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We leave the hotel in time to get to school, but we show up at the kindergarten and primary building and they are waiting for us at the 1st grade secondary school.
Ida, one of the teachers, takes us by car to the other building which is a few minutes away.
The reception is very warm, they welcome us with a small breakfast made by the teachers themselves and with lots of coffee.
Their educational system is quite different from ours, both in terms of organization and the pedagogical aspect.
Monday mornings start with foreign language. All students have English as their first foreign language and as a second they can choose between French, German or Spanish. We get into the classroom where they are doing Spanish. The teacher, who is quite funny, gets the students to participate by establishing a conversation with us. She introduces us to the group that is learning English and we talk to them too. One student sings the song "This girl is on fire".
We are then shown the different classrooms for specialties such as music, art, computer science, science and stem.
The classrooms are quite empty, with few visual stimulation or manipulative materials, however, the stem classroom is equipped with a 3D printer and a laser cutter to make models.
The music classroom has only a piano and a drum set but what they do most of the time is singing.
They have a garden.
The library has about 10,000 copies, mostly books for adults since the library is open to the neighborhood. But there are very few ones for young people aged 10 to 14, which are the ones that are located in this building. Books for young people focus mostly on multiculturalism.
In the middle of the morning there is a 15 minute break to eat breakfast and go to the toilet. Since the pandemic, they do not go out to the playground and stay in the classrooms. During break time there is a great movement of teachers in the corridor to get coffee.
We go to the nursery and primary school. The building opened last year and is self-sustaining (it has solar panels). As they are a center that participates in many projects, they receive many grants and financial aid in return, and this is why it was possible to build the building. One of these projects is the Hen House and the vegetable garden they have created.
It has a workshop room that they use for sewing and making ceramics,. They even have an oven to bake the clay. It also has a technology classroom, where this year they will build a greenhouse with wood. This project allows them to do math and science work. The dining room is very large and the kitchen is used for cooking workshops with the students. They also have a room for recording radio and television programs that are broadcast on local radio and television stations.
Despite having a very new building, the classrooms look very empty and due to the distribution of the two buildings, it seems that the lessons are very masterful as all the students sit individually.
The center has a considerable number of students with some kind of special educational needs, especially with mobility problems and mental disabilities. The building for older students has architectural barriers. There are numerous support teachers to attend to the diversity of students..
It has been quiet an intense 1st day!
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