Balboa Academy: Year One

It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well.
Henri Frederic Amiel

No one should teach who is not in love with teaching.
Margaret E. Sangster

Every second of every day of the first three months I kept wondering what I had gotten myself into.

Although my first teaching experience—many years ago now—had been at the high school level, I soon made the jump to college, getting a doctorate along the way for the right to continue doing so for the rest of my life.

But the privilege of living in Latin America comes with a price. Initially, I thought I had landed in the best of both worlds—first at Ave Maria College, in Nicaragua, and then at Florida State University—Panamá—working within the American system of higher education, which I greatly admire, while residing in Latin America.

Alas, both experiences were terrible disappointments (and I won’t dwell on this here, for these institutions are now part of my past, and happily so).

But in order to stay in Latin America—specifically in Panamá, a country I’ve come to adore—after a couple of years of writing full-time (a highly unprofitable venture), I accepted an offer to teach English and Spanish literature at Vasco Núñez de Balboa Academy, the school my wife has worked for, and joyfully, for the past four years. (Balboa Academy, as the institution is more commonly known, was founded and is owned by teachers who once worked for U.S. Canal Zone schools.)

I must confess that my first months working with students from grades 10-12 was disorienting. The attentive college-age audiences immediately became a thing of the past. From the onset I found myself standing before restless adolescents for whom my “professorial” (although I don’t think I fit the stereotype) style of teaching was—to put it succinctly—boring. The first four months I struggled every hour of every day to retain control of the classroom, and this hollowed ground, which for me had been a refuge, a sanctuary, had become a battlefield.

In retrospect, I realize that the problem was not the students but with the way I trying to teach people of their age group. And, although at the time it was painful, the only way to improve the situation was for me to question every single teaching method I had been using—and rather successfully, I believe—for years.

Fortunately, after a few months, things began to change for the better. But the turning point came when, while spending an evening with friends, which included Bill and Jackie Madonna (American ex-pats my wife and I first met in Nicaragua and who now also make Panamá—living only a couple of blocks away from us—their home), I must have been whining a bit too much about my frustration about teaching high school because Bill, who is known for speaking his mind, interrupted me and said, “If I were you, instead of complaining, when I get up each morning I’d say to myself, ‘Today I’m going to make a difference.’”

So, with nothing to lose, I started following Bill's advice, saying to myself every morning while I showered: "Today I'm going to make a difference."

Mantras often do work, particularly when they help to alter a negative outlook.

From that point on my life as a high school teacher started to improve, and quickly.

Last year I learned more about teaching than over the last fifteen years combined; and I grew as a teacher as I had not done since entering the profession.

What’s more, at Balboa Academy—contrary to my previous two experiences with “American” institutions in Latin America—I’m was thrilled to see that students and teachers are treated with respect.

It’s not surprising to me, then, that in spite of last year’s heady challenges—or perhaps because of them—as my summer vacation approaches its waning hours, I’m looking forward to year two.