First week school impressions
I’m finishing up my first week at school, and the differences are starting to stick out. First, the students wear uniforms, and are VERY polite. Not only do they call you “sir” or “ma’am,” but they call you “sir” or “ma’am” in almost every sentence they say to you. It’s very nice.
One thing I like about student teaching here is that they want you to observe different teachers. I have 3 different cooperating teachers. I have Linda for Grade 12 and Grade 10 (Maths literacy), Ms. Roberts for 2 Grade 8 classes (I go to one class every day, and the other class half of the time), and Mr. Loubster for another Grade 8. It was really hard finding classes that didn’t overlap, which is actually most student teachers end up doing. I wanted to be able to see the classes every single day, so I’m lucky ending up with 4 full classes. All students have to take maths until 10th grade. Then, and this is new this year, they must take either maths or maths literacy in grades 10 through 12. (Before, they could choose to take maths or not, they didn’t have maths literacy yet).
The math curriculum: math is much more abstract here. I’m very glad that I had classes like Abstract Algebra and Foundations of Geometry, because I know I didn’t have some of this in high school. I’m also helping out with the Maths Olympiad team, which has a lot of number theory questions.
Also, the curriculum is countrywide, and school-wide. It’s kind of hard to explain and it took me this whole week to figure out. First, every maths teacher teaches every grade. So instead of teaching only grade 9 and 10, but having 3 sections of each, they teach grade 8-12, meaning most teachers have 4-5 preps each day. They also have classes at different times every day, which takes some time to get used to. I carry my schedule with me everywhere and I wish I had it tattooed on the back of my hand (hmm, Sam’s method of writing notes to himself is starting to sound appealing). Also, most grades have maths at the same time. So every teacher has grade 11 at the same time. (This means I got stuck with a grade 12 class even though I really only want to teach grade 8,9, and 10).
Each day, there is the morning meeting, registration period (homeroom, which I don’t have unless a teacher is absent), 5 periods, a break, periods 6-9, a break, and periods 10-11. Each period is ½ hour, so most classes last 2 periods. I’ll post my schedule next so you can see what I mean.
Exactly what you have to teach to each grade is set by the country. They also come up with the grading system. You have to give a school-wide test over each concept, 2 nation-wide cumulative tests (on the same day, at the same time), you have to give one “assignment,” one “project,” and one “investigation.” You also have to give class tests over each concept. Then, the school decides what the “assignment,” “project,” and “investigation” will be. The math teachers will all meet and decide when the Grade 8’s will have their test over Algebra (It’s going to be on Tuesday, which upsets one of my teachers because she feels her class isn’t ready, and yet they still must take the test on Tuesday). The head of the department will write the test, and everyone must administer the same test at the same time. Right now, it feels very strict and very frustrating. We’ll see how I feel about it after I’ve been teaching. Oh, the tests are HARD, too. There’s no multiple choice, etc. The one that I have seen had about 10 questions written in sentence form (the dreaded story problems!).
Also, not one of my teachers grades homework. They expect the students to have done it. They don’t give points for having it done or anything. They can give an academic default (4 defaults and you have weeklong lunch detention, plus academic defaults have to be signed by parents) for homework not being completed. Everyday, the teachers have the students take out a red pen as the teacher (with help from students) goes over every homework problem from the night before. The students have to check their own, and write the correct work if they miss it. I REALLY like this part of the schools. They do the same thing with tests- the teachers grade the tests, hand them back, and then go over every problem with the students.
Once homework is graded, the teachers go over notes on the overhead or board. Students don’t copy the notes, they just listen, until the teacher tells them to copy the notes into their notebook. Then they are given classwork, while the teacher walks around and helps, and finally, homework. They have to do everything in a composition book.
I’ve already been thrown in front of the class, which was nice but scary. One of the other math teachers had to leave school, and she had a ½ hour grade 9 class. She wrote all the notes on transparencies for me to put on the overhead and explain to the class. The class was HORRIBLE (noisy and distracting), and that day (this was Tuesday), I didn’t have the default slips with me, so I didn’t really have anything to threaten them with. I spent a lot of time standing at the front saying that I would wait for them to quiet down (which I think is really very fun and powerful in its own way), but I would have liked to throw out a couple defaults at the beginning and shut up the noisy ones. At least we got through everything on the transparencies.
I really like the Grade 12 class that I have. They’re called matrics, because they take the matriculation exam this year (something they have to do to get into college). They’re all very mature and very good in class. They know to take school seriously.
A few things I don’t like: first, when a teacher is absent, those students go to “substitution,” which means they just split up and sit in the back of another teacher’s class for that period. They have no substitute teachers. Second, teachers must clean their own classrooms.
In addition to school life, I’ve noticed some other differences in my daily life, that may be hard to get used to.
1. Money. I never realized that I took for granted being able to glance at the change in my hand and know how much each coin was worth. Also, I have to mentally divide every price I hear by 6, to know the English equivalent. Even worse was listening to a conversation comparing the South African Rand to the British pound. My brain wouldn’t work unless I converted the Rand to US dollars and then to pounds.
2. Celcius and the metric system. I just don’t get it. I never will.
3. Driving on the left hand side of the road. Okay, I’m sort of getting used to it. But along with that comes getting into the car on the left hand side (passenger side), and, worst of all, walking down the sidewalk and past people in the halls on the left side (something I never even considered). Also, the median on the roads is painted white as well as the lane dividers, which is confusing, and the yellow stripe is on the OUTSIDE edge of the road.
4. The stoplights turn yellow before both red and green. Kinda nice, actually.
5. People text message like crazy here. I have a cell phone, and as soon as I figure out how to call my phone from the US, I’ll post the number. I’m pretty sure you guys can text message me. But yeah, SMS has taken the place of calling people.
6. Not many places have fountain pop. Even weirder, you don’t get free refills.
7. Everything is so small! Shampoo bottles, bags of chips, everything! I’m so used to buying in bulk to save money, but you definitely can’t do that here.
8. Hearing things like “Is Ohio near Texas?” ALL the time from my students (I started carrying around a map of the US), and things about my accent (my favorite was “you sound like you’re from the television!”)
9. The absolute WORST culture-shock that I’m going through right now: not being able to drive myself anywhere.
The teachers are happy to have me explore the country, so they’re okay with me taking a day or two off when I can take a trip. This weekend, Dan (the other COST student from OU) and I are going to Jeffrey’s Bay (BIG surfing area, maybe I’ll take a few lessons!) with another exchange student who is staying with Dan. Their host family is driving us and dropping us off. We leave tomorrow (no school for us on Friday!) and come back Sunday. Keep your fingers crossed for me to do well on a surfboard!
One thing I like about student teaching here is that they want you to observe different teachers. I have 3 different cooperating teachers. I have Linda for Grade 12 and Grade 10 (Maths literacy), Ms. Roberts for 2 Grade 8 classes (I go to one class every day, and the other class half of the time), and Mr. Loubster for another Grade 8. It was really hard finding classes that didn’t overlap, which is actually most student teachers end up doing. I wanted to be able to see the classes every single day, so I’m lucky ending up with 4 full classes. All students have to take maths until 10th grade. Then, and this is new this year, they must take either maths or maths literacy in grades 10 through 12. (Before, they could choose to take maths or not, they didn’t have maths literacy yet).
The math curriculum: math is much more abstract here. I’m very glad that I had classes like Abstract Algebra and Foundations of Geometry, because I know I didn’t have some of this in high school. I’m also helping out with the Maths Olympiad team, which has a lot of number theory questions.
Also, the curriculum is countrywide, and school-wide. It’s kind of hard to explain and it took me this whole week to figure out. First, every maths teacher teaches every grade. So instead of teaching only grade 9 and 10, but having 3 sections of each, they teach grade 8-12, meaning most teachers have 4-5 preps each day. They also have classes at different times every day, which takes some time to get used to. I carry my schedule with me everywhere and I wish I had it tattooed on the back of my hand (hmm, Sam’s method of writing notes to himself is starting to sound appealing). Also, most grades have maths at the same time. So every teacher has grade 11 at the same time. (This means I got stuck with a grade 12 class even though I really only want to teach grade 8,9, and 10).
Each day, there is the morning meeting, registration period (homeroom, which I don’t have unless a teacher is absent), 5 periods, a break, periods 6-9, a break, and periods 10-11. Each period is ½ hour, so most classes last 2 periods. I’ll post my schedule next so you can see what I mean.
Exactly what you have to teach to each grade is set by the country. They also come up with the grading system. You have to give a school-wide test over each concept, 2 nation-wide cumulative tests (on the same day, at the same time), you have to give one “assignment,” one “project,” and one “investigation.” You also have to give class tests over each concept. Then, the school decides what the “assignment,” “project,” and “investigation” will be. The math teachers will all meet and decide when the Grade 8’s will have their test over Algebra (It’s going to be on Tuesday, which upsets one of my teachers because she feels her class isn’t ready, and yet they still must take the test on Tuesday). The head of the department will write the test, and everyone must administer the same test at the same time. Right now, it feels very strict and very frustrating. We’ll see how I feel about it after I’ve been teaching. Oh, the tests are HARD, too. There’s no multiple choice, etc. The one that I have seen had about 10 questions written in sentence form (the dreaded story problems!).
Also, not one of my teachers grades homework. They expect the students to have done it. They don’t give points for having it done or anything. They can give an academic default (4 defaults and you have weeklong lunch detention, plus academic defaults have to be signed by parents) for homework not being completed. Everyday, the teachers have the students take out a red pen as the teacher (with help from students) goes over every homework problem from the night before. The students have to check their own, and write the correct work if they miss it. I REALLY like this part of the schools. They do the same thing with tests- the teachers grade the tests, hand them back, and then go over every problem with the students.
Once homework is graded, the teachers go over notes on the overhead or board. Students don’t copy the notes, they just listen, until the teacher tells them to copy the notes into their notebook. Then they are given classwork, while the teacher walks around and helps, and finally, homework. They have to do everything in a composition book.
I’ve already been thrown in front of the class, which was nice but scary. One of the other math teachers had to leave school, and she had a ½ hour grade 9 class. She wrote all the notes on transparencies for me to put on the overhead and explain to the class. The class was HORRIBLE (noisy and distracting), and that day (this was Tuesday), I didn’t have the default slips with me, so I didn’t really have anything to threaten them with. I spent a lot of time standing at the front saying that I would wait for them to quiet down (which I think is really very fun and powerful in its own way), but I would have liked to throw out a couple defaults at the beginning and shut up the noisy ones. At least we got through everything on the transparencies.
I really like the Grade 12 class that I have. They’re called matrics, because they take the matriculation exam this year (something they have to do to get into college). They’re all very mature and very good in class. They know to take school seriously.
A few things I don’t like: first, when a teacher is absent, those students go to “substitution,” which means they just split up and sit in the back of another teacher’s class for that period. They have no substitute teachers. Second, teachers must clean their own classrooms.
In addition to school life, I’ve noticed some other differences in my daily life, that may be hard to get used to.
1. Money. I never realized that I took for granted being able to glance at the change in my hand and know how much each coin was worth. Also, I have to mentally divide every price I hear by 6, to know the English equivalent. Even worse was listening to a conversation comparing the South African Rand to the British pound. My brain wouldn’t work unless I converted the Rand to US dollars and then to pounds.
2. Celcius and the metric system. I just don’t get it. I never will.
3. Driving on the left hand side of the road. Okay, I’m sort of getting used to it. But along with that comes getting into the car on the left hand side (passenger side), and, worst of all, walking down the sidewalk and past people in the halls on the left side (something I never even considered). Also, the median on the roads is painted white as well as the lane dividers, which is confusing, and the yellow stripe is on the OUTSIDE edge of the road.
4. The stoplights turn yellow before both red and green. Kinda nice, actually.
5. People text message like crazy here. I have a cell phone, and as soon as I figure out how to call my phone from the US, I’ll post the number. I’m pretty sure you guys can text message me. But yeah, SMS has taken the place of calling people.
6. Not many places have fountain pop. Even weirder, you don’t get free refills.
7. Everything is so small! Shampoo bottles, bags of chips, everything! I’m so used to buying in bulk to save money, but you definitely can’t do that here.
8. Hearing things like “Is Ohio near Texas?” ALL the time from my students (I started carrying around a map of the US), and things about my accent (my favorite was “you sound like you’re from the television!”)
9. The absolute WORST culture-shock that I’m going through right now: not being able to drive myself anywhere.
The teachers are happy to have me explore the country, so they’re okay with me taking a day or two off when I can take a trip. This weekend, Dan (the other COST student from OU) and I are going to Jeffrey’s Bay (BIG surfing area, maybe I’ll take a few lessons!) with another exchange student who is staying with Dan. Their host family is driving us and dropping us off. We leave tomorrow (no school for us on Friday!) and come back Sunday. Keep your fingers crossed for me to do well on a surfboard!
posted by Katie | 2:52 AM
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