School Days

Confusion.

That sums up my first few days in school extremely well. I  knew it would be difficult, I would be surrounded by new places, complete strangers, and I would have to overcome a language barrier. To say the least, I was nervous.

I survived though.

I was thrust into the high school life, without even knowing how the school operated. I learned a lot in my first couple days!

• In Belgium the high school is divided up in separate grades, marked from 1-6, with 6 being the highest. I am in the 6th grade.
• When you enter high school you get to choose between various 'options'. In these options two classes of your choice will have extra hours added to them. My option is French/History, so I have more hours of those two classes than my others. (Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Math, English, Religion, Gym)
• The schedules are still a little confusing to me. Each option has a letter equivalent, which I had not been aware of at first. The schedule for two weeks is posted on a board, and you find your grade and then option and can see what classes you will have on what days. Sometimes there are periods when there are no classes, study halls of sorts. Dependent on your classes there could be days you could come to school an hour later, or leave an hour earlier. It's strange, I'm still trying to figure it out!
• The schedule also shows what room the classes will be held in. Both teachers and students change rooms during classes, and have to carry all their stuff from room to room.
• ALL Wednesdays are half days. Yeah, I know. When I first heard this, I asked why. Everyone's answer was just a shrugging their shoulders. That's just the way it is, I'm not going to question it.

 

I still have a lot of figure out about the setup and inner workings of the school, and I'm still not really sure what's going on around me half the time! Thankfully a few courteous students have taken me under their wing and have been dragging me around from class to class and making sure the poor American gets to where she's supposed to be!

Now, I have already completed High School in the states, so you would think I at least have the school supplies aspect down. Wong.

• Instead of using folders or notebooks, the students here use binders. All papers the teachers hand out have holes already punched in them, and the students just put them in their binders.
• The students here use a lot of bloc paper, paper I had never even used before
• Also, parents are very involved in the students life. Test scores have to be seen and signed by the parents. This was strange to me, since in high school in the U.S. parents don't have such involvement

So yes, that has been my school experience as of yet. I still have quite a while in the school, and it will be interesting to see more differences as I am better able to communicate with the students. My language learning is going slowly, but the students are encouraging my attempts at French. It's difficult, but I'm doing just fine!

Classes rarely make any sense... except English!