The professional development conference in Nicaragua was a huge success! I never expected the conference to be as incredible as it was. It exceeded any prior expectations.
During Professor Kerison’s session on the first day of conference, I was introduced to all of the Nicaraguan teachers. I felt lucky to meet these amazing educators I had heard so much about in stories from team members who had already traveled to Nicaragua. It seemed as though I had been waiting a lifetime to meet them.
I felt incredibly impressed and inspired by the Nicaraguan educators I met while my translator and I moved from table to table around the room to greet them. By talking to the teachers, I learned about their experiences of teaching in rural underprivileged schools. They told me more information on where they taught, what it was like to work in those schools, what their students are like, and how they coped with daily challenges like simply commuting to the school each day. They also shared some of their strategies for dealing with as many as sixty students in a classroom or how to deal with teaching multiple grades at the same time. Some classrooms were outside because there is not enough room for all the students inside the school.
