School Days

I thought I should post something to honor my halfway point. 5 months down, 5 to go. I’ve been thinking about this one a lot and I want to write about the differences between school here and school in America. Everyone should know that I have never gone to a “normal American school” so this is my observations compared to my school experience. Each paragraph will be about a different topic. Enjoy!

I go to Garay János Gimnázium, which has around 300 students and my worst enemy: stairs. It is so different from what I’ve experienced in American and it makes it hard to answer a question that I get all the time: “How is school different in America?” In truth, I don’t know. My entire graduating class was 40 people. My class here, 12A, is a little over 30 people. I don’t know how to explain that my entire school could fit into 2 or 3 classes here.

One of the first things I noticed was that everyone here uses pens. Only pens. I don’t know about everyone else, but I’ve always used a mechanical pencil for all my written homework. My host brother looked at my mechanical pencil like he’d never seen one before. Is this a European thing? Are Americans too afraid of commitment to use pens?

Everything, everything is hand written. Homework, tests, essays, everything. A lot of students have low typing skills, something that would be detrimental to an American student. A lot of families don’t own a printer (mine included) and I have only seen one or two typed assignments. When you come from a school that encouraged you to type everything, it is a bit of a shock to suddenly go to the polar opposite.

Most of my classes are in one classroom, but I move around for biology, English 3, and P.E. For most classes, the students hang out in the classroom until the bell rings. The teacher usually doesn’t come in until a few minutes later and when he or she does, everyone is instantly silent and stands up. Then, one person from the class goes to the front and tells the teacher the date and who is absent. The teacher writes down the names and tells everyone to sit down before beginning the lesson. Some teachers are really strict about this and some walk into the classroom saying “sit down” and casually ask who is missing.

Something I find hilarious is the juxtaposition of the blackboards with the chalk right next to the smartboards that hook up to the computer and have a pen you can use to interact with it. Not every classroom has smartboards, but most do and it’s really funny to see which teachers know how to use it and which ones just ask the students to deal with it.

Some teachers are really strict while others are super chill. During the more relaxed classes, students usually end up talking among themselves.  To get attention back, teachers knock on the desk.

I was a little nervous to go to the cafeteria here. I’d never gone to a cafeteria before and I was wondering how it would compare to the horror stories of American cafeteria food. I was surprised to find out that the cafeteria wasn’t on the campus. In fact, the cafeteria doesn’t belong to the school at all, it belongs to the city. The cafeteria serves anyone in the city. You can buy tickets from the school that you can use at the cafeteria. Every day after school, we make our way across the city to have lunch. Students stand in line with the unfortunate adults who are trying to get lunch at the time school gets out.

Please keep in mind that these observations are compared to my “alternative” school experiences. I’ve been in three different home schools since 5^th grade, so my school experiences here might be a lot closer to American high school than I think. I really wouldn’t know.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Here’s to another great 5 months!

-Alina