Geisha Bonilla Cortes From Chile IS One Of The Best Teachers Globally in 2023 Who Made It Into The Global Teacher Prize 2023 Top 10 Finalists List.
Geisha has risen from low beginnings to become one of Chile’s finest teachers. Despite the fact that her mother completed secondary school, her father and grandfather were both agricultural workers from a young age and did not attend school.
His father had worked in the fields since he was a boy, and at the age of 12, he joined a mining firm, committing his life to it, so he had no formal education and did not speak about it.
It wasn’t until her father refused to help her with her homework that she learned he couldn’t read; nevertheless, an occurrence during Geisha’s second year at university altered everything.
Her father, desperate to discuss the Chilean literature she was reading for her degree, responded, “I would do it, but I don’t know how to read.”
Geisha determined at that point that it was not too late to teach him to read, and he would become her first student. He studied every day after his job shift ended, using literacy books from an adult school.
He enrolled in school a year later, at the age of 47, and completed his primary education.
Geisha’s father is now a fantastic mental calculator with exquisite handwriting; he and her mother are keen newspaper readers and crossword puzzle fans.
This encounter altered Geisha’s life, her perception of what was possible, and her understanding of what teaching meant to her.
Geisha now works on Easter Island, 3,700 kilometres off the coast of Chile, in the midst of the Pacific Ocean.
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The majority of its 7,000 residents work in agriculture, but tourism is the main source of revenue.
Geisha Bonilla Cortes took over as Director of the Lorenzo Baeza Vega School during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, when the island was closed to guests.
In that setting, she made an effort to learn the island culture and consider how to teach depending on the needs of the people.
In the months between in-person classes on Easter Island, which has limited Internet connectivity, she decided to create an instructional television series, making Easter Island the first place in Chile to do so.
Geisha has continued to respond to local requirements since then, particularly in terms of school language.
Although both Spanish and the local Rapa Nui are spoken on Easter Island, there is concern for the preservation of the language, which is why Geisha chose to provide classes in Rapa Nui with the substance and notions of the island’s culture.
As a result, there has been a gradual increase in both student attendance (from 73% in 2019 to 93% now) and enrollment (from 30% in 2020 to 45% in 2021). Family involvement in school has expanded significantly.
Geisha Bonilla Cortes has received regional, community, and national recognition for her stories and poems, in addition to her teaching profession.
This motivates her students to write as well. She was a finalist for the Global Teacher Prize Chile in 2021, which increased the visibility of her work on Rapa Nui.
She was just named one of Chile’s top 30 school principals in terms of community connections. She will receive the honour in October 2023.
If Geisha is awarded the Global Teacher Prize, she plans to use the money to establish a new learning community with its own facilities.
This would fulfil the goal of expanding enrollment while also providing a flexible curriculum based on Rapa Nui culture, which includes the ethnic group’s way of being, vision, and rituals.
It would also train native-speaking instructors, which are in limited supply, and act as an integrated education facility for adolescents and adults who may learn new skills to help the island’s jobs and services.
Best of luck to Geisha Bonilla Cortes and all the top ten finalists of the Global Teacher Prize 2023.