The last day of American school - by Amanda

One of the biggest experiences we had here was going to an American school. Few people have the chance to know the educational method of a foreign country when they travel and fortunately we were able to do it. In addition, the American education is known as one of the best of the world, so coming here was really an unique experience.

First of all, the organization of The Community School's classes is different. They have trimesters instead of bimesters and to each of them the students choose some classes based on their interests. For example, my host sister attended to classes of Chemistry, English, Lab, History, Psychology, Geometry, France and Algebra. She chose to attend to all the classes possible and she didn't have any free period, however she will gather a lot of credits for applying to a good college. Being able to choose your classes is something very interesting as to make the students get interested and motivated to study what they like at school.

That's another difference from ours educational system. For applying to a university, the students are analysed during all the school time. They have a kind of "ENEM" (the SAT) and the grade they have in this test is sent to the college they want to apply, together with other documents included in the application.

At The Community School they change their classes' schedule based on the necessities of the students. For example, the winter classes on Monday start at 8:10 am and finish at 3:25 pm, but from Tuesday to Friday the classes started at 7:55 am and finish earlier, at 1:30 pm due to the sky resort that closes at 4:00pm. Doing so the students will be able to go skying or do play another sport they want.

During the classes I noticed different methods of what we have in Brazil as general. Here they appreciate the development of another kinds of languages and knowledge. I mean, instead of getting so deep in the theory, they improve the speaking, writing and the pratical of the theory.

For example, in one of the classes of American History I attended, the students were simulating the debates that happened during the abolition of slavery in the USA. Each group of students was representing different ideas of slavery. Doing so, the students were able to develop the speaking and analysis of situations.

Other class that caught my attention was English class. The students were comparing three different works of different authors at the same time. There was also a day that we had three different teachers in the same class to tell different visions of the same subject.

At history class I was surprised when the teacher chose a specific book for each students based on the student's interest. My host sister, who likes Psychology, has to read a book about the History of Psychology and another student who likes history a lot has to read a book about Globalization, for instance. With this reading the students are going to produce an independent project. I also found very interesting that during this two weeks the history class was studying only the imperialism and colonialism focused on Egypt because of the historical political revolution the Egyptians are having nowadays.

At chemistry class I was also surprised to know that in two weeks they made three lab experiences. The Lab is in the same classroom that the Chemistry class happens, so if the teacher wants to do a quick experiment to show something to the students, she is able to, what happened very frequently.

 Jen showing us how a charged wand attracts glass because of the opposite charges.

 Lab-Class. Jen showing us how to use the equipment of the lab to produce the experiment we did yesterday.

The chemistry book is also interesting. It is divided in different sections: Alchemy, Smells, Weather, Toxins, Fire and Showtime. So, in each section they study all about alchemy, all about smels, all about weather, etc but with the chemical vision. It's the book "Living by Chemistry" by Angelica M. Stacy. Teacher Jen told me that this book was produced by a group of chemicals that believe in a different way of teaching chemistry, then I remembered that our Physics book (GREF) is also written by a group of physicians with a different view to teach physics. I found it very interesting.

To conclude, I may say that the experience of seeing the American view of subjects, specially history, was very fruitful and doubtless the learning I got here was the most important experience I had.

Here are some pictures we took with some teachers.

 Me, Jen (Chemistry Teacher) and Weell

 Weell, Tim Price (English Teacher) and me

 Fritz (Psychology Teacher) and me

Yara, Jordy, Melina, Pilar (Spanish teacher), me and Raisa

Me and Hannes (Biology and Algebra teacher)

Hannes and Pilar were the teachers that visited our school last year. Fortunately, I had the chance of going to classes of them both. It was very good.

I'm also very glad to say that there are not a lot of differences betwee our school method and the one used here, but on the other hand I know that the others schools of Brazil still need a lot of to get better.

That's all, folks!
Warm Hugs!

Posted by Amanda Furtado