Email: Leslie McKnelly

Friends,

I currently teach English as a second language (ESL) at La Escuela de las Azules or “The School of the Blue,” a primary school in downtown Huancavelica, and Michaela Bastidas, a central secondary school. I began my teaching experience with observations and visits to many schools in Huancavelica to find one that fit. Once the two schools were selected, I continued to observe various classes and subjects being taught in hopes of understanding the expectations, goals, discipline, and methodologies of Peruvian public schools. After two months, I realize I’ll probably never fully understand any of these things.

In my teaching courses at Appalachian State University we were taught to reach each student, to adapt lesson plans to involve learning disabilities, to arrange classrooms to optimum participation and language production, and to manage the classroom without needing to “discipline.” In my ESL course with Cambridge University, we were taught how to best “pair up” the students for group activities and amazing new ways to present vocabulary and elicit successful student answers. Excited and ready to put to use and share all this information in a sort of teacher-exchange, I started my teaching and it all promptly flew right out the window.

Here’s why:  Peruvian schools are different from U.S. schools in most ways. Sure, each class has a teacher, desks, chairs, and a chalk board, but that’s pretty close to where the similarities end. The biggest difference is the schedule. Peruvian schools run on two turnos or turns. There is a morning and afternoon turno, which helps to accommodate more students in limited space. The morning turn is from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and the afternoon turn is from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.. Each turno has its own set of teachers and students. At 1:00 p.m. the incoming classes line up and listen to announcements in the courtyard while the morning turno runs from the building.

I team-teach with the local ESL teacher at each school. Right now we’re in summer school and I am working mostly with Juliana, the ESL teacher at Las Azules. The best two words I can think of to describe my current teaching position are flexibility and patience. When I first started observing classes, I couldn’t believe how much the teachers yelled. Not raised their voices, but yelled, loudly, with force and venom at the students. I was also shocked to see a riding crop-like object used often to discipline a disobedient or off-task child. Not surprisingly, Juliana, who is one of the most soft-spoken, gentle people I’ve ever met, has a really hard time commanding the attention of a class because (a) she never yells and (b) she never touches the riding crop. Juliana has been teaching for almost year at Las Azules. She studied English at ICPNA (Instituta Cultura de Peru y Norte America) or the Peruvian and North American Cultural Institute, but she has never taken a teaching class.

Juliana is one of five kids from a family native to Huancavelica. She has never left the province, but she dreams of traveling and teaching in the states. She put herself through three years at ICPNA and has now applied to the University in Huancayo to study to be a certified English teacher. (She’ll find out this month if she got in!) She is currently contractada to teach at Las Azules. She gets a propino or tip each month from the parents, about s/2 (or ¢ 62) per child. If she teaches 5 classes of 30 students a week, she receives $93 per month. If she is able to go to the University and get her diploma in ESL, she can be a salaried teacher at about $370 per month.

Working with Juliana is always a learning experience. She has more patience in one hour than I’ve had in my whole life. She constantly teaches me to relax and not sweat the fact that while we’re trying to teach, three girls are jumping rope in the back of the room. She brings new meaning to phrases like, “let it roll off your back” and “no pasa nada.”

One large frustration I had when I first started working with Juliana was how the other teachers treated her. In the schools here, each teacher is given an allowance of sorts to make their copies and buy their supplies each month. Because Juliana is only a contract worker, she doesn’t receive an allowance, and she must ask the regular classroom teachers to make her copies for her. Many of the regular classroom teachers told her they would have her copies ready, but never made the copies. This pretty much hung Juliana out to dry on more than one occasion. Also, when we were teaching, some of the regular classroom teachers would stay in the room and grade papers; they would completely ignore the class and their students’ misbehavior. If they weren’t ignoring us, they were laughing at Juliana when she would try to get the students’ attention or get order in the classroom. The regular teacher’s laughter does nothing but enforce the students’ belief that the class isn’t important and that Juliana doesn’t deserve respect. In the States, if any class had behaved this way for a “specials” teacher (that is, music, art, language etc.), not only would their normal classroom teacher have been mortified, they would’ve been punished with silent lunch or no recess, etc. Worlds apart.

Together, Juliana and I have discussed and written out firm rules for each of our classes. We both enforce the rules equally to achieve consistency in our classes so that our students know what is expected of them and what will happen if they don’t comply. I believe that time out is a completely new concept here in Peru, though our kindergarten class has already mastered the concept. Each class is a sort of rollercoaster, but as our students learn what to expect from our classes the rollercoaster is starting to level slightly. I think the students learn much more easily when they’re not terrified of being punished harshly for unknown reasons. I can only hope that Juliana and I can continue to be consistent and fair in our classes so that the students can learn without fear and that maybe other teachers too will notice the difference in the classroom dynamics.

As for gaining the support of the other teachers; we implemented a “kill them with kindness” campaign.  We prepared all of our materials at least a week beforehand, and we give the materials to be copied to the classroom teachers in front of the principals and all the other teachers, thanking them graciously for their support. So far, it’s working. None of the teachers want to be the only teacher to not help us out, and thus we’ve created a sort of competition between the regular teachers. I have overheard them asking one another, “Did you make copies for the ESL teacher yet?” When I hear this, I think, “Yes!” Classes are going much more smoothly now that we have our materials ready, and the students are adjusting to our methods.

The new school year starts on March 9. Juliana and I are planning to teach five classes per week in the afternoon turno, and I’ll be teaching with Olga and Haydeé in the mornings at the other schools. Stay tuned for more updates, and maybe I’ll share with you some of my kids’ amazingly creative classroom antics!

Paz y Amor,

Thanks for your support and prayers. For more stories, pictures, and videos, visit my blog.