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Semillas del Pueblo - Tu Escuela
When the news broke of the negative publicity directed towards the Academia Semillas de Pueblo by mainstream media sources, the neighborhood was in an uproar. Especially, since the school is considered an elite house of learning to the residents of this community. We are even honored that it is located in this part of town. The same way academia respects Ivy-league universities like Harvard, Yale and Princeton, that's the way we see the academia, even more so, because these seeds of the city are freshly planted on this Earth. The school cultivates important skill in the children from a young age to be leaders of the future, and very importantly, it equips them with knowledge of self. Indeed, parents drive from all parts of the area to enlist their children as prospective students. In fact, so much is the demand of the curriculum; hopeful parents are often put on a long waiting list until a space becomes available. Once notified when there is space, loving mothers and fathers pack the hall of the academia and listen for the names of the new children picked to attend the school through a lottery-type selection process. Everything is fair and impartial.
What, you may ask, is the reason for the school's popularity? For one, it is a multilingual elementary school, which is rare in California. Everyday the children are taught lessons in Spanish, English, Chinese, and Nahuatl. Anyone who lives in this region of Southern California knows the value of being able to communicate with these language groups. The "English-only" rhetoric that Sacramento imposes upon the L.A. Unified School District just doesn't make sense for this melting pot of a city. If you took a student from the academia and one from the public school system, which do you think would be more capable of interacting with someone from another culture? The academia enables their students to use languages like bridges to reach different peoples who live here, where the school district builds barriers when it excludes non-English speakers.
Another reason the education is superior at the academia is that it based on a traditional Indigenous calendar, where holidays and festivals are synchronized with the stars and planets. Earth's relation to the Sun balances the seasons with climatic cycles that repeat themselves in the rhythm of the universe. In contrast, the state-sponsored school program seems to be focused on creating more corporate consumers. For example, there isn't a month that goes by that doesn't give the public "reason to buy". Whether it's St.Valentine's Day, St. Patrick’s Day, or Easter, the government grooms its next generation of impulse shoppers.
The situation of miseducation is in such a dilemma, that the mayor of Los Angeles has actually taken control of a portion of the schools. We shall wait and see what his solutions are and how he plans to implement them. Hopefully, his methods are beneficial to the residents of the city and his effects are positive. In light of the fact that he has never attended a L.A. Unified school; or his own children presently, we agree fully with his right to select a better education for his seeds; and even applaud his decision to do so.
With full regard for certain unalienable rights guaranteed to us by the forefathers (especially in the right to select an appropriate education based in truth for our children) people stand in solidarity, coast to coast. Artists from different cities united to support this ideology and volunteered their time and efforts in a fundraiser to benefit this progressive school. And just to be clear, they performed for their beliefs and not because an ABC news camera was in their face.
Official Academia Semillas del Pueblo Website
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