Be True To Your School

So I know I have not written in a super long time. I will write a original one soon. But I wrote this for our local news paper and thought you all might enjoy it.

An Ecuadorian School Day

So be true to your school now

Just like you would to your girl or guy
               Be true to your school now
               And let your colors fly
               Be true to your school

Save the jeans and t-shirts for the weekends. White polo shirt, red acrylic pullover sweater, grey pleated skirt, black shined shoes, all topped off with white knee high socks. Not my everyday outfit in the United States, but it’s what you will find me in every day here in Ecuador. This is just one of the major differences that I have gotten used to while attending my all girls public school in my small mountain town in Ecuador.

            At 7am sharp the bell rings and school starts. I join the flood of students all adorned in our normal uniform or, on lucky days, our gym uniform, an acrylic red suit that makes you sort of look like a strawberry. As we walk into the school students are stopped to take out colored hair accessories or colored scarves, if you want to accessorize your look for the day everything you use must be white. Then we all head to our perspective classes where we will spend the rest of the day. Starting in the equivalent of your sophomore year in high school you choose a specialty and that is the class you will stay with for the rest of your high school career and that is the field you will stay with for the rest of your life. You can choose a specialty like chemistry-biology, or physics-mathematics (my specialty) that is leading you toward a more educated and technical job, most likely including higher education. Or you can take the path of accounting or computing that will lead you toward immediate job options after high school is over. Either way you are with the same kids for all 8 of the 45 minuet periods a day 5 days a week for 3 years.  The school assigns all the classes and they all go directly with your specialty, art and music classes are unheard of here. Everything is strictly academic. 

            I am used to walking to and from my classes, but here teachers come and go and the students are in the same class room all day, with the exceptions of gym where we head out to the school court yard or computer programming where we walk to one of the schools few computer labs. Teachers here are paid an 80-cent an hour salary so there is often little incentive for teachers to show up, some times they just don’t. I don’t think I have had one day yet in my 3 months of school where I have had all my normal classes at normal times. This is a heightened phenomenon because they don’t have a substitute system set up, so if a teacher is sick or has another appointment, no class for that hour. After about 10 minuets of waiting the students will wander out of the classroom and go eat a plate of rice and chicken at the little snack bar in the school or bask in the sun on the bleachers and pretend to be studying for an upcoming test.

            When classes happen they are structured very differently then in the States. From the minuet the teacher walks in the loud talkative class of gossiping girls is immediately transformed into the perfect quite class. As the teacher walks to the front of the room all the students stand up until instructed to sit again. Then the students greet the teacher and the teacher greets the class as a whole. This is a custom you will see in all daily interactions in Ecuador, whether you are passing a friend on the street or having business meeting a greeting always starts off the interaction. Depending on the genders of the greeting people it is either a kiss on the cheek or a handshake. When I first got here this was hard to get used to, but now it is a habit. After the greeting the teacher asks the class for a marker to write on the white board in the classroom: the students supply everything for class here, we even have to pay for the copying of our final exams. As the teacher writes the lesson out on the board all the students get out their notebooks and copy it down, text books are few and far between so everything is hand written and work sheets are unheard of. Once the teacher is done with the lesson they pack up and leave, this can range from 20 minutes to 90 minutes, depending on how the teacher is feeling that day, but either way the students do not complain. The number one unspoken rule in Ecuadorian classrooms is respect for the teacher. Even if they are wrong, you don’t talk back or correct them, it is about the rudest thing you could do.

            As school finishes students walk out of the school gates and get ready to head home where they will eat lunch and get to homework. The school day is complete and its time to spend time with family and get ready for the next day to come.