The Future of Education

Active Urban School aims to introduce a structural implementation of social and emotional skills, to break the traditional education system, by developing an innovative and engaging one, which permeates every subject from k-11, and that also fosters access to higher education. The project transforms the traditional education model, characterized by lack of motivation of the students, due to authoritarian teachers, boring curriculums with no practical use for their lives and lineal classroom distributions, for a model that shapes more collaborative, autonomous and integral human beings, through a wide variety of pedagogical strategies, which include the use of student-learning textbooks, group classroom distribution, team projects and classroom governments. This model not only impacts the quality of education, but also transforms students’ lives in a significant way; it’s developed in public urban schools of Manizales, Colombia, serving more than 900 teachers and directives, and more than 50.000 students; 76% of the students of high school of these schools are being enrolled in the best universities of the city with no cost for them. This project has been changing the harsh social and violent conditions of this communities, contributing to the creation of a more peaceful environment.

Keywords: Social and Emotional Skills; Pedagogical Strategies; K-11 education; Higher Education;