School

What I Love

-Gym class-every Thursday for half an hour after school.

-Everyone is friendly

-No cliques

-No assigned seating

-If I don’t understnad the material like in Chemistry, the teachers don’t mind if I read in portuguese to improve my vocabulary.

-Teachers treat their students as friends.

-I have a uniform shirt and can only wear jeans or the school gym shorts (spandex).   I don’t spend time thinking about what I will wear to school-not like I did much of that anyway…

-My school has a cinema room.

-They have fish, birds and tiny monkeys on school grounds.

What I’m Not Accustomed To Yet

-If a teacher is absent, there’s never a substitute.

-Students remain in the same classroom the whole day, the teachers change.

-It’s very hot for me, but normal for the other students, so they don’t turn the fans or air conditioning on.  By the way, each room has a small air conditioner.

-Classrooms are equipped with desk chairs, not a separate chair and desk.

-Lack of technology-nothing but whiteboards.

-Absolutely no decoration in the classroom.

-10-20 minutes of the 50 minute period is generally wasted by the teacher writing out notes to be copied on the whiteboard.

-EVERYBODY writes in cursive, whereas the USA has fallen out of the trend of even teaching it nowadays.

-All of teaching is done lecture style.

-Teachers will talk to their students about their personal lives at times.

-There is no such thing as plain notebook paper here, everything has designs.  Though it is nice to look at, I don’t believe it’s worth the added price.

-In general the people in Brazil are very extroverted, so when talking in class it often sounds like a shouting match.

Five of my classmates and me at the school science fair.
 (It was quite early in my exchange, so I didn't have a group to work with.)