Observations of a school

Saturday has come, and with it the last day of school this week.  Since I don't have much homework, I think I'll take the opportunity to share some of my observations.

To begin with, I will describe my school.  One of the main tourist attractions of the town is a church that was begun in the 13th century-- but was never finished.  It's directly across the street from my window.  As part of the church building there is an old monastery, which is now the school for the upper grades of high school.  So, in the morning I look out of my window and see a huge crowd of kids heading up the steps towards the church and figure that I should probably get moving.  I follow them up the steps, then just to the right of the church facade I go through a heavy wooden door into a walled courtyard.  It has roofed pathways around all four sides, but the center is open and green.

Continuing onward is the main entrance to the school.  If we were to enter there, we would find a rabbit's warren of classrooms with the names of classes-- I'm 4AS-- printed onto a sheet of paper taped to the wall.  Each class has only one classroom and set of classmates; the teachers change classrooms, rather than the students.  However, we'll continue our tour by walking around two sides of the courtyard and coming to an open doorway.  Here is the gym, where I had my P.E. today.  It will take enough time to describe that I'd rather not divert the topic with a useless-- though amusing-- tangent at the moment.  I'd much rather leave you in suspense.  Anyhow, just beyond is another open doorway, which leads to a sort of walled grassy area.

All right, now that you have some idea of the physical aspects of my school, I can describe some things that I've noticed, namely that a lot of behavior would be totally illegal in the US.  Smoking is a lot more common here, and you don't have to be eighteen.  While in the US a student can be expelled for possessing cigarettes, here teens leave their packs on the table and openly roll their own.  No smoking is allowed inside the building, however, so during break there is a flock outside to the courtyard.

Another thing that would cause issues in the US is the lack of security.  By that, I mean that no one makes sure that kids don't leave the campus.  That's because, as long as you show up for your classes, it's perfectly fine to go out and, say, buy a pack of cigarettes.  I'm not taking French, and my class has had French first period the past three days, so that just means that I get to sleep in!  Or, I can show up to school and hang out with my friends.  My choice.  My mother has reported seeing high-schoolers all over town through the school day.  Gotta love those free periods!

Speaking of which, I have to describe the school schedule.  Theoretically, we have school from 8:10 to 12:30 six days a week.  However, as I have already mentioned, I've been having a lot of French-- so I haven't been showing up until about nine.  For the first week the school administration hadn't put together timetables yet, so we would literally take classes day by day.  Homework assignments, if any, ran something like this: "Complete these exercises before you have your next class with me, whenever that is."  It's just today that we got our real schedules.

As part of this confusion, a couple of days ago we only had four periods-- and one of them was French.  That means that I was in school from 9:00 to 11:30.  Today was my busiest day yet-- I actually had to arrive at 8:00 and didn't leave until 12:30!  But before you pity me too much, I have to explain.

First period was supposed to be mathematics, but we had a substitute.  He, for lack of anything better to do, declared that we would be doing a "computer information lab".  We all rushed to a different room and sat down, two or three to a computer, and proceeded to browse Facebook, the news, and which soccer teams will be playing next.  Every so often the teacher would break up the fun by syncing all of the computers to his-- and showing us clips of video games that he wants.  So passed first period.

Two more periods and a break, then two periods of P.E.  The teacher showed up about fifteen minutes after it was supposed to start, but you mustn't blame her because the schedule had just been released.  She then talked about herself, us, and the year for half an hour, eventually asking if we wanted to go down to the gym.

And now, the much-awaited, in-depth description.  The gym itself is fairly nondescript, a small one with a volleyball net across the middle, a basketball hoop with tatters hanging down, and a set of monkey bars that I think is actually a ladder mounted sideways on the wall.  What merits a description is the changing room.

Walking through the gym, one comes to an open doorway.  Walks down a few steps, through another open doorway into a smallish room with benches, maybe a few lockers, and nothing else.  Actually, there is something else: a frosted glass door.  Behind said door is the plumbed part of the facilities-- a couple of open shower stalls, a sink, and a bidet.  That's it.  These are the changing rooms.

Since this is coed, the boys and girls go down together, finish their conversations, and segregate themselves, the boys in the open room and the girls in the plumbed one.  When it appears that pretty much everyone has come down, the girls close the door and everyone starts changing.  Of course, if another girl appears, she walks through the boys to get to the girls' area.  Oh, also when the boys get bored, they push the door open.  They do, however, have the decency to step back afterwards.

I hope that no one finds this post to be disparaging-- I'm merely describing the things about my school that I find amusing.  Although I don't have a particularly heavy workload yet, it appears to have a good curriculum.  I'm taking physics, science (anatomy), math, literature (I'm studying the Divine Comedy in the original Italian), P.E., philosophy, religion, design and history of art, history, Italian, Latin, and (my personal favorite) English.  For some of the teachers all I can do is try to listen, and copy my friends' notes later, but I've been very proud of myself-- I took a lot of notes in math and physics today.  My Italian is progressing very rapidly;  everyone has been incredibly friendly.  My problem is not finding someone to sit next to, but trying not to ignore anyone.  Students and teachers alike are very happy to explain during class.  I've made friends with everyone in my class-- today I went out to see a movie with some of them. 

However, this post has gotten incredibly long, so I must tell you more some other time.

Ciao!
Eleanor

Sorry, a few more culture notes: one of my teachers referred to the Bible as "the Sacred Scripture"-- this is a public school! She also sent one of the students out in the middle of class to buy her a coffee.