Considering that the learning and teaching process of transferring history plays a crucial role in building truth and tradition in a society, our Big Idea is to provide in-service history teachers who teach the wealthiest 5% of the country in its capital Santiago, with experiential knowledge of the Mapuche people and region, by shadowing teachers at a school in the Araucania. A Mapuche historian will accompany the experience. 

 

We want to focus in this particular percentage of the society for several reasons.  First, this 5% of the elite population does not use resources from the state for education, but rather, only private funds, provided mainly by parents. Only rich people can do this in Chile. The cost of educating students in these schools exceeds by three to seven times those in public schools.   Second, these private schools are concentrated in four out of thirty-two comunas—administrative division of the city’s territory—in Santiago, creating pockets of exclusion and privilege. Third, many owners of companies in the Araucania belong to this 5%.  The owners of mass media and public opinion igniters also comprise this privileged group as well. Youth studying and raised in this context are destined to know only one side of the history. We believe that teachers exposed to the other side of the conflict through a deep immersion in the Araucania and the Mapuche people, could be real bridges of peace between two different worlds.