QUEZALTENANGO, Guatemala — Showing her first-grade students a picture in a textbook of a girl with two bundles of sticks, the teacher at the Villa Hermosa elementary school asks her charges how many pieces of wood is the girl holding.
"Twenty-six," the children respond. The arithmetic class is aimed at arming schoolchildren with the power to think rather than merely learning addition and subtraction by rote.
The textbook was prepared by the Japan International Cooperation Agency in cooperation with the Guatemalan Education Ministry. Members of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers helped draw up the book and offered guidance on effective teaching of basic math skills.