Teaching about education in Uruguay

Yesterday, I was invited to a Spanish class (students who speak English and want to learn Spanish) in order to talk about the educational system in Uruguay. Of course, I highlighted the fact that Education is for free for everyone, even at the University. And I also made reference to PlanCeibal; (despite all the resources available in the U.S. high schools, they don't give computers to students. Although a few schools are applying something similar, they are being tested... )
Then the students (17 years old.mostly) asked me all sorts of questions, such as: "where do schools get the money from?", how many hours students stay at school?, and if the teachers work only four hours a day.
 Jaja. This last question makes me think of how people reason differently depending on the context in which we are brought up... Here in the U.S. the teachers work in one high school for about six or seven hours, while in Uruguay many teachers have to travel from one highschool to another. As a consequence creating a strong sense of community within the institution turns to be quite difficult. Improving our educational system is not just about material resources but also (and more important) about creating teams within each institution, teams that belong to the institution and care about it because the individuals feel it as theirs, they work there, they feel comfortable there, and don't have the need to work in different places to earn a decent salary.
We have a long way in order to achieve excellence, there's a lot to be done and at the same time lots of money is needed to improve the situation... However, the very basic material cannot be paid with money, it's the teachers who care about the welfare of their students, those are the ones who  make possible for institutions to overcome the difficulties...

Bags where the students put their cell phones during class time :)

About 30 buses waiting for the students to leave the high school this afternoon 😱

Interesting easy way of getting the students to charge their cell phones or computers. There are three in the classroom.