Our history
When Pequeños Exploradores opened its doors to the first class of 11 boys and girls between the ages of 3 and 6 years old on September 3rd, 2018, the project had already been years in the making. In 2014, Betsy Winston and Michel Raab returned to Coyhaique to settle down after a few years away teaching in a boarding school in Switzerland. When they returned, they were awaiting the arrival of their first child, Alberto (Beto). None of the schools in Coyhaique at the moment were particularly inspiring to Betsy and Michel, who had spent years educating both in wilderness and classroom settings. They saw an opportunity to create a project that fuses outdoor education with a child-centered approach to education in which the child is the protagonist. They began researching different approaches to educating young children and the more they learned about the Montessori method of education, the more they were attracted to its combination of active work and learning through inquiry and using all one’s senses.
In 2017, an opportunity presented itself when Betsy and Michel’s neighbors decided to sell their 1 hectare piece of land, a piece of land with beautiful native ñire forest, a flattened platform perfect for a field and an upper section ideal for building a school-house. As soon as they were able to purchase the land, Betsy and Michel began designing the Big Red Barn, inspired by the children’s book of the same name by Margaret Wise Brown.
In late 2017, Betsy began talking to Francisca Fierro, a passionate Montessori educator with a wide range of experiences teaching students and educating teachers in the Montessori method. In early 2018, Francisca visited the Big Red Barn (under construction) and committed to move from Colombia with her family to become the first lead teacher and ultimately the academic director of Pequeños Exploradores.
In the almost 3 years that we have been operating, the school has evolved to become a loving and invested community of children and their families plus the educators that pour their hearts into their work and the children they work with.