In the Classroom

Fig. 11. Escuela Tlatelolco Classroom. c. 2010. Denver, CO. Courtesy of Cesar Sanchez.

The Family Concept

In Escuela, the classroom was a family, where teachers and students were equals. Students could have unique learning experiences, and the teachers taught what was most important for the students to know. The teacher served as a guide to learning.

Escuela believed a good education needed community support. Parents and students could offer ideas about what to teach in the classroom. This formula of parent input, a two-way student/teacher relationship was called the “Familia" or "Family Concept" by Escuela.

This idea took inspiration by the thinker Paulo Freire, who believed that the best education comes from conversation. This way, when teacher and student freely exchange their ideas and views, they become equals, sharpening their individual knowledge together.

Activism

Activism was a big part of life at Escuela. Between tests or school projects, students knew they had the right to stand up to injustice. Sometimes, students would join protests with teachers. Students and teachers protested educational, immigrants’ rights, and political iusses.

Students had opportunities to share the activist knowledge they refined in Escuela. In the yearbook, they wrote poems about their own community, allowing them to shed light on the injustices they saw everyday.

Students also learned that good activism meant thinking about places far from Colorado. Escuela offered field trips, where they would travel to learn about other Chicane communities, and the problems they faced in those places.

Fig. 12. Image of Escuela students protesting the incarceration of American Indian Movement activist, Leonard Peltier. c. 2010. Denver, CO. Courtesy of Cesar Sanchez.

Fig. 13. Gina Vicenta Pacaldo's poem in the Escuela Tlatelolco yearbook of 1973 reflects the importance of the liberation of Chicane people in her perspective (cropped portion of original image). 1973. Courtesy of the Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, [WH1971].

Fig. 14. On one field trip, the students visited Terrace Park Cemetry, one of the largest cememteries of undocumented migrating people in the United States. c. 2010. Holtville, CA. Courtesy of Monica Garcia.

Pride

Pride was the most important goal of Escuela. They achieved this goal in two ways.

Fig. 15. Images from the Chicano Liberation Day (otherwise known as Mexican Independence Day) in the Escuela Tlatelolco Yearbook (cropped portion of original image). 1972. Denver, CO. Courtesy of the Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, [WH1971].

Fig. 16. Image of danzantes. c. 2010. Denver, CO. Courtesy of Monica Garcia.

Orgullo Del Barrio (Neighborhood Pride)

Escuela also taught students to take pride in their neighborhood, the shared community of other Mexican American people.

Teachers expected students to share what they learned in Escuela in their community. This way, the knowledge would empower not only the student, but their friends, family, and neighbors as well.

Escuela was a crucial community space, celebrated for its annual Día de los Muertos celebration, which welcomed members of Escuela's surrounding neighborhood.

Above all, the best way students could take pride in their community was through their careers. Once students graduated, Escuela hoped they would become teachers, activist organizers, and work in politics.

Indigenous Heritage

Escuela Tlatelolco encouraged students to take pride in their heritage as the descendants of Native Americans.

This is seen in the way they renamed the classes. Instead of Kindergarten, First, or Second grade, they renamed the K-6 classes in the following order: Olmeca, Maya, Tolteca, Teotihuacano, Chichimeca, Mixteca/Zapoteca, and Nahuatlacas (also known as the Aztecs). This taught students that their ancestors lived through them, and that they carried the ancestors with them in their every day life.

Sometimes, field trips also taught students about their Indigenous heritage. One year, the students visited Mesa Verde National Park, where they learned about the Native Americans who have lived in Southwestern Colorado for hundreds of years.

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