School Stuff

Today was the public speaking competition. My student, Catalina, unfortunatley didn't finish in the top three and won't be advancing to the next round. I thought that Catalina was the second best student there. The judges, however, disagreed giving it to a boy who gave a very enthusiastic but error prone speech, and another kid who spoke perhaps a tad more clearly and loudly but had a simple speech. Catalina speech was well done, but she stood a little further from the microphone so it was a tad harder to hear her. Oh well.

They students also got back their grades for their first trimester this week. My host brother Alex got some mediocre marks (I think the equivalent of some low B's) so his mom is making him drop out of the student government for the rest of the year to focus more on his grades ... creating some household tension. In Chile, grades and test are the sole determinants to what college you go to, making extra curriuculars much less important.

I also realized this week that one of the biggest differences between schools in Chile and schools in the United States is that in the states, classes tend to be arranged by student skill level so that all the good students are in the same class. Here, all students go to all their classes (actually the students stay in the same class room all day and the teacher rotate, as a volunteer I am the sole exception to theis) with the same students meaning that there is a greater mixing of skill levels. I wonder if this related to the notion of solidarity that frequently mentioned as strong value here or to ease of scheduling.