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On a trip to Mexico City last week, I learned some important lessons about education.

I was there partly because my father, Dr. Warren Wong, needed a translator. Dr. Wong — I call him “dad” — is a geriatrician who has long engaged in a personal and professional search to innovate healthcare.

A former fellow at the , he was interested in the strides that the non-profit group IMIFAP in targeting root problems in healthcare, education and financial productivity.

IMIFAP, which in English stands for the Mexican Institute for Family and Population Research, encourages Mexicans to take control of their own . Its motto is “Yo Quiero, Yo Puedo” (I want to, I can).

My father and a colleague wanted to meet with IMIFAP’s founder, Dr. Susan Pick, to see whether they could translate any of her strategies into techniques for reforming the healthcare system back here at home. The answer, they quickly learned, is yes.

Our time in the country involved various activities, including sit-down meetings with the organization’s coordinators and lively debates about the hardships and shortcomings of so many modern healthcare systems.

Dr. Pick believes that, in Mexico and other countries, reform efforts often fail to address root causes. This applies to education, as well as healthcare. IMIFAP is working to tackle those causes head-on by helping individuals develop “life skills,” including strong decision-making, self-awareness, assertiveness and authoritative communication.

After conducting focus groups and developing data-based pilot programs, IMIFAP teams develop course materials (textbooks, videos, brochures and the like) for volunteer, grassroots promotores — promoters — who ‘pay it forward’ and extend those life skills through age- and context-appropriate programs, whether educational workshops for new mothers or curriculum frameworks for preschoolers. IMIFAP has launched more than 40 programs in 14 countries.

Dr. Pick had arranged for us to see IMIFAP in action. So we went to Ixmiquilpan, a sleepy, arid district two hours outside of Mexico City, to visit two preschools and a health center.

The program that is being implemented there aims to enhance child development in communities with high rates of emigration. Many of the students at these schools have had at least one parent leave them to live without proper documentation in the United States. In some cases, both parents have moved over the border, leaving their child with relatives, family friends or even neighbors. Such a situation is not particularly conducive to healthy child development, especially at such an early and impressionable age.

But IMIFAP seems to make it work, and remarkably well.

Alia Wong

Children in a Mexican preschool.

In Mexico, preschool is required for .

What IMIFAP does at its partner preschools is to facilitate education focused on life skills. Each teacher is given a workbook filled with exercises and guidelines, while students get age-appropriate workbooks, too.

The first class we observed had nearly two dozen 4-year-olds. The preschoolers were, for the most part, surprisingly attentive to their teacher. The students sat at small desks arranged in the shape of a horseshoe as the teacher read them the age-old tale of The Fox and the Grapes, whose moral is that it is easy to despise what you can’t have.

And the kids, when asked about their thoughts on the story, seemed to understand that.

Would they still try and grab the grapes, the teacher asked?

“YES!” they exclaimed. They told the teacher that it is important not to give up, and that the fox is lying and the grapes are in fact tasty.

The students were then asked to draw a picture of how they would get the grapes. Some drew ladders, some drew ropes.

Meanwhile, during the class, an IMIFAP staff member was at the back of the room taking observations and filling out a survey. (Such evaluations are integral to IMIFAP’s work, as they help to measure the program’s impact and areas in need of improvement.)

We then headed to the next preschool. The 15 or so 5-year-olds in the classroom that was equipped with an array of educational tools meant to enhance motor and cognitive skills, were learning about the environment. Their teacher had drawn two columns on a white board, one for what the environment is made of, and another for what humans can do to take care of it. Many of the students, workbooks in hand, could read.

Alia Wong

Educational tools for motor and cognitive skill development.

The students came up with various strategies, including picking up litter and watering plants. Talk about big picture!

In their ensuing activity the teacher asked the students to make items out of recyclable materials. She emptied a bag filled with magazines and cardboard boxes, many of them bearing the names of antibiotics, onto the floor.

The kids delved enthusiastically into the activity, producing jewelry, miniature houses, purses and more. One child even built an elaborate telescope.

Dr. Pick humbly says that, despite the growing scope of its programs, IMIFAP’s impact has so far been relatively small in such a large country with so much need. The group’s work has touched the lives of an estimated in a nation of roughly 116 million people.

My visit to Ixmiquilpan suggested that even in a country rife with have-nots, early childhood development is seen as a top priority, one that can close the achievement gap and give children — even those who’ve been abandoned by immigrant parents — a chance to take control of their lives.