Key Takeaways: My Time In Peru

1. Systemic Realities of Special Education

Peruvian law mandates inclusion, but severe specialist shortages and geographic barriers leave services limited outside Lima. This contrast deepened my gratitude for U.S. supports like co-teaching models, dedicated department heads, and ongoing professional development.

2. Compressed Timelines & Post-Secondary Transitions

With Peruvian students graduating at ages 16–17 and lacking rural job-shadowing options, creative transition planning is essential. It serves as a strong reminder of the ongoing challenge to support students with disabilities as they transition into adulthood, both abroad and at home in the United States.

3. Dynamic Student Leadership & Movement

I am inspried by the active routines and student pride in Peruvian schools. In the future, I would like to bring more kinesthetic learning into my classroom. Students will take on real leadership roles—like facilitating daily movement warm-ups and guiding peer mini-lessons.

4. Celebrating Local Neighborhoods & Active Problem-Solving

Seeing how Peruvian students honor their heritage inspired me to help my students celebrate theirs. I am working towards creating spaces for students to showcase the hidden gems of their Chicago neighborhoods while using hands-on protocols, like interactive sticky-note walls, to solve problems together we face in the classroom.

5. Collaborative Resourcefulness & Educator Joy

Peruvian educators lead with constructive feedback, open collaboration, and pure resourcefulness. Moving forward, I am committed to maximizing existing resources and community agencies rather than buying new materials. I also want to continue building supportive spaces for fellow teachers to connect, prevent burnout, and protect joy in our work.

Are you curious to learn more? Read my full reflection below!

Reflection: Guiding Question

To recap, here is my guiding question:

How do Peruvian schools prepare students with disabilities for the transition to post-secondary life once their schooling is completed?

What answers did I obtain to my sub questions?

Are there national laws in Peru that legally mandate and fund transition support and post-secondary planning for students with disabilities?

Peru has established two laws designed for educational equity and protection for individuals with disabilities. The General Law on Persons with Disabilities (Law 29973) was created in 2012. The law states individuals with disabilities have a fundamental right to an inclusive education at all levels. "It explicitly mandates the removal of architectural, environmental, and communication barriers across educational institutions." In 2018, The Inclusive Education Act (Act 30797) amended the national General Education Law, requiring schools to actively provide "customized, reasonable accommodations, personalized support plans, and accessible materials to meet the needs of students with disabilities."

While these national policies are great on paper,  they are difficult to implement. Peru is a nation with multiple indigenous languages. However, there is a critical shortage of special education professionals who are both bilingual and adequately trained to support learners in their native tongues. In rural, high-altitude regions—such as the mountainous communities of Pasco—basic infrastructure is a daily struggle. Schools located so high in the Andes mountains means they often battle power failures and internet outages. As a result, students occasionally lose access to the digital transition tools, virtual learning networks, and secondary planning resources that their urban peers in Lima might take for granted.

How are families integrated into the transition planning process, and how does this collaboration compare to the U.S. Individualized Education Program (IEP) model?

During my time at the COAR Pasco school, I gained a unique perspective on Peru's educational landscape. As an elite public boarding school, Coar Pasco selects only top-performing primary students through a rigorous interview process. This creates a highly driven academic environment where students live on campus, receive government-provided essentials like uniforms and hygiene products, and typically return home to their families on weekends. However, I met many students for whom the reality was quite different; rugged mountain terrain, rushing rivers, and extreme weather often made the weekend journey home impossible.

In contrast, the mainstream public schools I visited in Lima,Peru highlighted a system where federal resources are spread thin across broad social initiatives, such as universal healthcare. This causes difficulty for government funding and opportunities for students with disabilities in Peru. There were schools I saw that are still slowly rebuilding due to an extreme earthquake that hit a few years ago.

In the United States, the IEP (Individualized Education Program) model legally mandates multi-year family collaboration and direct contact with  community agencies. In Peru, support looks different, with school psychologists often stepping in and designing individualized learning support plans for students. In both countries, geographic isolation and severe resource constraints cause a heavy lift of navigating post-secondary transitions almost entirely onto individual family networks.

What information do I still need?

Do local Peruvian businesses partner with schools to provide workforce development, integrated internships, or community-based job-shadowing experiences?

What specific transition curricula or instructional tools do Peruvian educators utilize to cultivate independent living and workforce readiness?

While I set out to investigate formal workforce partnerships and specific transition curricula in Peru, the reality on the ground revealed a much different story. In rural communities like Chontabamaba and Oxapampa (where Coar Pasco school is located) standard Western models of "community partnerships" are difficult to acquire due to geographic and economic barriers.

Local businesses as we think of them in the United States simply do not exist in these regions; the surrounding community is comprised of indigenous peoples living off the land, focused on daily survival. True corporate or structured job-shadowing opportunities are concentrated in the capital of Lima—a 12-hour bus ride away from my host community. Furthermore, Coar Pasco school operates under a highly structured environment where even small actions—like bringing United States candy (like I did!) into a classroom—require formal permission from the school principal (known as the Director by staff and students).

Despite these extreme constraints and a top-down administrative system, the internal dedication to student support is profound. I observed the school dean, psychologist, teachers, residential coordinator, and nurse working closely as a team to gather data and build individualized learning support plans for students requiring extra assistance. The challenge is not  a lack of care, but a lack of proximity. Coar Pasco school draws top talent from vast distances, family involvement is inherently strained by the physical mileage separating these students from their homes.

Reflection: What Am I Taking Back To My Classroom In The States?

My time in Peru provided me with the space to reflect on my classroom culture and identify small changes for the upcoming school year. While our school has a cell phone policy in place, enforcement alone doesn't guarantee engagement—without active participation, students often tune out or fall asleep. To combat this, I am committing to focus heavily on kinesthetic movement and embedding intentional student leadership roles directly into the classroom space. Inspired by the authentic pride, ownership, and leadership I observed at the COAR Pasco school, I want to give students real ownership over our environment. Rather than standard chores such as attendance manager or technology monitor, I want students to have opportunities to step into dynamic roles like facilitating community games or leading daily movement warm-ups—swapping static mindfulness exercises for energetic, student-led physical activity that wakes up both mind and body for the rest of the day.

This deep sense of pride also has me think about how students view and speak about their own communities. Too often, students who attend school in the United States default to broad labels like simply saying "I’m from the South Side" rather than honoring the rich culture, history, and unique features of their specific neighborhoods. To help them celebrate their roots, I am creating classroom-hosted cultural sharing opportunities where students take pride in presenting local history, traditions, food, and assets from their specific neighborhoods. Additionally, I am structuring the classroom so problem-solving is interactive. While traditional talking circles are beneficial, students need to engage in hands-on protocols—like moving around the room using sticky-note brainstorming walls to visually map out challenges and co-create solutions together.

Furthermore, I am committed to sustainability and resourcefulness. This year, I want to maximize the rich tools already surrounding us in our school and local community, rather than relying on purchasing new materials. By sticking strictly to core necessities like writing utensils and paper, I aim to model creative problem-solving and demonstrate how much we can build, innovate, and celebrate using the wealth of resources we already have.

Finally, my experience in Peru provided time to reflect on my interactions with colleagues. Too often, school environments fall into a habit of collective venting. I want to actively counter that by creating structured, uplifting spaces for teachers to reconnect with what brings us joy and purpose in our work. While we have space for open dialogues, I would love to host a biweekly or monthly after-school meetup—giving teachers a low-stakes, welcoming space to simply connect, build community, and wind down together on a positive note.

Disclaimer - This website is not an official U.S. Department of State website. The views and information presented are the participant's own and do not represent the Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms Program, the U.S. Department of State, or IREX.