Crowded public bus ride.                                 Students at Nicaraguan school for shadowing.

Question and answer responses from Glimpses and Nicaraguan students.

Today was a very jam packed day filled with fun activities and tours. We learned about the difference in education systems and school environments. For example, here in Leon the local students stayed in a single classroom while the teachers moved through different classes per subject. In the United States, we do things the exact opposite so it was fun to experience the difference. It was also shocking that the teachers weren’t as strict with their students. When their students left or slept during class, the professor kept continuing the class without calling them out or caring. This made our group  feel very fortunate because we are glad that our teachers worry about our success. To have teachers pestering us about our missing assignments, it shows that they care. This made us feel very appreciative of what we have in the states.

We also took school tours in Leon. Something that really surprised us was that there was a large range of ages within the students. For example, we saw a six year old and a fifteen year old student going into the same class. It was interesting  to see that there are different education levels but no age restrictions in the same class.

Throughout the day we learned about how students learned. Towards the end of the day we got the opportunity to teach students ourselves. During English tutoring, we were given the  challenge of translating English to Spanish  and communicating with the locals who wanted to learn English. It was a difficult, yet rewarding and fun job because we are all very proud of ourselves for being able to accomplish this activity. The most inspiring people we met today were our students. It was motivational to see them go out of their comfort zones and take the initiative to learn a new language.

While being Los Liders Del Dia, it was very interesting to see how the Global Glimpse Leaders plan the day and how much work it takes to organize all the activities and make the day fun for the Glimpsers. It was a little stressful and tiring to be the leaders because it took a lot of effort to keep everyone on task. As leaders we had the personal challenge of translating the Glimpsers’ questions into Spanish to the local teachers and students. Afterwards, we would translate the teachers’ and students’ answers from Spanish to English for the Glimpsers to understand. The translating was a little bit difficult yet rewarding for us.

We got to learn what it was like to be teachers and how to comply with one another. Since we were both leaders of the day we had to learn to share the responsibilities of being leaders.

We really enjoyed today because it opened our eyes to how fortunate we are with our education. We should enjoy having an education and be thankful for what we have.