Abel McClennen on Place-Based Community Schools

You are listening to the Getting Smart podcast. I’m Nate MacLennan and today I am so excited to be joined by my brother Abel MacLennan, who’s the director and one of the founders of La Paz Community School in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. It’s a pre-K through 12 school, now on two campuses with a mission to cultivate informed, mindful citizens of the world. Boy, I am so excited for this conversation, so excited to talk about the school. Welcome

Abel to the Getting Smart podcast. Thanks, Nate. Good to be here. Abel, most of our listeners typically are from the United States, North America. We have some international folks as well, but tell us a little bit about Guanacaste. What’s it like in that area of the world? So, yes, I am communicating with you from Guanacaste, Costa Rica, which is on the Pacific Coast on the northern side of this country.

We are in a tropical dry forest, which is one of a very rare ecosystem here in the world. And we are very well known for our beaches. We have some of the most beautiful beaches in the Americas, if not the world here, and our schools are both located only a few. One is less than a kilometer from the beach, and the other is about five kilometers from the beach. And half the season, it rains, and the other half of the season, it is dry without a drop of water.

And how long have you been down there? So, I have been down here now for 16 years, so included in that, we have been 20 total years in Latin America, my wife and I. She is also an educator and who co-founded the school as well. So, 20 years in Latin America, 16 years in Costa Rica. Awesome. Well, today we are going to talk through a bunch of different interesting topics,

really focused on La Paz Community School and founding a really interesting school, the really interesting mission. And one of the things I was talking about, as you and I both know well, we are raised in Massachusetts and a small farm outside of Boston. I think a lot about how we are similar and where we ended up. We both ended up founding schools. We both ended up with leadership positions in those schools. They are innovative models.

What do you think about how you are raised either via teachers you are influenced by or our parents? How do we end up in this place of schooling and education? What influence do you the most, in your opinion? I think you mentioned that we were raised on a farm. Our dad was an educator and our mom was a lifelong learner. And we were surrounded consistently by learning. Whether it was learning how to plant beans in the garden or whether it was learning how to put

together a tree house or whether my mom was teaching us how to knit or spin. I mean, I was kind of thinking about this a while ago. And I just think we were literally surrounded by all the types of learning that we are trying to do here at La Paz. Just like we were learning by place. We were also very aware of different cultures because our parents spent those years in the Peace Corps down in Brazil. So we had Portuguese words with Spanish words. And those

were all floating in and out of our regular life. Which certainly I think defined who we are today. I would have never guessed. I wanted to be a professional soccer player, I think, all the way through the age of 23 when I tore my ACL. And that dream went away. But then quickly, the teaching profession took over. Yeah, it’s funny. I also, I think I wanted to be a doctor all through my formal education. And then I found myself in schools and found that I loved it. And I loved

working with young people and loved working with people that were thinking about future generations. One of the things that I think about a lot is I agree with everything you said about how we were brought up and the place that we were brought up in. The other thing I think about a lot is just the agency we are given. We were just let loose on the land. And I remember distinctly building like you said, Tree Forts or rafts. And we would have a lot of experiments where things failed. And

some of that I think plays into starting and being brave enough to think about like, let’s create something brand new from scratch. And what does that look like? So I think, and that also we, I have tried to bring into the learning environments that I’ve been involved with is like, how do we allow students to develop agency and bring out the agency that they’re all born with? What do you think about that? Yeah, absolutely. I think the agency piece is crucial. I think we do

have to kind of recognize the privilege we were gifted as kids. We were in a place that was safe to explore. We were in a place where we had an expanded social network gifted to us at birth. If you know, that inherited social capital that is, you know, so crucial to, you know, what happens to a person in life. And that’s some of the things we’re trying to address here at La Paz for sure. So I do want to definitely kind of acknowledge, you know, this journey has been so improbable

and incredible. And, but in many ways, it has been certainly due to a lot of hard work, but acknowledge that it’s been, you know, due to all sorts of things that have been out of my control and turning into including the, you know, the network and the inherited social capital that we were both gifted at birth. And that brought us, you know, a lot of connections that have helped us through life. Yeah, I totally agree. It’s super important to bring that up and acknowledge that.

Is that, yeah, yeah, we were born into something that we hadn’t, we didn’t have to work hard for. We just, we got it because we were born and then we worked hard to capitalize on it and hopefully help others who maybe didn’t have, don’t have those privileges to make a huge difference in the world, which has been sort of one of my life goals. So, yeah. And then also kind of, you know, add, sorry, yeah, yeah, I would say, you know, add to that also

helping those that also grew up like us, you know, recognize their place in the world as well. So that can be, you know, then filtered out in a more exponential manner. Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s sometimes I think that I have this, this, or I guess all the time I’m thinking about this North Star, personal North Star of every person in this world should have an opportunity to make a difference in the world. Right. Every person should have an opportunity to make a

difference. And I think LaPause Community School is really thinking about that. It’s not just some, it’s everyone at that school. So let’s, let’s talk about LaPause Community School. So how did this idea start? What’s the origin story that would be helpful for our listeners in, in, for LaPause? What was the challenge? I guess, what was the challenge you were trying to solve? I think that’s the most important thing. So my wife and I, you know, we started teaching at a

Progressive Public School in Southern New Hampshire, South Higgin High School. That was one of the original coalition of the Central Schools, Ted Seizer. So we got embedded with a lot of progressive thoughts in education, inclusion, alternative forms of assessment, assessment, project-based learning, and the socio-emotional skills and on and on. And then we got into the international school community, which historically has been quite a, maybe more of a sterile form of, of,

of kind of education evolution. Like just, there’s so much turnover in things that it’s hard to really, really create enduring change at international schools. And there’s also, in, in, typically international school, you have different salary scales, foreigners get paid much more than locals. And there’s that differentiation. So when we came to Guanacaste, working at another international school, we saw that, and we saw that the impact that that had

on the community around us, creating this multi-tiered system based on, you know, socio-economic status. And we, in Guanacaste in 2007, when we arrived, this was pre-crisis, you know, and, and it was just being kind of assaulted by this, this onslaught of foreign influence. It was really what, I think this area has seen, like, it’s like a microcosm of globalization. We get to see the beauty of globalization, and we get to also see a lot of the challenges

that we face because of that. In our particular community, we were noticing that the local population becoming increasingly marginalized by this influx of foreigners who were buying up land, taking away the farms. And then the local folks are happy to sell their land for a certain amount. But then what are they left with? And this is what’s happening around the world. So that’s why I say it’s a microcosm of globalization, what we’re, you know, what we’re going through here,

and we continue to go through here. So the concept of the school was to address that reality and put everybody into a learning space where they could understand each other’s differences, learn from them, and equip each other with the skills, the compassion, the empathy, along with the, you know, being informed and mindful citizens to be able to kind of confront the challenges that we’re facing. So here you are. How many years later is it now?

15. This is our 15. 15. So you’re finishing off your 15th year. So what is the, you had the origin story of the challenge you were trying to solve. And so what are the, what’s the key elements of the school now? What makes it so special? What’s the special sauce that’s supporting and ideally addressing the challenge that you thought of 15 or 16 years ago?

You know, I think we’re seeing our, first of all, we almost doubled the size of the school overnight last year when we started another school thanks to the Pudavida Education Fund, which found us and saw our mission. And we’re like, we need to repeat this. So we repeated it about 45 minutes away. We have another school now down the road. There’s about 200 students there and that’s, that’s growing rapidly. So, so I think the special sauce is, you know, it’s, it’s a,

it’s a sense of place that people have when they walk through the doors of the school. When we designed the school in the beginning, we wanted to design a space that where, where if you were a local Guanacasteco or if you were a, you know, billionaire hedge fund manager and everything in between, you would walk into the gates of the school and you would say, wow, like this is a really special, this is, this is a, this is a place that I can be comfortable in. And we always think that,

like the students who are learning most effectively are those that are feeling comfortable in their learning environment, right? And so I think it’s that level of giving them, giving everyone a place, a sense of place in learning environment, regardless of where they came from, come from is probably one of the special sauces. And that has to be filtered down through faculty. It has to be in the, even the design of the facilities and in our case gardens, but the other school is a little more

urban. So it’s still, it’s still part of the ethos of the school. Yeah, I like, we talk a lot about belonging. And I think that’s sort of correlated with what you’re talking about is that if every student can come into a learning environment and feel like they belong, I suspect, and, and I think you’re seeing, and I know I’ve seen that outcomes for all students are just better, right? Because they have their place. And I think, unfortunately, in a lot of schools, that’s not the case.

So, so thinking about pedagogy itself, are there specific pieces like, say, project-based learning or, or place-based or experiential, I think some of these things show up on your website. What are the critical elements that guide, what’s the critical philosophy in terms of guiding the pedagogy of the school? So certainly, I think the dual language program is crucial to our success, half the days in English, half the days in Spanish, and the teacher’s intentionally plan in order to

create, you know, bridges across the content and across languages so students can learn a second language. So, you know, about 60% of our students are native Spanish speakers, 30% are native Spanish English teachers and speakers, and then another 10% are, are something else. There’s another 10 to 15 languages at the school. But I think the dual immersion program really gets at the, the, the mindful piece of the curriculum and the sense that if you’re learning another language, you, you

truly develop empathy, you know, you get what you, to, to, to put yourself out there and, and, and learning another language is learning a whole new base of knowledge. Each language describes knowledge in a different way. And I think that’s a, I think that’s a requisite in so many ways that this, this acquisition of another language. So that’s why we really focus on the dual language immersion piece. And then, you know, the focus on the socio-emotional skills, specifically community

through our, our morning meetings, our advisories, our cross grade learning opportunities, our cross subject area opportunities, like there’s all kinds, our big buddy, little buddy program, there’s, there’s so many different opportunities where kids can engage with the curriculum in a communal fashion, where, where they feel like it, you know, they’re, they’re all part of this machine that is this La Paz, our anchor projects, you know, each grade has their own project that endures throughout

the school year. And whether it’s the sixth graders with the chicken coop, they, they do the project, and then they evolve it, and then they pass it on to the next grade. So, so much of that is, is creating, you know, community in the experience. And obviously there you’re seeing the project base piece and the place base piece evolving as well. So let’s, I want to, I’m going to come back to the big picture, especially around community. I want to talk about dual immersion for a minute,

because you and I have had a number of conversations around dual immersion. And so there are some folks in the universe of education in the world, they’re saying, look, it we’re, we’re with, with translation devices and technology, it’s not going to be important anymore. Everyone’s going to have instant translation, it’s going to be in our pods and our ear, and we’re going to be able to just communicate with anybody whenever and wherever.

I think my sense is, is we’ve had this conversation and you feel a little bit, you want to push back on that. So I just want you to push a little bit more into that saying, why is that not good? Or, or whatever your opinion is on that. In Spanish, there’s like five different words for love. In English, you know, there’s one word. And I think, and if you go into indigenous languages, if you go into Mandarin, the formation

of every language, it’s so much more than communicating. It’s a knowledge base and a, and a culture that revolves around that language. In Spanish, and this is a big debate, you know, you have the masculine and feminine words and how do those impacts Spanish culture. And we read Kowago para Chocolate, you look at, you know, how language impacts gender and food and culture. It’s like, it’s not just about communicating. Yes, those devices, as is everything, you know,

new technology is great when used in balance with everything that we’ve learned in the past. So yes, it’s going to help us communicate better, but will it help us understand each other better? I’m going to go ahead and push back on that and say, it doesn’t necessarily help us understand our culture and the knowledge systems that have contributed to our culture in the past. And that’s especially, you know, important when you’re thinking about indigenous knowledge systems,

when you’re thinking about non-Latin or Germanic based languages and so on, like they just, they were created from a whole different, you know, cultural lattice in the past. So there you go. I love it. I think that what you’re hitting on this important point, which is, I like this, this discernment between communication versus understanding. And certainly technology will help us communicate, but to deeply understand someone else, we need to understand their context,

their culture, and that is where language is helpful in conveying that information. So really appreciate that distinction. Okay, so let’s, let’s go back out now to community, because you mentioned community. So I’ve heard a couple words so far from you that are intriguing. So you talked about belonging, empathy through dual immersion, community. I guess it, I guess it, there’s something about these words, plus probably a number of others that are happening at LaPause,

that probably the world needs. When you think about the world probably needs more people to belong, needs more empathy, it needs more community. Would you, would you agree with that? Are you training or helping develop young people who can go make a more peaceful world? It’s part of your mission, right? So it’s the name of your school. Yes, I would say that the world needs to do a better job. It’s not about communicating with, with, with each other. It’s about listening and understanding

to each other. And by teaching students active listening skills in morning meeting, where they’re in a cross grade, cross cultural, cross socioeconomic level context, and they have to stand up and deliver some kind of message to the community in their non-native language. Like there’s so many things that are happening there. And, and it’s, and then the teachers are modeling how to listen to that student and then engage in a conversation about it. Some of the

things that are brought up may be controversial. We do have people at our school who are all over the political spectrum, all over the ideological spectrum. And we have atheists along with evangelicals and it works. Why? Because we, we help people work on this concept of listening and not judging. How do you do that? You, you have to do a language immersion. Immediately they’re putting in a place where they need to understand a different culture through another language and, and it,

and it brings about empathy. But I would say, you know, it’s not just the dual, the dual language piece. I would argue that you can also do it in a monolingual setting, but I do think it’s more challenging to, to, to develop that. So. Do you, do you see that, that the students who are learning all these skills, you know, that are, that are part of the academic program? Because I know you’re an IB school and there’s, there’s all sorts of interesting, challenging work going on. And

you have the interesting and challenging work of how do you communicate well with one another? How do you, how do you learn from another? How do you deeply listen? Do you see that the students are impacting the adults in the community, whether it’s teachers, parents, like it, does it transition out of the learning environment and then see better conversations happening between different ideological standpoints, et cetera, outside the community? Or is it still within the bounds of

the, the, the space that you’ve created? I think La Paz is seen and I’m going to, you know, humbly submit this. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s seen by the Ministry of Education here in Costa Rica as, as, as something that they strive for and they can’t figure out how to do it. If you look at some of the recent publications from Ministry of Education, they want a curriculum that’s focused on, you know, habilidades del siglo ben tino and, you know, 21st century, both soft skills and also tech

skills and knowledge, but they, there’s so many systems that are in bureaucracy that prevent us from getting there that we hope that, you know, as we continue to prove, to show that this model works and getting more visits from the Ministry of Education, getting more Costa Rican students through our program and into the system that, that will start, have a deeper impact on, on the, the education system as a whole. One of our recent graduates from 2015 just graduated from

Columbia University Teachers College. She still has a dream of being president of the country, starting with, you know, she wants to get into the Ministry of Education. And I think all these seeds that we’re planting for the future also manifest themselves in the present, you know, in, in the communities around us where people see La Paz as like, this, this is like the hope. This is the hope. This is what we want. You know, we got like so many applications this

year from, from locals who, who, who, who see this as, as, as a way to, to kind of grow their, you know, not only their family, but the community around them. So I think that was a long way of saying yes, is that there is influence, like what the students are doing, what you’re all modeling is, is, is and will begin impacting the world around you. And so that, that brings me to my other question is that, you know, you’re running an independent school,

my guess is you can’t take all the applicants that, that apply. Maybe that’s an incorrect guess, but you can tell me. It’s correct. How, how, how do you meet the needs of more people? How can you just open another campus? It’s so hard to open another campus. I know, but who can carry this ball forward? Do you want to, if you are wildly successful, would you have campuses all over the world? Would you have campuses just in Guantacoste?

Would you stick with just your two campuses and do really well there and hope that those folks go start their own schools? Like what, what, what’s your, what’s your dream? After we successfully launched the second school, it was in a period of four months, we, we, we remodeled the hospital, we onboarded 200 kids and we hired 25 teachers. And the, one of the representatives from Pudavida Education Fund, which you can find online as well, it’s just

the group that supported us to get the school started. He asked, you know, what’s your vision for this? What’s your vision looking forward? And I, and I gave him a response. I don’t think he, he really liked it, but I was like, everything that we’ve done at La Paz has been just about trying to be true to our mission. And when we’re true to our mission and we don’t force things, it naturally and organically evolves. Everybody talks to me about like scaling. Hey,

but what about scaling? I’m like, you know, we’ll scale if the, if it presents itself, but I’m not going to go out and seek this concept of scaling. I’m not going to go in, you know, recruit new possibilities for schools. A lot of people come to us, knock on the door, they ask us what it’s going to take. But I think I’m all about kind of an organic evolution. And in starting the new school, we did have to focus on codifying many aspects of our just

existing program. So due to that organic inbound that we got, which ended up being, you know, this miraculous new, new school, we were able to set ourselves up for another potential step, you know, and now we’re interacting with a few other communities around Costa Rica and world who are like, huh, what would it look like to have the policy here? In addition, I really think here in Costa Rica, if in my ideal world, we will be able to have more of an impact

on policy with the Ministry of Education. Because right now the Ministry of Education here in this country is completely, the whole thing is about to is imploding. It’s a complete disaster. And they know that they need to rethink it and it’s just a matter and we actually have a president in place who will unabashedly rethink it for better or for worse. So it’s an exciting time now for La Paz on the stage here in Costa Rica because it’s a small country of four million people and

basically, you know, people know about the school. It’s a well-established entity. Yeah, and I think that I like the idea of, you know, and you know, I have my bias towards scaling and I pushed you on this. And I really appreciate your response about the organic nature of it is that when it when the opportunity presents itself, great, and that that will then force you to codify a little bit more and think about what does replication look like. And I also

am a deep believer in, boy, if if you can have partnerships with the Ministry of Education and appropriate level of political support to really influence the public sector in Costa Rica, I think Costa Rica is uniquely set up with it. You know, they know standing army and they have a real focus on the environment. Like they do things differently already. And so perhaps they could become one of the models for the world educationally in partnership with you

all and then others that are doing innovative things in the country as a spec. So that’s that’s super exciting vision for scaling. So all right, we’re a learning organization. I know you’re a consummate learner. You’re learning every single day. Think back to Able scheming with the couple other founders saying we want to start a school and now Able today. What are the big lessons you’ve learned? We were we were 28, you know, and we when we started the school, we were just idealistic

young educators with you know, some of us had five to six years of education under our belt. So I mean, the question is what have we learned? You know, I’m a physics teacher by trade. I was never trained in in, you know, formally in education leadership. So I learned everything on the job. And I learned a lot from you, Nate. So thank you for that. I want to make sure I give you a shout out. You say that I said something about that me with the wisdom in the beginning. No, no,

no, no, you are you’ve been my guia. And I really appreciate that. So, so yes, I think that we have I can’t there’s so many things. One is that time. Let time solve problems sometimes. I am too much of a problem solver. And I have learned in recent years, particularly that when there is conflict, one of the best problem solving strategies is to wait and not jump into it too early. So I’m going to that’s that’s that’s the big one that I think we all are emotional beings and we want

to and also a problem solver and people pleaser. So I want to kind of like, Oh, put out that fire, put out that fire. But I’ve learned definitely over time, I think wisdom is told me sometimes just sit on it, sleep on it, write the email, don’t send it. And I think that actually ends up lowering conflict, creating a more peaceful, non reactive environment. So I’m going to go ahead with that. I’m going to say that that’s my number one. It’s amazing. We get older and we

learn patience. There’s something to that, I think, like we waiting, I appreciate that. All right, we’re getting near the end of our time. So I love for you to share two things as we finish up. So one, so I think the one takeaway for starting new schools, I think this idea of waiting in patience is important. But but one takeaway for education in general for our listeners. And then the second question is, one person you would like to amplify someone who doesn’t get

amplified normally, but has played a key role for you, the school or education in general. So two final questions for us, and then I’ll close it up. I think we are focusing way too much on content in education these days. And I think we need to focus on the humans. I think, you know, if you look at our mission, informed, mindful citizens, it’s a balance 50 50 between the two of them, we just went through by government demand, we had to do these PISA exams recently at school. And I

was looking what the kids were putting on the paper. And just looking at I understand the need to measure, you know, what a student knows. But I think we’ve gone way too far. And I think we need to pull back on the the content piece, focus on making sure students know how to read, write and think, and push more towards the well being of the students through so many of those programs I was describing earlier, where they’re interacting with each other and reading and responding to each

other. But this concept of like having to know even Newton’s three laws, like, sure, but that doesn’t need to be the focus that we’re then testing them on. That’s kind of going to be my big, my that’s my big realization of having right now. I think we’re way overdoing content and underdoing good humans. Right. And there’s no knowledge is no longer a commodity for most humans in the world, not all, but most humans in the world that will increasingly become less of a

commodity. So this idea of if knowledge is more and more accessible, the idea of mindfulness and mindful citizens, that’s what’s going to make the future more successful, better for more individuals and humans, etc. So this human centered version is interesting. And yeah, you talk about PISA, like, that’s a global test. And then people compare it. And they throw it in magazines and they say Costa Rica compared to other countries. But it doesn’t say much about

mindful citizenship, does it? No, no. All right. Who do you want to amplify able as we finish? I want to amplify amplify another one of my mentors, who his name is David Rogers from dual language education of New Mexico. They stepped in very early on in our growth and helped us implementing a two way dual immersion program. A lot of focus on cross cultural awareness and empathy through language instruction. The work they’re doing in New Mexico is incredible. They

have an impact all around the United States. They are the leaders in the dual language world. And I think they need they need to be amplified. They’re incredible. Almost every year to they come down and give workshops to remind us of what the importance of what you need to focus on to implement an effective language program. So that’s my amplification. Thanks for asking. All right. So listeners, David Rogers, dual language, New Mexico, take a look at that.

Maybe we’ll try to get him on a pod. That would be fun. Able, thank you so much. Here’s what I heard a lot today. And I know you and I have a lot of conversations. But big things for me is that what you’re thinking about a lot is belonging, empathy, community, this idea of communication versus understanding and understanding is so important. Listening for understanding, all those things when we look at the state of our world, first of all, there’s a lot of great things going

on in our world. But we do have a lot of conflict and a lot of people not listening and a lot of people not empathizing and a lot of people not feeling like they belong. So schools like LaPause, as you’ve articulated, are really thinking about this, embedding it deeply and more schools need to do that. The other thing that was a point to me was this idea about organic scaling, which is a little bit different from my mindset. And I love thinking about that. And when the

opportunities present and when the environment is right, do it in the way that makes sense. So Able, the last thing is people want to find out more about your school. Tell us your website. So LaPauseSchool.org. All right. And it’s a we’ll put it in the show notes as well. It’s a wealth of information. Able, thank you for all that you’ve done. Thank you for LaPause School and the Guanacaste community for embracing and sharing and creating a really cool learning community.

And I hope that we’ll continue to learn more about it as you continue to grow and potentially scale. So thanks, Ape. Thank you, Nate. It’s been a pleasure. Appreciate everything that Getting Smart is doing for the world. Thanks for tuning into the Getting Smart podcast today. We want this podcast to be actionable and insightful and a great way to learn about what’s next in learning. In order to stay on the cutting edge, we need people in the field to tell us what they’re

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