St. George
First of all, let me start by saying the school is MASSIVE. It runs from kindergarten to 12th grade, which is quite a range of kids first of all. However, the school body consists of almost THREE THOUSAND KIDS, over a hundred teachers, and all the administration. . .the school is huge. It´s very possible to go through your time here and not see other people at all. For example, our group is split between the elementary (1st through 4th grade) and the second and third levels (5th and up). I hardly ever see the people in the second and third levels all day. This is because of two things: 1. We´re busy and even more importantly, 2. The school campus is enormous. ENORMOUS. It has the feel of a college campus, because not only is it just massive, but the campus itself is immaculate. It´s well trimmed, flowers are blooming everywhere, and trees are everywhere to be seen. Just beyond the school itself in the background are snow-capped mountains that add to the already beautiful scene. The school is equipped with two huge computer labs for the staff, multiple labs for the students, and some classrooms even have smartboards. Resources do not seem to be lacking in the school, that is except for English materials. . .but that is just a given in a place where a book to learn English is hard to find and expensive as crap.
The kids
The students. . .dear god the students. Take whatever level of independence you´ve seen, multiply it by 34873674, and you get the level of St. George kids. The general feel of the entire school is one that fosters the individuality of each child and that their opinion matters. Of course, this is a great thing right? You have little first graders switching between classes, 2nd and 3rd graders walking across the entire campus to get to certain classes. . .it´s unbelievable. The only thing I´ve heard is that the kids, when they´re older, start to question EVERYTHING. They comb through their grades for mistakes, they fight tooth and nail for every point, and they challenge every answer that a teacher may give. This sounds awesome I know. . .for everyone BUT the teacher trying to teach the class.
Speaking of class, classroom management is practically nonexistent. The first time I went to a classroom was the English department head´s class. Now this is a lady who is in charge of about 30 teachers under her, and this is the ONE class she teaches. It just so happens this class was taking a test, and that myself and two others were brought in to talk to the kids about the States and our experiences. Now in my experience, a test is serious business. . .nothing on the desk but a pen or pencil. These kids had newspapers, notebooks, magazines out. . .some of them even had in headphones listening to music during the test. While we were talking, a good deal of them were talking, listening to music, or just staring out of the window. The head teacher was talking to them to pay attention. . .funny enough, the kids were able to answer her exactly at whatever she was saying, no matter how little attention they were seemingly giving. First grade itself is crazy. . .it takes about at least ten minutes to settle the kids down, plus 5 to clean up. Keep in mind the classes themselves are about 40 minutes long, so thats almost half the class just getting the kids to sit down and stop talking.
Recess is something I have to describe on its own. In the states in my Phoenix school, we had five to six people watching kids outside playing at any given time. Why? Simply to break up fights, solve disagreements, or stop kids doing something generally outrageously stupid. Here though at St. George, things go a little different. While 1st through 4th grade are outside playing, which by the way means hundreds of little kids are running everywhere, there are ZERO people watching. ZERO. And what are the kids doing? Well, they´re either
1. playing ¨soccer¨ which means they´re slide tackling each other, kicking and headbutting the air in any way possible to come in contact with the ball, and running into each other. By the way at any time there are about 8 games being played, with goals made up on the spot
2. climbing trees or crawling through bushes
3. running on the 2nd floor as fast as they possibly can
4. rolling slowly on the dirt through everyone doing all the above
5. eating and drinking each other´s food while doing at least one of the above
The first time Garrett and I saw this, we were horrified because this was a nightmare come true. In the states, if this went down, the kids would literally kill each other and the school would get shut down. Here in SG, there. . .was. . .nothing. No problems, whatsoever. ONE time I saw a kid get upset at not kicking the ball and started to cry. So what did the other 30 kids he was playing soccer with do? They freakin SET UP A PENALTY KICK so he could kick it. When he missed the kick the first time, did they give the ball up them? No, they let him kick it AGAIN at the goal. It was honestly unbelievable, and spoke volumes to me about the character these kids have at times.
Halloween
Since there was 12 of us in the program, we decided to all be months of the year. I luckily got September, so in true Chilean spirit for the 18th, I was Chilean pride. Everyone´s costumes came out to be incredible. . .and the party itself was amazing. Soooooo much fun. Here´s a sweet group pic:
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| from top left to top right: January (new years), February (cupid). march (march madness), april (april showers), may (may flowers), june (summer on top, winter on bottom). From bottom left to bottom right: july (uncle sam), august (uh. . .stealing of the mona lisa), september (CHILEAN PRIDE BAYBAY), october (witch), november (dia de los muertos), december (christmas tree) |
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