School days

I spend a good amount of time teaching in Cajabamba's six high schools (all of which are public), and the differences between the American and Peruvian education systems are interesting to note. First of all, all Peruvian public schools (and most private) require students to wear uniforms. While the color schemes vary a bit between schools, the basic concept is always the same: grey, black, or navy bottoms (pleated skirts for girls, dress pants for boys), a white button-down shirt underneath a solid-colored sweater on top, and black dress shoes. Boys cannot have too long of hair, and girls are encouraged (or in some cases required) to have their hair tied back. On the one day per week that each grade has P.E. class, the students wear their track suit uniforms, which are always in the same school colors as the normal uniform.

The upshot of this is that when kids are in uniform, you know immediately which school they belong to - when the bell rings around 1pm everyday, Cajabamba's streets flood with students, and the color-coded uniforms are a huge help when I'm trying to spot my students. However, this also means that when I see my kids outside of school hours and they're wearing normal clothes, I have to do a double-take to recognize them without their typical outfits.

High schools here are also structured quite differently. Each grade will have two or three "sections," for example 1st grade A, 1st grade B, and 1st grade C. The students are randomly divided into these sections their first year of high school, and then stay with their same classmates all the way through senior year. Instead of students changing rooms after each class period and everyone having different schedules, all the students in each grade study the same set of subjects, and it is the teachers who change rooms after each period. This leads to another amusing (at least to me) difference: when a teacher enters the classroom, all the students stand up and chorus, "¡Buenos días!," and they will not sit down again until the teacher gives them permission. When I was first getting used to this, I would often forget to tell them to sit down again, and to this day I still feel an odd mix of strange and special when they all stand up when I arrive.

Another huge difference between schools in the U.S. and Peru is the schedule: Peruvians only study in the morning. Since lunch is the big meal of the day here, it would be illogical to have kids eat lunch at school. So instead, the schools run from around 7am to around 1pm. Then everybody (teachers included) goes home for lunch, and then afternoon activities like sports, music, dance, etc. start again around 3:00.

Every Peruvian public school begins the day with what's called "formation." The kids arrive at school at a certain time, but do not head straight to class. Instead they line up in the central patio (every school has one), with one line for every section.

Formation at one of the all-girls schools

Formation is always a strictly organized affair, and in some schools it can take on a near-military nature: there are always at least a couple of posture commands involved (e.g., "face left," or "stand at attention"), the lines must be stick-straight, and silence is strongly enforced. The students who arrive late are not allowed to join their designated line, but rather must wait in a group in the back and receive a stern talking-to about punctuality once everything's over. The content of formation is generally just a series of announcements and reminders - watching the students standing through all of them often makes me appreciate the more casual American style of sitting, non-uniformed, and chatting with friends in the comfort of my homeroom chair while the principal makes his announcements over a loudspeaker.