Not all of the Free High School students attend only because regular high schools aren’t an option for them. Lisbeth Guzman Perez could have attended the large daily Mongalo High School, but she didn’t like the party atmosphere there. She chose instead to attend the Free High School which has older and more dedicated students, and thus an atmosphere more conducive to serious learning.
It was the right decision. After starting at the Free High School, Lisbeth’s motivation to learn soared. “I decided to do much better, to improve my grades, to beat my own record,” she says. Her favorite subjects were English, Spanish, and biology.
At seventeen, Lisbeth is among the youngest of the 2014 graduates, and yet she had the third highest average in the entire graduating class of 67 students. Also in that class were three other members of her family: her brothers Gabriel and Jonatan, as well as a cousin — all wearing gowns in the photograph. The four of them, all in their senior year, took an interest in the perceptions of sexism and worked together on a monograph on this subject.
Lisbeth’s sister and another cousin also attend the Free High School. Their father is a night-watchman who had never attended much high school, and their mother is a housewife. How did the two of these largely uneducated parents raise a whole family so interested in education? “We told them to get up early and do well,” they said.
Now, Lisbeth has moved on to study Tourism and Hospitality at the Polytechnic University of Nicaragua in Rivas, thanks to a scholarship from the Brugger Foundation. We’re sure she’ll do well and continue to be a great example of the type of young adults the Free High School cultivates!
