What differences have I noticed in schools between Canada and Spain?

Firstly, similarities: I've had teachers here ask me about education in Canada, if the classes are smaller, and if there is more respect for teachers, and what kind of funding schools get. Well, mostly, they all assume it's better than the situation is here. Truthfully, class sizes are probably about the same; though I did have a high school class with 40 students in it, the room wasn't big enough for all the desks to fit.  Teachers still have complaints about funding, education and healthcare are always the first things to get cutback by new governments.. And sometimes the students don't care, and there are always the people tat seem to think that teachers are just glorified babysitters: I'd like to see them  survive a week, or even just a day, in a class full of 27 6-year-olds, and then try to get them to learn the curriculum. And just like here, different class work differently than others, and different teachers have remarkably different teaching styles.

All that said, I have noticed more than a few differences The schools I went to had already moved past the idea of having students copy notes while the teacher reads aloud from a textbook, more often than not we rented the textbook from the library as a reference or additional resource rather than the main way of learning. Reading the textbook was an introduction to a subject, to get the students thinking about a subject and seeing if they have any questions; or it was a reference at home, if there was something you couldn't remember fully, or understand well, from class. In class time, however teachers usually used a presentation of worksheets or projects to help students understand the material being discussed. We almost never read our  textbooks in class, and we never had to write or copy out the textbook from dictations. More often than not, class time was used to complete practice problems or discuss the material. I realise that, in the school I work at now, there is less technology available than I've been accustomed to in Canada. I've often had ideas about how I would like to help teach a particular aspect of a subject, only to remember that I can't do it without access to a computer lab, or smart-board, or projector.  But I am still a firm believer that  that a teacher's job is not to read me the textbook, as a student I was more than capable of doing that on my own. The teachers presented the material in a different or new way which gives a student a new way to understand. Additionally, I was surprised by some expectations of the teachers here. I'm not saying that their expectations are unreasonable or anything, but there is a certain rigidity in how the students are expected to behave. For example, I so often hear the phrase "sit properly" if a student is sitting just ever so slightly sideways, regardless of whether they're doing the work. Even I sit sideways when I write because I find it more comfortable.

Maybe it's a product of living with my mother, who teaches children 5-7 years old and believes in alternative seating, maybe it's having been a swim teacher where I know that one size does not fit all (so to speak). I don't mind if someone's standing at their desk to do their work if that's hat works best for them. I don't mind students sitting sideways or making a quiet comment to their neighbours while they work.