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realizing more about the context of Peru’s education system, we concluded that this was most likely due to a
lack of training on/knowledge of behavior management techniques rather than a lack of effort.
After identifying student behavior as a problem worth addressing, we decided to essentially use ourselves as
resources to implement a behavior management system in Virgen del Carmen. At the University of
Connecticut, we were taught about a system called “Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS)”
as a central part of our behavior management training. PBIS is essentially a system that uses proactive
intervention and positive reinforcement to increase positive behaviors and decrease undesired behaviors. It’s
based on a great deal of research carried out in US public schools and has been greatly successful in
improving overall student behavior. Since there was one of us in each classroom, we felt that it was an
excellent opportunity to implement the system schoolwide and classroom-wide. For the project to be as
sustainable as possible (and because of the language barrier), we decided to focus our efforts on teacher-
training, in hopes that the system would carry over with long-lasting impact after our departure from Peru.
Photos of Virgen del Carmen school.
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