CCH School of Science and Humanities: Education at UNAM
CCH School of Science and Humanities
The CCH (Colegio de Ciencias y Humanidades) School of Science and Humanities is one of the three systems offered by the Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) for upper secondary education. The others are the National Preparatory School and B@UNAM, which is the distance learning option for students in the United States and Canada.
Mission
The mission is based on the institutional model of the College of Sciences and Humanities’ educational action. Since its founding in 1971, its current, in-depth model has achieved undeniable academic reach in high school education. Its concept of education, culture, approaches, and pedagogical disciplines have remained fully in force and have received great reception in recent years.
The CCH seeks that, upon graduating, students meet the profile of their curriculum. In addition to this formation as university bachelors, the CCH aims for students to develop as people endowed with superior attitudes, values, and ethical grounds, with an interest in and sensibility for the artistic, humanistic, and scientific, and able to make decisions and exercise leadership with honesty and responsibility.
Philosophy
Learning to Learn
Students will be able to acquire new knowledge on their own, that is, appropriate autonomy consistent with their age.
Learning to Do
Develop skills that will enable you to implement what they learn in the classroom and laboratory. It involves knowledge, elements of various methods, teaching approaches, and working procedures in class.
Learning to Be
Develop, in addition to scientific and intellectual knowledge, human values, civic, and particularly ethical values.
Preparatory
The National Preparatory School began operations on February 1, 1868, under the orders of then-President of Mexico, Benito Juárez, an order that was instructed to the doctor, Don Gabino Barreda. The school occupied the building which formerly corresponded to the Old School of San Ildefonso, located in the Historic Center of Mexico City. The duration of this level was five years. Subsequently, according to the demand for education, nine campuses were built, located in strategic areas of Mexico City (DG).
Four Pillars of Education
- Learning to learn: To master the tools of knowledge, live with dignity, and make my own contribution to society. It emphasizes the methods to be used to know—because not all methods are used for learning to know—and ensures that, at heart, one should have the pleasure to know, understand, and discover.
- Learn to do: Learn to do things and get ready to make a contribution to society. People are trained to do a job, but often cannot exercise it. Instead of getting personal qualifications (skills), it is increasingly necessary to acquire personal skills such as teamwork, decision-making, relationships, creating synergies, and so on. Here, the degree of creativity that we bring matters.
- Learn to live and work on common projects: The Report says that this is one of the major challenges of the 21st century. Never in the history of humanity had we come to have such destructive power as at present. Given this situation, we must learn to gradually discover the other; we see that we have differences with others, but above all, we have interdependencies; we depend on each other. And to discover the other, we must know ourselves: when you know who I am, I shall address the question of empathy, that the other thinks differently from me and has reasons, just like mine, to disagree.
The Delors Report proposes to encourage joint work, to pay attention to individualism that is not against individuality, and to emphasize diversity as necessary and creative. I feel that when it comes to attention to diversity, it is not about breaking through diversity, but treating it appropriately to match and avoid all conflicts. The third pillar is strongly influenced by the attitude of the teacher and their relationship with students. - Learning to be: Is the total development of each person as much as possible. The education of the whole, as has been talked about since the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, includes independent thought.