Gabriela Mendez

Bachillerato IMPA: Middle School Education for Adults at a Recovered Factory (Argentina 2003)

This chapter chronicles the emergence of Bachillerato IMPA, a middle school for youth and adults in a worker-owned factory in Argentina in the early 2000s. The story of this school is contextualized in the economic and political crisis created by the neoliberal policies of the 1990s that led to the closing and bankruptcy of many companies. IMPA, the factory that houses the school, was one of the many companies in the country “recovered” by its workers. Assisted by the National Movement of Recovered Companies and in collaboration with the Cooperativa de Educadores e Investigadores Populares, a cooperative of teachers and researchers, IMPA workers started a school to address the needs for formal education among the workers and in the community. The chapter focuses on the connections between the principles of the workers’ movement, the cooperative of teachers, and the school’s curriculum. It particularly emphasizes the school practices and pedagogy grounded in the principles shared by these organizations such as monthly assemblies as the main decision making site. The chapter also describes how the principles of self-management and horizontal relationships inform the organization of the school as a cooperative with no principal, and how solidarity defines instructional strategies and evaluation at the school.