Spanish vs. American Schools

In the beginning, when I first arrived here, I was so caught up in everything that I didn't notice how different Spanish schools are. But now that I've been here for almost a month, the differences are certainly more apparent. I'm going to write this post as a list format, since I think it will be easier to stay on topic- I'm just writing stuff down as it comes to me. :)

1. Here, there's a much more open and friendly relationship between the teachers and students. We all call the teachers by their first names, or we can call them "Profe." This is SO hard for me to get used to, when I have a question everyone says "Just shout Margarita (or whatever the teacher's name is)" and I'm like "Ahhh, I can't, that's so weird!" Also, there is no hand-raising. If the students disagree with something a teacher writes on the board, or if he/she makes a mistake, there's always kids shouting out "Profe, tú eres tonto!" (Teacher, you're silly/stupid) and phrases like this. They certainly never hesitate to correct their teachers!

2. The school is overall MUCH less modern and updated than my school in the US. There are no active boards/smart boards/laptops for every student, etc. None of the teachers have their own computer. The classroom is literally like this: a large brown desk at the front for the teachers, a chalkboard at the front, some windows along the left side of the room, and desks with chairs. There are no posters or artwork anywhere. The view out the window is of the other side of the building. It's actually pretty depressing. The only thing that makes up for it is that the students and teachers are so friendly with each other and there's always funny bickering.

3. The bathrooms! Oh my goodness! Firstly, there's no toilet paper in the stalls, so you can imagine the surprise I got on the first day of school. There's one toilet paper roll machine thing outside the stalls that I guess everyone is supposed to share, only there's never any toilet paper in it either. The only way you can really be safe is to bring your own toilet paper from home, or just not use the bathrooms at school. Also, there's no mirrors in the bathroom. Additionally, the toilets are the type that you have to squat over- there's no toilet seats. And besides all of these things, there's no paper towels and the hand dryer doesn't work, so you have to walk out of the bathroom with wet hands everytime. Going to the bathroom at my school is quite an adventure.

4. I think I mentioned this is a previous post, but the teachers move classrooms and not the students. I think I like this, although I'm still not totally decided. It's nice to come in my classroom in the morning and be able to kinda settle in. I don't have to pack up my books after every class, and there's no lockers to worry about. There's still a bell after every class, and we still have a 5 minute break in between classes, but since we don't have to be getting to our next class we have more time to actually talk to people.

5. Learning is just overall much more difficult here. We don't have much homework, which makes it hard to practice the things we are learning in class. You just have to study, study, study, and besides some math problems, that's basically my homework every night. Also, we have 5-6 tests a year in each class and that's it. This is a horrible idea in my opinion, becuase instead of studying and memorizing material from one chapter for the test, you have to study five. I won't have my first tests until the end of October, and there aren't even any quizzes to check if I'm learning and understanding. It's much more "on your own."

6. There's no cafeteria, and nobody eats lunch at school. Since in Spain the time to eat lunch is 2:30-3pm ish, kids don't pack or buy a lunch at school. We're not even allowed to eat in the classrooms. Lots of kids do bring something small to eat at "recreo," which is the 30 minute break from 11:30pm-12pm. I like to have a snack at this time because eating breakfast at 7:45am and then waiting until 3pm for lunch is too long for me, haha. Lots of kids (myself included) walk to the little shop nearby where they have snacks like chips and candy.

7. After-school activities. They haven't started yet, but I'm pretty sure we have them. Of course they are different from America, because, for example, there isn't the option of American football here. They have a lot of other cool activities- I'm going to try to join the badminton team and I want to try the rhythmic gymnastics they have at my school. Woohoo ;)

8. Gym. Definitely my favorite class right now because there isn't too much speaking/understanding Spanish required. However, gym here is taken seriously. The other day, during gym class, we had to walk to the center of the city where the track is (it's one athletic center for all the high schools in Ponfe), which was about a 15 minute walk. Oh, and it was really cold. We then had to run around the track FOREVER, until walking back to the school. The other difference about gym here is we don't have any uniforms- we just wear sweats or whatever.

Some other things about school:
- My Lengua teacher. First of all, Lengua is practically impossible because we are learning lexemas and morfemas libres and morfemas ligados derivativo prefijos, and it's already hard enough for the native Spanish speakers. Naturally, my teacher loves to call on me when he asks questions and this is not appreciated. The other day he asked me to please summarize the Spanish classic "La Celestina," which obviously I've never read. "No lo sé " (I don't know it) is easily becoming my most-used phrase in this class.

- Math: I thought it would be easy since "math is the same in every language," but it's definitely a lot harder then I thought. The problem is everybody in my class has already learned what we are doing, except me. So my teacher's always saying "This is review for all of you so we'll just run through it really quickly," and I'm sitting there like "ummm...." It's pre-calculas stuff, which I would be learning this year if I was in the US.

-The other students: overall I'm just loving them. They're really helpful when I need things translated and I'm meeting a lot of really nice people. On Saturday I went out with a bunch of my school friends and here are some pictures!

Besos, Chao, Lani.