Violeta Tsoneva, the Bulgarian member of the myEUROPE advisory board, has been accepted on the Fulbright teacher exchange programme. The programme aims to increase mutual understanding between Americans and people from other countries.
This school year, Violeta has swapped her country, school and teaching position with an American teacher, Lucee Seiter. Violeta tells us more about her first weeks as a teacher in the US.
"Working as a school teacher in a US school is definitely not easy. It is a lot of hard work. I start my working day at 6.30 or 7 and finish at 3.30 at the earliest. I get up at 5 and go to bed dog-tired at midnight or 1 a.m. I do this five days a week. School paperwork is different from what we do in Bulgaria and so is classroom management. Taking and reporting the attendance for every single period, grading, exchanging info with fellow teachers, school administration, parents, etc. is all computer-based and in the public space. Teaching here is a challenge."
The two teachers find that the major difference between the two educational systems stems from the curriculum content and teaching methods. In Bulgaria, students are more motivated by getting high marks so that they are in a good position when applying for universities. In the US, students do not pay as much attention to marks, because the focus is on collaborative learning in working groups. In an article in the East Valley Tribune, Lucee, Violeta's American counterpart, compared the approaches of the two systems by saying that "for US children, school is a right. In Bulgaria, it's a privilege."
Violeta said, "Yesterday some of the students suggested that they address and call me either Mrs. T or Dr. T. The reason for this is that most of them find it difficult to pronounce my last name. By the way, when I used "family name" they did not understand what I meant. I had to explain that family name, last name and surname are synonyms."
The photo shows Violeta presenting her syllabus and the classroom rules to her 130 9th graders at Hamilton High School, Chandler, Arizona.
Violeta said, "Yesterday some of the students suggested that they address and call me either Mrs. T or Dr. T. The reason for this is that most of them find it difficult to pronounce my last name. By the way, when I used "family name" they did not understand what I meant. I had to explain that family name, last name and surname are synonyms."
