Yo Hablo Espanol

When we begin to interview students I am interested in seeing how they see themselves. While looking for things to research I realized that through this process we would not hear the opinion of people who are not elite. In class it was mentioned that some useful publications about the Chilean School would be in Spanish. With this in mind I decided to look at different opinion pieces about the school to further understand how outsiders viewed the immense amount of privilege present.

Of course finding these pieces was easier said than done.
I was able to find articles that focused on what it takes to get in to the Chilean School. As stated in the articles and on the website during the application process you have to have a letter of recommendation from someone who is a part of or was a part of the Chilean school community, a description of ones family, an interview and a test. To me the most annoying part of these prerequisites is the letter of recommendation. This stipulation is a blatant way to keep the exclusivity of this institution. This coupled with the fact that 1200% more money is invested in a student from the Chilean School than for a student who is receiving a public education in Chile is crazy. With such a difference in funding it seems unrealistic to expect people of other social statuses to compete. Most people cannot pay this price and that further reinforces the exclusivity of the school.

That last point got me thinking, how do parents rationalize spending this much on the Chilean School? A mother named Marcela, who can no longer afford paying her two children’s monthly fee for the Chilean School, states that having your children at The Chilean School allows you create relationships that are immensely valuable for students, as well as parents. She continues to say that having your kids at the Chilean School, te da otro estatus, elevates you into a different status.

At this point in my research I was glad to find proof of things I assumed. But I REALLY wanted to find out some new information.

And then it hit me …..

Why not check the #ChileanSchool on different social media platforms? Some of the things I found where expected such as this instagram post.

Then, I found something that certainly would not have come up during my other searches.

One of the directors of the Chilean School stole 11 million pesos that he claimed were used to finance a study on water rights in 2014. What confuses me is that before this he was convicted of stealing 320 million pesos after selling two of the Chilean Schools plots of land and was not fired. Although this is not directly related to our research topic, finding this gives me hope that I will be able to find a lot of information about the school throughout this semester. This research also gave me some context that I don’t think I could have found out about otherwise.