The Gustavo L. Talamantes High School, an educational project in Ranchería Juárez (1971-1984)

Abstract

The history of education in Chihuahua is affluent but little studied. There are indefinite chapters that have not yet been written, in part becaus of to the remissness culture and the destruction of school files destinated to make an easy development research in the area. In this work, the peculiarity of an educational project that emerged in the 1970s, within a rural community known as Ejido Ranchería Juarez, that actually is the Villa Juarez colony, Chihuahua. The results are derived from the Memory and identity project, the recovery of the educational history of Ranchería Juárez through its main characte, whose purpose is to rescue the historical-educational processes of this population to make them known to the students of basic education through a printed book, which will be incorporated into school activities in the history subject. In the field work it was found that the communal lands holder had a special concern to the education of young people and therefore carried out their own activities and initiatives that led them to establish a Cooperation Secundary School, in a period when the official efforts were just beginning to take this service to rural and urban-marginalized areas. The methodological strategy consisted in working with personal files and semi-structured interviews which it was possible to realize how this educational project was conceived, the actors involved and the meaning that it had for a rural population characterized by the low schooling rate of its habitants. Finally, it is concluded that this type of research is important to promote the origin and identity of the new generations.