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Changing the world -- one relationship and scholarship at a time

Alumnus believes communities are capable of rising above adversity through education

By Thomas Boone Ferrebee ('01)

Answering adversity with education

Thomas Boone Ferrebee ('01) interviewed Rusty Carlock ('01) about Carlock's work with the people of El Salvador, the Sister School project and his plans for the future. Carlock's comments reveal in part the difficulties of bringing change to a country riddled with political instability, saddled with economic stagnation and stifled by an aristocratic power structure focused on maintaining the status quo.

Rusty Carlock ('01) talks with children in his Sister School in El Salvador.

Rusty Carlock ('01) talks with children in his Sister School in El Salvador.

El Salvador is a country still taking shape, socially and geologically, in the shadows of 10 volcanic cones. Evidence of the shifting land is written everywhere like graffiti on the eroding landscape. In early April, dust blankets nearly every surface while shacks cling to partially washed-out mountainsides. The landscape seems frozen in the dry season. For decades El Salvador has been defined by those with money that can finance the means to move swiftly along past adversity and by the impoverished laborers who carry themselves along in the heat of a nation trying to find its way out of Third World stagnation.

The next chapter in El Salvador's story, however, may be written by a group of children unwilling to accept an unstable future. These children live in the village of Zaragoza, which sits above the main road between San Salvador and the Pacific beaches of La Libertad. Zaragoza has one public school -- Escuela Publica Canton El Zaite. Public education is free to all children through the ninth grade at Canton El Zaite; after that, however, the cost of high school tuition forces the majority of students to discontinue their education. Another problem the school struggles with is overcrowding. The school tries to deal with the problem by staggering the school day; the younger children attend morning sessions while the older children's classes are in the afternoon. Teachers face the daunting challenge of having more than 60 students to teach. Aside from the huge demand for space, there is the problem of noise. Classrooms have only steel grates for windows, so children in each class must fight to concentrate on their studies despite the noise in the accompanying rooms.

Each year in Central America's most overcrowded country, public schools like Canton El Zaite churn out ninth graders eager for further schooling. Rusty Carlock ('01) is quietly leading an effort to provide the opportunity for every student to continue on, one scholarship at a time. Carlock almost single-handedly created the "Sister School Project," serving as the director and primary volunteer, while teaching at Monticello High School in Charlottesville. His vision for the project is based on relationship building with a foundation in the classroom. Carlock currently works at the exclusive Escuela Americana in San Salvador and donates his time to the Sister School Project at Canton El Zaite on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

The level of commitment Carlock shows toward his students and the insights he shares with others about the promise and struggles of the people of El Salvador deserves far greater recognition than it has yet received. He has, after all, raised thousands of dollars to provide scholarships, school supplies and a better learning environment to the children of Zaragoza. Through a massive series of e-mails to friends and family, he is helping to give the struggling students of El Zaite hope in a country where the gap between rich and poor, between privilege and despair, is one of the largest in the world.

The interview

I interviewed by former roommate and friend Rusty Carlock about his work in El Salvador. Following is an excerpt:

Ferrebee: Of the countries you've visited, how do the people of El Salvador compare in terms of being friendly, talkative and wanting to get to know you?

"People will help you at the drop of a hat"

Carlock: They are the most open people that I've encountered. That's part of why I decided to come here. I felt like the entire country is like a small town. People will help you at the drop of a hat for no reason. For instance, one time I was in Sonsonate in western El Salvador and somebody had apparently stolen four lug nuts from one of my tires. The tire was only being held on by three lug nuts, and I had driven around for a while like that. I had just pulled up into a parking lot, and some guy pointed it out to me. He said, "That's really dangerous. You need to fix that." I told him I didn't have any tools, and he said, "Hold on a second, I'll go get my brother." He ran down the street and got his brother, and then his brother got another guy who brought a lug nut wrench with him. They took lug nuts off different wheels on the car and put them on the tire. They were just really concerned, and they helped me out. That is just one example. That kind of stuff happens all the time.

A tale of two schools

Ferrebee: You teach at two schools. How do they compare?

Carlock: Escuela Americana is one of the most expensive schools in the country. It's where diplomats, leaders and politicians send their children, and it represents the highest strata of society. Canton El Zaite is in an area that is not very developed at all -- no running water, very little sanitary services. A lot of the children typically come from broken families and don't have fathers. Mothers often have to work in factories making the minimum wage. In general, I think it's just a community with environmental as well as economic problems, and so there is a huge disparity between my job at Escuela Americana, and what I do on every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at Canton El Zaite.

Ferrebee: How far apart are the two schools?

"What really changes communities are relationships between people."

Carlock: Only 25 minutes if there is no traffic; but they might as well be in two completely different worlds. Many of the Escuela Americana students attend universities in the United States. Escuela Americana has contributed though. When we were raising money for school supplies one of the fathers, who works for the Ministry of Housing and is also the president of a private foundation, contributed $2,000 -- that was a big thing. Also, the National Honor Society raised $400 for the school in Zaragoza. As far as money goes, they've done a very good job of donating. But what's important is not the money that people donate -- it's the relationships that are created. I feel like money without relationships doesn't change anything. What really changes communities are relationships between people. I'm glad that Escuela Americana students are giving money, but I'd really like to see relationships -- caring behind the money. It's easy to give someone a dollar; it's more difficult to talk to someone and find out about his or her life.

The short and long answer to "Why?"

Ferrebee: When the local Salvadorans ask you why you are here, do you respond differently than you do to Americans who ask you the same question?

Carlock: When people from El Salvador ask me, I give them a really short answer. I think they start to feel guilty, as if they realize that instead of U.S. citizens coming down to their country, they should be the ones making the country better, and they're not. I think they tend to feel bad about that. When people from the United States ask me, I try to give them a more detailed answer.

There's actually not a clear, simple reason why I'm here. I've always wanted to live in another country and learn another language ever since I was a child. I gravitated toward Latin America because of my experiences learning Spanish and working with immigrants in the United States. I chose to come to El Salvador partly in order to go to Cuba; also, some of my students in Charlottesville were from here. My other reason to come was because the waves were good.

I originally wanted to come to Latin America to do development work focusing on education, and when I came here and saw the conditions of the local schools it seemed development work would be really easy. The needs are right there in front of you -- the number of students in the classrooms, the lack of basic school supplies, the lack of infrastructure, classrooms, fans to make it cool, etc. I wanted to do something to help out.

I talked to all the organizations that are already doing work here and I really wasn't comfortable with the work that a lot of them were doing. Not that they're bad, but they tend to be really big and bureaucratic, and I feel a lot of their money gets wasted on overhead and administrative costs. I wanted to start a grassroots development organization, but at the same time I had to live. I needed a car in order to transport supplies to the school. I needed to feed myself. The best way I figured out how to do that would be to get a job at Escuela Americana, which would pay for the expenses for all of those sorts of things. At the same time, I would collect money from people in the United States in order to help this public school that I found.

Creating community in the classroom

Ferrebee: It seems hard to measure what success is in your Sister School project, but you've had a number of successes in the last nine months. Can you talk about what your biggest success has been?

Carlock: I'd say my biggest success has nothing to do with paying the kids' scholarships or the fence we put up around the school. It's the relationships I've been able to have with the students. Just teaching these children has been the part of being in El Salvador that I've enjoyed the most, and I feel the kids understand that and they get really excited, too. That's what's great about relationships and about teaching -- when it really works -- when you want to be there as a teacher and they want to be there as students. Amazing things can happen, and they have in El Zaite. They've learned a lot, and I've loved watching them learn. It gives them a place to be excited about learning -- to work hard and to see the results of their efforts. They have hope and relief from the difficult parts of their lives.

"They have hope and relief from the difficult parts of their lives."

Even now, six months later, the kids that I taught for only three months last year still come back to the classes that I'm teaching now and just hang out. Even though I don't have much time to talk to them, they'll talk to the other kids and so there is a relationship between the students too. They can see that other kids from their community have gone to high school, and they're succeeding in doing good work for the community.

I hope that in the long run that will continue to develop, and the girls will have more self-esteem so they don't make bad decisions and end up getting pregnant early in their lives. I think the young men, because of their relationship with me as well as going to school and putting forth effort, will see the value of hard work in their lives. They won't turn to alcohol or leave their families in desperation. I think all of that comes out of community -- community we create in the classroom.

Breaking the cycle of poverty through education

Ferrebee: What are your short-term plans?

Carlock: I am starting a Ph.D. program in international relations with a focus on education soon, as part of a larger goal of implementing new educational projects in marginalized communities. I see education as inherently transformative and the key to true social development, whether it is in an immigrant community in the United States or a favela (shanty town) in Rio de Janeiro. As the lone superpower, the United States is in a unique position to create a global democratic revolution -- not through military coercion, but by funding creative democratic, educational, and entrepreneurial projects in communities that up to now have been left behind in the globalized economy. I want to help make this happen, whether through the government or my work in a university. My work in El Salvador has taught me how important education is to breaking the cycle of poverty in which so many people are trapped around the globe.

"... you have to focus on small things."

Change on a personal level

Ferrebee: What do you aspire to achieve in the long run?

Carlock: I don't think I've achieved anything that's huge -- anything that will change El Salvador or even the community of El Zaite in a really significant way. But, I don't believe you can look at it in that way. I think that's the problem with big organizations. Not that they don't do good things, they really do, but you have to focus on small things. When it comes down to it that's what individual lives are all about. We each have our own personal narrative in how we relate to the world, and that's where things can change -- on that personal level. You can't do it through institutions. You have to do it through communities.

To learn more about the Sister School Project, visit http://www.sisterschoolproject.org/.

About the author

Thomas Ferrebee grew up in Virginia Beach. He and Carlock roomed together during their senior year at Madison. Currently, Ferrebee works for his father's law firm while taking classes toward his master's in education at Old Dominion University. Like Carlock, he is an avid surfer. In 2006, Ferrebee became vice chairman of the Surfrider Foundation in Virginia Beach.