Despite the coronavirus pandemic, poverty and lack of technology her students face, a devoted teacher from Michoacán has vowed that she will see to it that her students receive an education. 

Conscious of the challenge distance learning poses to her preschool students, Juana Acosta Cortés will travel to their homes to teach them.

Even before the health crisis, the tiny town of Rancho Nuevo in the Tierra Caliente municipality of Múgica suffered economically. Last year eight of her students had to drop out, and despite having been a teacher for seven years, she still does not have her own classroom.

And with the school year going virtual, children simply don’t have the essential technology with which to learn. Out of the 11 students assigned to her this year, eight do not even have a television, much less a computer or Wi-Fi connection.

“They all live in cardboard houses and are very, very poor, so I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m not going to leave my children abandoned,” said “La Chula,” as the 51-year-old teacher is affectionately called.

“I am going to reach out to the children and work with them. I am going to look for alternatives and from there I am going to focus on them, so that they do not remain without education and have a better way to learn …” she told El Universal.

Acosta also says she will take all sanitary measures necessary to keep her students, who range in age from 4 to 6, safe from infection.

But nothing will stop her from fulfilling her responsibility to teach and help bring up those in her charge.

“The classrooms will be empty, but my heart will be full of smiles,” she said.

Source: El Universal (sp)