Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
When we made the visits, we found that the body was something missing everywhere. What happened with the body when we learned? What happened with the body when we feel? What happened when the body when we share with each others?
(music)

Alec Patton:
This is High Tech High Unboxed. I’m Alec Patton, and you just heard the voice of Stefanía Rodriguez Campo. Stefanía is Director of Learning at Cosmo Schools, a group of schools run by Comfama, a nonprofit based in Medellín, Columbia. I interviewed Stefanía and her colleague, Juliana Kairuz Correa, who is the Operational Officer at Cosmo Schools. And the reason I was so excited to talk to them was that my colleague, Nuvia Ruland, was so excited about what they were doing. Nuvia is Director of Professional Learning at the High Tech High Graduate School of Education. Before that, she was a biology teacher at High Tech High Chula Vista, where I also used to work. We actually got our teaching credentials at the same time. Here’s what grabbed Nuvia’s attention about these schools.

Nuvia Ruland:
I think what I’m really excited about Cosmo Schools and the program that they’re building, the network of schools that they’re building, is that it is based off of these social needs and also basic needs that all humans should have access to. And so when they looked at education even closer, they really looked at the neuroscience of what is needed in the classrooms, what is needed in nutrition, what is needed outside of the classroom, what kind of landscape do young people need to have in order to have their brain primed for learning? And also, what kind of relationships with adults? And so, this has been the first time that I’ve seen a school that has such a strong neuroscience background in their foundation in their starting of a school.

Alec Patton:
And before we get in to this interview, is there anything else that you want listeners to know about Comfama and Cosmo Schools?

Nuvia Ruland:
Yeah. I think that when we are looking for new models of what is happening in the world in education, in other social programs, I think that we often forget to think about Latin America and what is happening in Latin America. And so when I went to Columbia, I learned so much about just how this group of unions really wanted to serve the people, not only in the workplace but outside of the workplace. And I had never heard that perspective of how do you take care of the worker beyond the work site? And so that really peaks my interest. And then to see and be around Medellín and see all these buildings of Comfama and all the schools, theaters, art spaces.
They had billboards about being able to get access to feminine products. It just felt very different than anything I’ve seen in Mexico or in Chile or in Peru. That really struck me. And so, to think that there is an organization like Comfama backing and supporting the foundation of these schools that are going to be K through 11, excites me about the future of their education landscape.

Alec Patton:
With that, here’s the interview. After my first question, you’ll hear Juliana’s voice first and then Stefanía’s. The story of Cosmo School, where does that story start?

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
It’s a long story I would say, because the school started before they started. They started seven years ago when a group of intellectuals and entrepreneurs from the educational sector in Medellín, Columbia started to see these huge gaps between public and private education and how it reproduces social inequality. Like how the socioeconomic factors determines your future. And they say, “Okay, we need to do something about this and give all people regardless of their opportunities, high quality education.” So they started to visit countries, studied pedagogical models, and then they construct our model.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
Yeah. We visit around 50 pedagogical models. We visit 10 countries and we also had some talks with our around 200 experts. This was like a benchmarking to see other references and how these models can work in another countries with another kind of people. Also, we have focus groups with students, teachers, families, kids, to understand what they really need and what they aim to be. What was the purpose of being together and understand how we can close these gaps, but with what they need not just what we want to do. And the third point that was very important for us, what science has to say about how brain learns. Nerve science is one of our pillars at this school, how we can understand emotions, body. How we can understand the food, the sleep, and how this mix change the way we learn. So this mixture make us create Cosmo Schools.

Alec Patton:
All right, so I want to go back slightly. First, Medellín. Where is it in Columbia? The town.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
It’s up, I would say up in the center of Columbia. I actually brought you a little map. This is Columbia, right?

Alec Patton:
Yeah.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
And then this blue sign, that’s what you will call Antioquia. That’s a department. We are a centralized country organizing department, which will be kind of states. And then Columbia as a whole, we have a population around 50 million. And in Antioquia we have about one million students up in to high school. And of those, 86% are in public enrollment. And as I was telling you, the gap between private and public education is huge. Not only in the educational outcomes, but also in infrastructure, in teacher qualification, and it all produces in opportunities, how that affect the future of our kids.

Alec Patton:
Okay, so you’re saying 86% of people are in public school, that’s an automatically bad thing is the way I’m hearing it from you.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
No, no, no. Absolutely not. I want to zoom in, in the problem is the issues that public system has today in terms of infrastructure, in terms of quality of teachers, in terms of the outcomes those students are having. Because of course, and I would never never ever say that the problem per se, it’s the public system. It’s how the public system is working today and how those gaps are affecting our kids.

Alec Patton:
Got it.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
And instead of thinking that this is a bad thing like Julie says, we want to encourage our teachers, public teachers too, to train themselves to be the managers of the classroom. How they can understand the gaps in their classrooms and start to make achieved. How we can use another way to teach and another way to learn. And also we have a teachers train and we not only use it for our school, we also use it with other schools and other public systems.

Alec Patton:
Were you both part of Cosmo from the beginning?

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
I was at the same social enterprise that start Cosmo a few years ago, and I could advise or help or try to give some ideas. And a few months later I fell in love, so I’m now here one year ago.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Yeah, I told you Cosmo Schools started before they started because they started with this huge investigation six years ago, and all these, “How we are going to do it.” And I think Stef and I came in to the implementation process. When I came, they were developing the pilot project, like a pilot school. We just had 19 students on 2020, that was the first school. Like the pilot, I would say. Next year, that was last year, 2021, I came and we shifted from 19 to 345. And this year we shifted from 345 to almost 1,400.

Alec Patton:
Wow.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
And 10 schools we have right now.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
And we are growing in that way because we have a big dream, which is we want that kids find their own purpose in life and we want to accompany them to find this purpose, and we need to change the educational system to make this possible. But more than this, we want to change education. Public and private education. We want to be a movement that change the way we understand how we can learn together and change society.

Alec Patton:
What’s the age range of these kids?

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
We have six months to 12 years old, and also this year we have 14, 15, 16. We have a mix. We have preschool, elementary, and the high school we have two years.

Alec Patton:
Wow.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
The goal is to have, by 2024 until, like from K to 12 as you have it here, but it will be from K to 11.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
But we are going to have 23 schools.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Oh, yeah. We are Cosmo Schools, we’re building a network of schools. The big goal is by 2030 to have 23 schools with more than 20,000 students.

Alec Patton:
And all in Medellín?

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
All in Antioquia.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
Antioquia.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Which will be the huge department. But yeah, we are starting to think about a national school as well. But right now we’re focusing on this project, yes.

Alec Patton:
Seven years ago people started doing the research that would become Cosmo School, 2020 it opened. Meanwhile, while all this is happening, what are you two doing?

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
In my case, you’re going to probably laugh about this. I’m a lawyer.

Alec Patton:
Okay.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
And then I worked at Congress, the Columbian Congress. Senate, all that, in public policy. And then I went to London to study my master in education and international development. So it’s mostly all the strategic part of budget, how we do it, how we implement. And then I came as the operational manager of the school. And then Stef, she’s the academic leader of the school. The logical.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
Yeah, I was working in Casa Des Parties, which is an contemporary art center. And I was the pedagogical and general coordinator there. We had a beautiful project, one of my favorites. And we had the art network in all Medellín, so we had to go to every single neighborhood and work with kids, marginal kids, and trying to use art to solve their difficulties. But their way to relationship, I love when I was doing that, I just remember with you. And also, I was a teacher at the university. I studied math, so I was a statistical teacher for political science students because I wanted to try to understand how we can use data for social change. I did with art, so I was a teacher that used math to teach statistic for political science and at the same time I was walking Medellín. All the commons, all the neighborhoods, trying to use art with kids. So it was a mixture.

Alec Patton:
When did you become aware that this big experiment in Medellín was happening?

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
I was working in the contemporary art center and we were a fundación, how do you, a nonprofit. And in this nonprofit we had resources from Comfama, because Comfama is also a bridge and is also a platform for social and art and nonprofits in Medellín. So we had this relationship with the fundraising and we could see the impact of the work in social and art more than health and employees, we can see in this nonprofit how that was working. And a few months after that I get in to Comfama and later to Cosmo Schools.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
I have to say, it was a very famous project. And it’s important to zoom this in, it’s that social enterprise we’ve been talking about, is Comfama. Which is a social enterprise, a non-profit organization that was founded in 1954 by the unions. So it’s always been about social equity and how, through public policy, we improve people’s lives. And it have more than 12 services, this social enterprise. In healthcare, in housing, and education was this such big project. And they had preschools for more than 24 years. And then after those 24 years, they started to say, “Okay, we need to do this project with schools and transit education.” And it started to sound, and sound Stefanía, I was already working at Comfama two years and I just arrived from my master program. And I came to Medellín and I heard about the project and I just fall in love as well.

Alec Patton:
So they’re going out and seeing all these models of education. If you were to summarize, what is at the core, what are the core design principles of, is it Cosmo Schools? Is that the right way to put it?

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Yes.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
Yeah.

Alec Patton:
What is at the core of what makes Cosmo Schools, Cosmo Schools?

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
We love this question, because when we made the visits, we found that the body was something missing everywhere. What happened with the body when we learned? What happened with the body when we feel? What happened when the body when we share with each others? So the body was a missing point in all of these trips, and this was the main point to start thinking about creativity and how art, science, movement can improve creativity. And creativity as a way to solve problems, as a way to reimagine ways to think. And mainly, we want to change our story to be Colombianos, how we can transform this story, transform this relato. I’m not sure relato it’s the word that I want to use, but yeah, the way the-

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
The storytelling.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
The storytelling about what make us Colombians. So this thing, the body, the creativity, the art of movement, the science, are one of our main purposes, values. But Julie can tell another one.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Yeah, I think we can summarize what Cosmo is in six points. And what Stef said will be one the first one. But the second one I think, most important, it’s we are not a personalized school. We are not aiming to be. But we want, through project based learning and inspirational experiences, to potentialize our students potentials and opportunities. It sounds weird, but that’s the second one. I think a third one and a very, very important one, it’s learning English but not as a way just to learn English. For instance, the class where we learn English is called worldview, but as a way to connect with the world. So that’s one of our huge proposals and values. It’s that our students, we’re not a bilingual school, but they will graduate with a very, like a B2 level English. Which is very, very good. And they learn English knowing different cultures and students. First graders learn the 26 initial sounds of English watching videos and cultural experiences. So I think that will be the third one.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
And this third one has also the digital thinking, that I think that now is a good point to understand how to relate with machines, with technology, and how to create algorithms. And also, the fourth we could say, that is autonomous learning supporting by a digital platform that we are creating. It’s a video game called Célico. So our kids use a little, I don’t know, two, three, four hours among they are growing to play and trying to train themselves in math, in science, in religions. And this learning with digital thinking and a platform also make them view bigger. Also, they expand school or expanded classrooms. We think that city is a classroom, an expanded classroom, so we want to go out. We want to know the city, the museums, the botanical garden, and use them in the perineal design projects that we have and relate the city, the context, with the projects that we start.
Also with this, I want to come back some to something. These visits, we visit High Tech High. And this why we are so happy to be here, because High Tech High was a reference in our way to structure the school. And PBL was a main point, and the expanded school, it’s a way to relate it. The last one is school for mentors. Our teachers names is mentors, so we have a school of mentors. Our mentors are very junior, they are just finished. They graduate school, so that’s why we want to train them in a way they can learn growth and also grow with the kids. And the school of mentors is something that we also do for another schools or for another areas in Comfama.

Alec Patton:
So you have what we would call a teacher credentialing program?

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
Yeah.

Alec Patton:
Awesome. What led you to PBL?

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
The need to start critical, the forces of the 21st century and, that I think are pretty accurate in PBL. Like critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication. I think while you are doing this in an era where you are totally interconnected, when you have all the information just one click, then repeating today, it’s not enough. And one of the ways they found and we believe absolutely, is that through PBL you developed all those abilities and competencies you need to be a citizen of the 21st century.

Alec Patton:
Let’s say I’m a parent living in this city, how do I find out that the school exists?

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Two ways. As we said, we were part of this Comfama, very important huge social enterprise that’s been for more than 50 years in Antioquia and Medellín. And we have more than three million people subscribed to Comfama, so they all know about schools and they get the deals. We give scholarships, so they end up paying a little bit in comparison to what they paid in a full price. So, that’s a way they get to know. And then, I think now we are a reference of innovation and education in Columbia. The Ministry of Education was there two weeks ago learning how we are implementing this model.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
Yeah, and I just wanted to add that the most powerful thing is the voice to voice. Our families are telling other families that this is happening, so I think that this is a pretty way-

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Oh, yeah.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
A pretty nice way to know that we are around.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Yeah. It’s worth mentioning that 68%, that’s my department, of families that came this year came as a reference of a family that was currently enrolled. So I think that’s the most powerful message, it’s that our ambassadors are people from our community.

Alec Patton:
I’m always curious about this when you’re figuring out what kind of school is it. So it’s a private school, is that correct, but with a lot of scholarships?

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Yes. It’s a very, very interesting model, but quite hard to explain because I don’t think in international law there is an equivalent. In Columbia, every worker, everyone, Stefanía, me, everyone who works in Colombia will have to give 4% of their salary to a fund. And that fund is administrated by different social enterprises. Comfama is one of them. So with these sources, we give scholarships and different services to other people.

Alec Patton:
So it’s basically an income tax that goes to social enterprise?

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Yes.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
Yeah.

Alec Patton:
How long has that existed? That 4% of workers payment to Comfama?

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
It started around ’54, in 1954.

Alec Patton:
Yeah.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
But it was not the 4%. It came increasing through the years. I believe it started with 1%.

Alec Patton:
Okay. So if something like Comfama is being funded by, effectively, an income tax, why aren’t they government if you see what I mean?

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
But we are a private organization that has, I wouldn’t; it’s technically not public funds, but it’s administrated by social enterprises to be like, I would say, more effective. Yeah.

Alec Patton:
Right. Okay. But it’s still like, if you’re-

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
Yeah.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
As I told you, it’s a really weird legal figure.

Alec Patton:
That’s so interesting.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
When you try to explain, even to people in Latin America, there is no equivalent figure. It’s-

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
It’s weird.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Yeah.

Alec Patton:
Yeah.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
We know.

Alec Patton:
So you have this kind of social equity goal, how’s that going as far as your enrollment? Are you getting kids from every social strata?

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Yeah, about 78% of our enrollment are people that most need the help to be in these schools. And that they know and they value a lot having the opportunity to have this education right now. And I want to go back to what Stef said, that we more than a school and just a place that you go and you send your kids. We are a movement trying to change and transform education in Columbia. And so, kids will come and they will transform with this PBL all this that we are doing, but also we have a school for families when we’re speaking about the importance of neuroscience and sleeping and eating consciously. So all this mixture and having this conversations we’re doing, also with universities and experts about education and why do we need to change? We want to transform not just a school, if you know what I mean. Not just this and you send your kids, but all what’s going around this movement.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. What’s something that’s different that I might be surprised by going to this school that was informed by neuroscience?

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
We made many decisions based on neuroscience. One of these ones was the infrastructure. The way how you going to find the places. We don’t have a saturation of colors or anything designed by us because we think, maybe like you, that each place has to have the spirit of the groups. So they can change the walls. But we have everything very simple, with natural wood, with simple colors, to trying to make the brain open to learn with less stimulus. The other thing that we change or we decide based on neuro science, was the food that we eat and that we provide to kids. The rhythm of this food and the structure of the food, since they are babies, because we have babies six months.

Alec Patton:
Wow.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
Since six months. So we help families to understand the power of food while they’re growing in their lives, but also in the family lives and how to change habits or this thing about the wellness. Other thing, very important for us, was we had a 10% of neuro diversity at school. So our kids with neuro diversity can be together with our other kids and we change our way to evaluate them in a diseño universal de aprendizaje. Universal learning design.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Designed learning.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
We start to change and to organize this. And I think that more than surprising is that we don’t find this in other schools, and we put it in our schools and trying to understand this in this way. And another thing that I want to highlight is the use of the emotions and the mindfulness connections to start the day. We want to have like an energy rhythm. Start with very deep breathe, understand that we arrive, try to connect with each others. We start in every single school, in every single classroom, with a connection moment to feel the moment, feel the other ones. After that we have a moment of high emotion, like a peak of wonder. We are very excited about what are going to happen in science, math, in whatever. Language. And we come back. So we try to have these rhythms to handle, manage the energy. And I think that this helps us to learn better.

Alec Patton:
How do teachers plan for that?

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
Yeah, we have a huge structure in planning. And because we are very new, we allow us to experiment in the way we can plan. We have some very organized and we believe in some things very clear, but we want to try, like a lab, what happen if we change this or this? So we use habilidades de pensamiento, how can I say this in English?

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Thinking abilities.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
So we plan to achieve this more than to say that, “This is circle and this is a triangle.” More than this, how can we promote these thinking abilities? So when we planned, we know where we going and we have three methodological steps. Cultivate, activate, and we close with-

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Reflect and share.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
Reflect and share. The other way to plan is, because we want to accompany our kids to find and go through their own paths, we need to listen to them. What they need and how they are learning, so we can change. So we have plan, but we also change the plan while we are with the kids. But mainly we experiment and we leave the structure.

Alec Patton:
I have one final question for you. I would love you to tell me about what I describe as a golden moment. A moment that you go, “Oh, that was really special.” When I think about what is really important to me about this work and this school, that moment comes to mind.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Oh my god, I have it. Last year we were doing this, like the equivalent of an open day when you have families coming here. And I was giving this speech like, “If I have to summarize all what we’ve learned and I will give these six premises of what we are doing with your kids,” and all that stuff. And then I’m done, families are gone. And then comes to me, a mom who’s crying and she tells me, “Thank you and your boss and your organization, because my kid is neuro diverse and you accept him here. And I’ve been asking all around the city about special education for him and I can’t pay it and I want him to have opportunities. And thank you, because this is the place for him.” And she was crying, I was crying, and that week was just crazy. Lots of work. And I said, “This is why we do what we do.” So that moment, that was my tipping point.

Alec Patton:
Has that kid started yet?

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw him. He is at Purpose de Socorro, one of our school. Yeah.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. How’s he doing?

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Good.

Alec Patton:
Yeah. That’s awesome.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
A golden moment, as I said before, I think I was born to be in education or to be a teacher, so I love to be teacher of teachers. This is what I most enjoy and it’s where I most dedicate my time. My golden moment was when, this January, we had one month of training. Deep month, because we were going to open 10 schools. So we had 30 teachers last year and this year is 150 teachers, so I had to reorganize all the teachers school and trying to do it at the same time. One group with art, one group with PBL, one group with our neuro science at the same time and make them be excited about it. So when I listened to colleagues talking, one was the last year and a new one. And the old one, I don’t know if I can say the old one.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
The older one.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
No, but no wasn’t the older one. The teacher that was with us last year were explained to them, to the other ones how they can do it better or how to organize the group or how to cultivate the attention of the kids. And he gave them hints, ideas that we were working with them last year like every single month. I was super happy. I was incredible like thankful.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
I did my job.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
I did my job. They are cheering each other and we want to have a teacher’s network. Not only the community of families are so important and the community of teachers are really, really important to be able to exchange projects, ideas, metaphors. So for me, this was a huge moment this January.

Alec Patton:
Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you so much both of you.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
Thank you.

Juliana Kairuz Correa:
Thank you for having us. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Stefanía Rodriguez Campo:
We are super happy to be here.

Alec Patton:
Yeah, well we’re thrilled to have you.
(music)
High Tech High Unboxed is hosted and edited by me, Alec Patton. Our theme music is by Brother Hershel. Thanks for listening.