on ethics.

Looking especially at the theoretical writing of Michel Foucault, CEDEI School has constructed a space that tries to challenge and interrupt the invisible transmission of negative cultural values. Racism, sexism, machismo, indifference to injustice are not created anew by every generation, but rather passed on, invisibly, from one generation to the next in every corner of society, including the schools. Culture and its values are constantly being reproduced by every society, and individuals that seek to change those values are often described as revolutionary and are naturally feared.

By engaging teachers from around the globe, CEDEI School strives to create an environment without a dominant culture, an institution where all cultures and their values are made visible by the presence of their representatives and, because they are visible, subject to inspection, criticism and debate. The constant question of ¨why do you do this or believe that¨ can teach humans, even small children, that there are many ways of doing things. And once they learn that other ways are possible, they can believe in change. The members of the CEDEI learning community have great freedom to ask not only what is but to believe in and create what might be.