Education's Role in Strengthening Community - A Conversation with Sonia Bautista León

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

If you are ready and you have all these qualifications and you are ready to go and be success in the world, sometimes we don't, we don't go back, you know, like to our roots. All those things that I know now could help my community, and systems Are not ready for that too.

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the podcast.

My name's Tim Logan, and the podcast is produced by Good Impact Labs. Rather than the narrow definition of schooling, if you think of education broadly as raising children to become members of a community, capable, functioning people contributing to the life and strength of that community, then the roles of schools and teachers in that place can take on real significance. But from another perspective, becoming a so-called educated person is often the thing that pulls people away from their community as they travel to nearby towns or cities to attend schools, universities, or pursue careers. My guest this week, Sonia Bautista León, is working in and with communities across the Sierra Mixe in Oaxaca, Mexico, co-creating educational responses to the challenges and opportunities being lived there. I'll invite her to introduce herself in a moment, but just to say that you can find links to all of Sonia's and Radix Education's amazing work in the show notes, and in particular, the Nuevo Maestro project that we talk mostly about in this conversation.

So first, I want to thank you, Tim, for the invitation and the opportunity to share this space. Hope having a great conversation. So my name is Sonia Bautista León. I am from Oaxaca. I live in the south of Mexico. I work as a senior coordinator at Radix Education in a wonderful program we run here at the Sierra Mixe in Oaxaca. And yes, I am a Zapotec woman. Zapotec is my first language. Zapotec is one of the 69 indigenous languages spoken in Mexico. So I speak one of them. So I learned Spanish and now I'm learning English. So it's a pleasure to me to be here and have this conversation with you.

Thank you. No, I so appreciate you taking the time and I really appreciate Eva Grajeda, a previous colleague of yours and now is a colleague of mine, who introduced us. So just know, absolute pleasure to be able to explore this with you. As you were saying, before we started, your experience of growing up in the Sierra Juárez region of Oaxaca. I've never visited Mexico, so I don't have the awareness of being there and how diverse and how, you know, the complexity of all of the different areas. But yeah, perhaps you could say a little bit more about what was it like for you growing up in terms of your own education, because I'd love to talk more about the work you're doing, with Radix and in community. But for you, what, what was it that sparked this interest in education? And, you know, was there something in your education as a child that stayed with you?

Yeah, thank you. It's a really nice question. I think at this point in, in my life, I could put a lot of adjectives of many things what happened in my life. But in that time, that was my unique opportunity in my, my world, you know, living between the mountains and know that soon I will go to school and learn more Spanish, because that was the idea when I was a kid, and education was like a reference to have a better life. So I remember my mornings being a bit cold, starting with a smell of firewood, because that is the life in the Sierra Juárez, and waiting The bell rings, and then it's a signal that I need to hurry up to prepare my backpack and be sure that I did my homework and then go to school because we didn't have other kind of communication, just the bell of the church, and that means they are waiting for us. I studied in a classroom with different ages. with different levels, which I share with many other children, my cousins, my friends, my family. And also, one of the memories comes to my mind is the smell of the books. It's beginner of a year school, having those books and opening it and immediately think how I could keep that clean and perfect at the end, you know, and think what kind of paper I could use. to cover it because the books were and are one of the best treasures that you could have, you know, as a kid. And because no library, of course, so you need to keep your own library. And the unique books that you could have access are those kind of books. Actually, I really liked Go to School. My father, he just finished the first 3 grades from elementary school. And my mother, she studied secondary, but I think just the first year. So my dad, he was doing the best that he can. My mom, she can write. So that was a great opportunity for me. And it was a way how I discovered that another world exists. It is not just me and my family living between those mountains, you know? So.

Right.

I am part of a city, I'm part of a country. Yeah, that was amazing, like discover the world.

Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, it's like an opening up into, yeah, the awareness of other spaces and worlds and, and countries and ideas. And yeah, I agree.

Yeah. And one more thing is like, it's important too, having the memories of the teachers I met, you know. I have great memories for some of them, not very good, uh, memories, but what I'm sure is I So I am here now.

Amazing. So you talked about the bell. Was it a Catholic school? This is a religious school or no?

No, no, no. It's a public school. But in many communities here in the Sierra Juárez, particularly in my region, we use the bell for important things. You know, it's like a way how to communicate that things important coming, like school. school Monday to Friday, and of course for important days for Catholic people, but more we use the same resource, but this is the unique that we have. So we have our particular sounds for school, for particular sounds if someone dies, a particular sound if it's a Mass, particularly for an assembly, like meetings with the communities. So we know, you know, we know what is happening.

Oh, wow. And this is a community school in your— like, did you have to walk far to go there, or is it just, it's very much in your community, or it—

No, in the first grades, yes, it happens in my community. So we live very close. We, in Mexico, we study elementary school 6 to 12 years old. So the first 3 I did in my community in Joza, but the other 3 years I moved to another community. I lived In a special house that they have for students.

Okay, yeah, like boarding.

Yes. I think that was the first big choice at that time in our life because if you want to continue your school, you need to leave from your home. So, that was hard.

And you're still young. I mean, what, age 9?

8. So, of course I cried. Of course I missed my mom. But, well, that was the thing.

If I wanted to continue my school, because if not, I couldn't do And was there, was there a part of then your, maybe your later in your own education that, that inspired you to want to do this professionally, you know, to want to be a teacher or work in education yourself, or did that come later in your story?

Well, I, I remember, Tim, like, because I was with many years in the same classroom, I saw my friends, my classmates, that they were, some of them, they were not very good, you know. I don't know. I didn't understand at that time why they could understand the instructions or why they can do the, the multiplications or those kind of things, because for me was very easy. And then I saw like education was, at that time, was in one way. Some of the teacher wasn't, they were not very worried about what happened with the others. He followed, you know, the, the regular.

Students.

So I tried to help a lot of them, my cousins, because they were my cousins, my neighbors, my friends. So I think it was natural in my process, this idea to help and to try to accompany, explain in my own words in Zapotec, and try to do that. It was not part like a professional thing, like I discovered that I should do. It was natural, So all the time my teachers say, can you help me with this? You know, can you help your friend? Can you include these students? So all the time I was part of the process. And then study education was my unique opportunity too, because I met teachers, and that was my world, my teachers, my, the people that I met, they have a profession, they were teachers. So all the time those were my reference, and I really liked it. In high school, my teachers were my friends, so they inspired me a lot, how they teach, the commitment that she have, how they leave their house and come close to my community and, you know, live there and be part of the community. So for me was very meaningful because I see the commitment. So I decided to study education. I come to the city, to the capital in Oaxaca, and again I move in another Place, you know, no more clothes in my house. And then studied education, discovered how amazing is this area, and learn like mean more professional and specialized my interest. So I'm so happy.

This is amazing. And what what is it the thing that really excites you about the whole space of education or being a teacher or?

So my I did a special program in We say gestión educativa, it's more like educational administration in those areas. And yeah, I like to teach, of course. I love to do that. But one thing that I really, really, really enjoy is create programs that attend special interests, special needs, special programs. And this is what I'm doing with the program at Radix, you know.

Yeah.

Each year we have a new pro— I mean, we have the same program, but we adapt different topics. And each community could have their own program in their own process, in their own organization based on their interests. So if I can say in what I would like to continue my life is in that area.

Amazing. And I'd love to ask you about that because that in one of the blog pieces I read, you were Talking about walking alongside the community in that way of like maybe part of what you're talking about there is moving with the community that you're in and trying to understand what it is they want and what it is they need and how to build a program with them that meets the needs that they have. But again, not having visited, so I can't quite picture. But what I understood was now what you're doing is working in different communities, for example, in Sierra Mije. And then with more languages, so more language diversity as well in those communities. So how does that work for you when you're kind of with Radix, when you're moving into these different communities and as you said, trying to walk alongside the community, but also maybe are you, you're learning that community as well at the same time or, and potentially working in different languages? Maybe you could talk a bit about what is that process like for you?

Yeah, well, many points of view. One of the things that I could share with you, Tim, is As a professional in education and as an Indigenous professional, I think communities, they know, you know, they have the wisdom, they know what to do, and that allows them to stay at this time alive, you know. So we as an external agent, let's say like that, we don't know the answer. We need to start since that, no judgment. We don't need to think that I have the solution. Or I know so because I now I am an expert because this is the thing that we need to do. I think to try to put in the same bowl everything, I think that is the problem of the system of education in my state, in my country, is try to put everything in the same place, which is false because each community, they have their own needs. They have expectations too. because it's part of the thing that happens. But I think in my experience and as a leader of a program, I think we have those kind of principles. So we don't have the solution. We need to listen a lot and observe and ask. Actually, it's funny because when we just, I mean, more than 6 years that we have been implementing this program at the region, We ask. So they say, why are you asking me? I say, because, you know, you need to tell me what are your interests. So it's weird for the families, for the students, even the teachers, ask them, what are your interests? You know, because most of the time programs come and train teachers and train or an official curriculum and means go and reproduce that information and do that in this way. And this is the element. We need to be open to see, to listen, to think, and to accept that we are not the solution, but we need to build it because the communities, they know how to do it, and my experience will know how to do it. And then let's try to create a new way how to do that. And if it doesn't work, so let's try another way. I think that is the idea, you know, discover what kind of things works for them and works for everybody. And it makes sense because if things doesn't make sense in our life, in their life, this is something that wouldn't work.

It's not going to happen. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And can you, I'm curious what kinds of needs So if you're going into community and working with a mix of people like community elders, young people, teachers, so I'm interested in the process, but also what kinds of practical needs do come up that they actually would like some support from you in terms of how to try some things out and respond. Is it quite different depending on the different communities in terms of what needs show up?

Yes, yes. Well, the program that we work, it works in general with schools, but in school we work with the teachers, we work with students, and we work with their families. Those actors are the 3 most important, and each, they have their own interests. Like what I could say, what happened in my region is we have great teachers, but most of them, they're really good in their area. They are, you know, like professors who teach math who are really good, or engineers. But most of the times they have this experience like in methodology, how to use, you know, the whiteboard, how to create teams, how to use game in your class, how important is to Feel your group, how they are. They are happy, they are sleepy. Understand, like, that students are human. They have many needs. They are not something that are ready to learn about the formula. So my, my job is to help the teachers recognize what is happening in their classroom, for example. So We teach new methodologies, we learn about emotion, social-emotional skills.

Yeah.

We create special materials to use in our classroom, but we see the teachers too. What I mean, like, we ask them, okay, that is what you need in, like, in a professional area, but what do you need you as a teacher? Oh, I don't know. Yeah, because I have my own problems. I can manage my emotions too. Sometimes I'm tired and they make me angry and say, okay, they don't make you angry. You got angry because you have another thing, so you don't listen. So we work, you know, in all those kinds in a complete program that they don't just see the teacher as someone who reproduces contents. You know, one of the things that I would, I really like to share is 6 years ago when we start talk about leadership, the teachers, most of them, they didn't recognize themselves as a leader because they say, no, no, I'm not a leader, I am a teacher. And then, you know, say, okay, let's talk, let's work. And then at the end of the year of 10 months working each month and giving feedback, and we observe their class and co-investigation, we say, those kind of moments when you and me, you give me feedback, I give you ask because you observe my strategy that implement. So I receive feedback and then again. So at the end of this time, the teachers say, yes, I am a leader, you know, because I design, because I decide, because I push my students to do this because I evaluate them and then I improve my practice. So at the end of this, they start to use like, oh, my vision is this, or I— the strategies, I think they work like this, you know. They assume an active role and they have a role model too. So—

No, I love that. And the other thing I read in preparing was There was a story from Carolina, a teacher that you'd worked with, who talked about seeing her role as shaping human beings rather than just delivering content. And again, that's just that, you know, that kind of shift that I just heard you talking about, I think is so powerful that when teachers feel their role to be like, as you say, they're a leader, they're designing, they're creating spaces where these things can happen, but not just so they can deliver content. But so they can actually shape the human beings themselves and other people being shaped in that process of being together, which I think is a really powerful example of the fact that it's shifting in positive directions.

Yeah, and those happen because the system pushed them to do that. You know, most of the time you have a very short time to do, you know, to reflect, to analyze your process, or your— because you are running, you're running one and then another content, and then the information for the, the And then everything is going very fast. And most of the time you don't have that chance to take a breath and review, you know, your practice.

Right, exactly. And, but can I ask you also, what are the things, what are the things that you see in the system that work against teachers feeling like they're really able to do some of those things you're talking about? Like, where are the challenge points or the things you'd like to change in the system?

Well, Tim, it's a complex question because, I mean, thinking of the adaptability and thinking of personalized education, and it's hard. What I think that we need is we need time. We need commitment from the institutions, from the government that would say we need to put a lot of money in some institutions that could follow this process. One thing that I could recognize from the teachers and in my experience in the Sierra Mije is the teachers, they are open to learn. They want to learn. They have the commitment for change. So I think those kinds are helping a lot any public program or any public politics that could— if we go back and see our teachers, wherever level they are, and give them this kind of resources, give them time to, you know, to improve, to learn, to explore, like create a kind of laboratory. Sometimes we try to attend things and we don't see if it makes sense in our lives, you know. If we're thinking like education is for the people to develop their capacity and create abilities, for their life, we need to stop and see if that is happening. So we need the willingness, the institution from the government, we need the willingness from everybody. I mean, we work with teachers, we work with students, and sometimes students, they are not easy too, you know? We need to say that as a human being.

Yeah, right.

You know, they have their own process too, and parents too, you know? It's not just be a parent. It means I need to work and tend other priorities too. I try to send my kid to the school and hope the teacher could resolve everything what he needs. And so I think we need to stop and try to reflect what we are doing, you know, if we are in the correct way, great. But if not, try in another way.

I agree. I so agree because I often feel like We say we are excited or passionate and committed to learning, right? We're all about learning, except the system doesn't want to learn, right? The system and the teachers are not encouraged to try different things, to see if it works and reflect and be in a spirit of learning because it's like, well, we know how to teach. You just do this. You do these things and you do the curriculum correctly, your learning outcomes, you do these things and then everything is right. And it's going to be like this in the same place, same way for all time, as you said, like the same for everyone. And it's this strange unwillingness to learn somehow, which I find in the system itself, which is always challenging.

Yeah. And what means learning too, you know, all the time I ask myself that question, you know, like, it means learning that 2+ 2= 4 or? Or means like I could be more aware who I am, you know, with my values, my thoughts, my, if I care of the planet, if I care of the family, if, you know, it's, we could find many definitions of what means learning. And in my team, I have a, a Mije professional. I have 2 on the team, but one of them all the time, she, she pushing me to think more than than what's in my box. And we have a really nice dialogue about who said that we need to learn those things, you know? Because we could see in our countries farmers like my father. He was working in the land, he worked hard, and he was happy, you know? So, but he never went to school, but he learned in his experience because he saw The sun he saw, the moon he saw. He knows about the period of the stations, when comes the rain and when comes the dry time and what time to seed, you know, the planting corn. And so those are knowledge too. So it depends. At the end of the day, Tim, if you are happy, that's the way. And sometimes we pushing you know, students. And like a mom, of course I want my kid have this experience in school. But if one day he said that that doesn't make me happy, I think I could be ready to say, okay, you know, so do something else. Because you learn in everything. My CEO, Eric, one day he said, everybody is a student, you know, you and me, the families and the kids, you know, so we are learning all the time. So I think I lost the question, but—

No, no, no, this is perfect. Because the thing that was coming up for me when you were talking about your father was like, there are some things that we are told are more valuable than others in terms of what you know and what you should learn, right? And so it's like, to your point, we don't necessarily always value the things that make us happy or the things that make people happy differently. We often will be quick to say, oh no, these are the things that have value and you should learn these things because we've decided what we being maybe the government or the church or who knows has decided these are the things that you should learn because those are the things that we think are the recipe for your happy future or something like that. I always find that an interesting the dynamics around who gets to decide. You know, what's valuable learning? What's meaningful learning? It's a tricky question in education, right?

But while we discover that, we are still following this structure that we have, you know, that we— I'm trying to have fun.

Exactly. I mean, this, it's why I do the podcast, right? It's why I do the work I do. And it's probably why you do the work you do to like, there is another way to do this, right? Which is... Much more alive with the humanity of different people and all their differences and all their interests and, and like shaping and being shaped together in that process. Like, that's a really exciting, alive thing, but that's not always how schools feel, right? To the teachers or to the students or—

And, you know, other thing too, Tim, is we need those people too. We need happy people, like doing like what my dad's— I mean, my mom, she grows and harvests coffee and is what I'm taking, you know. So I'm so happy having my mom doing that kind of work. So she loves harvest coffee and working on the field and keep, you know, green spaces. And we need to think of that because if everybody thinks that we need to study science, or I'm thinking like as a Zapotec, you know, if I leave from a community, it's not that good to leave, you know?

Right.

Because we need to keep this balance. So some of them, they migrate and then go back because, you know, Tim, one of the hardest things that happens for many people who are not from city is live this transition, you know? have a community life and suddenly live in the city. I remember, you know, when I arrived to the city, for me was too hard having a key, use money all the time, and buy water. Because in my town, I never buy water. And my door, I just pull it and then that's it. I don't need to lock it and close the windows. And you know what happens here, because when you came back, your house will be empty in the city. But in my town, everybody knows that that's your house, those are your things, and nothing happens. So this kind of the transition and the empathy too, you know, in, in small communities, life is different. And in, in the big city, everybody runs, everybody goes to their own way, and they are not care of you. And in my town, no, because we are a big family. So.

It's so interesting to me because part of becoming educated is entangled with that idea of somehow bettering yourself, gaining a qualification, probably moving to a city as you described, like to a university or to find jobs in a city. So often the process of becoming educated is entangled with the process of like urbanization or delocalization, or maybe the community itself is being left because that's not where the educational opportunities are or the, where the economic opportunities are.

Yes.

I think that's a super interesting part of this whole thing that we're dealing with now of how hopefully more people are recognizing how valuable that local community relationality is. But how do you do that and also maintain kind of ambition and aspiration for education and social mobility and all of those things that you kind of, you have been talking about?

Yeah. And the other thing, what It's an interesting phenomenon. If you are ready and you have all these qualifications and you are ready to go and be a success in the world, sometimes we don't go back, you know, like to our roots.

Right.

How all those things that I know now could help my community, or how my community could approach, or I don't know if benefit is the word, but how we could use this to make better to the roots, you know? And systems are not ready for that too. What I want to say is like, it's too hard, really find a way to go back to that place, you know? And in my case, I'm lucky because now I am not in my town, but I am in another, in a similar region, and pushing things that now I know, I learned, and to try to create more conscious look in the wellness, be more critical, and do questions, you know, make questions.

Right, right.

So yeah, I think we still need to work a lot. And again, you know, all the actors or all these elements that are getting involved in education, we need to— I think we need to stop and And be open to give a re-signification in what we are doing.

Yeah. What is the purpose for what we're doing this if it's like taking people away from their local community and they're not giving back, not coming back? Yeah. No, it's super interesting. Just to kind of finish up the conversation, just if there's anything else you would like to say about the Radix education programs that you're involved in, or just anything more that you'd like to highlight about the work that you're doing. I know as I was reading about different kind of sexuality education, addiction, emotional wellbeing, these different programs that also come up in your work, just if you had any other things you wanted to say about some of that work that you're doing.

I think Radix Education, we find each other in a really good time. First, because my vision and then the way that I understand education is super, super similar in how Radix as an organization understands education, you know? So that makes me so happy.

Amazing.

And the team, which we are 3 from Oaxaca, 2 with roots in Oaxaca. What I mean, they have families in Oaxaca, but they were born and grew up in another city, but now they are working here. But they have this experience, you know, they have this experience working with Indigenous communities, Or communities who have diverse, adverse contexts, like they have been working with people in migration situations and other Indigenous communities. So we are a mixed and multidisciplinary team. We have lawyers, we have intercultural education, it's a special area, we have psychologists, and me as in administration. So So we have different profiles and of course the big team, sometimes we go and touch doors and say, okay, what do you think? Or do you have this kind of resource? So because everybody are connected and my team too, you know, have this commitment, this empathy, this respect of the diversity plus commitment, you know, because it's not easy to start in this kind of projects. because, you know, the communities, the schools accept us because we never impose things. I think the key is we ask, you know, I think that's the key. We ask, we verify if they want to say, and be on this side, like, we don't have the solution. We need to create the solution. And maybe we wouldn't be Right? And it's okay, you know, but we will learn and we are not going to repeat. So, but we create another way how to do the things and try to discover, you know, having better results. Actually, in our model, how we could try in a new community, we have a step that we call community exploration, you know.

Mm-hmm.

That means, okay, let's Go see, explore, ask, and like focus groups, we do meetings, we do interviews, you know, to understand what is the thing that we need to do.

Yeah, true.

And as I told you before, you know, I am a professional in education, but first I am a Zapotec. So one thing that I really like to keep and say is we don't want to go in another place or another community with this flag saying that we know, you know, it's much better if we never having that, you know.

No flags.

No flags. Just white flags. Just white flags for shallow. I mean, that's the thing, because I think nobody likes to recognize that sometimes we don't know, you know, sometimes. All the time I use this idea. We arrive in a new house. We couldn't go and reorganize that house the way how we want. We need to share first. We need to have conversation and to ask why are organized those things like in that way. You know, it's the same thing. You couldn't do that never in anywhere, you know? So that is what happened, you know, in schools. You couldn't go and tell the director, you know, director, now we need to do this. No, because that wouldn't work. So, yeah, so that's the way how we, we work, you know.

Yeah, beautiful. Except that is the way that many societies have done so, you know, in a colonial way, going in and saying, oh, we know how you should live, right? So just to kind of acknowledge that has been a way that humans have done that. Yeah, in a very destructive way. And so I don't think it's a small thing. How much you're emphasising that point because it feels really important. And it's so easy to forget when some people who, you know, maybe think they're clever and they figured some things out, like, I'm going to come to your house and I'll tell you how you should live because that's how, because I like, I know where the coffee should go and where you should eat and how you should sit and how you should, you know, sleep. It's like, no, this is my house. Exactly.

It's easy too, but it's hard at the same time, you know?

Of course, yeah. Fantastic. Oh, amazing. Thank you, Sonia. Muchas gracias. How do I say? How do I say thank you in Zapotec?

Okay, shleno.

I will round it to shleno.

Shleno.

Shleno.

Such a pleasure to be able to have a conversation. Such lovely work that you're doing, and yeah, thank you very much.

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