Chilean School

Disclaimer: all of this is not necessarily what school is like in all of Chile. Some of it might be, but most of it is probably not. 

My school is "St. Patrick's School of Temuco". (Yes it is "school", not "colegio" or "escuela". Don't ask me why.)

I start school at 8am (vs 7:45) and get out at 4:15 (vs 2:45). The chileans will tell you that this is why we rarely get homework, which I sure don't mind. However, all this extra time we spend in school is taken off in breaks. We get about a 15 minute break 3 times a day with 45 minutes for lunch. I'll definitely take more school in exchange for longer breaks and almost no homework over my 5 minute breaks and mountains of homework any day. It just gives me more time to talk to my friends anyway! 

The fact that the semester final is 60% of your grade changes everything. It basically means that you can mess around all day, and only sometimes do your homework, because it doesn't really matter anyway. It's rather nice how laid back chilean school is. But those finals are going to really suck. 

Uniforms. You know, like "catholic school" uniforms. 'nough said.

Tiny schools are cool. My school is super tiny. We have 1-2 class rooms for each grade. Pre-school through 12th grade. 

We start school in mid-Febuary (this year the 24th) and go until mid-December (this year the 16th). Which leaves me with a pretty nice, three month, break. We also get 2 weeks off in July for Winter Break, and a week off in the middle of September for independence day. 

I have one class, of 25 people (more or less). We take all of the same classes and stay in the same room for the whole day. The teachers are the ones that move around. My schedule is as follows:

Monday: History, Language, English, Chemistry, and Language (again yes)

Tuesday: Physical Education, English, Biology, Music, and Math

Wednesday: Biology, Language, Physics & Chemistry, Math, and home room

Thursday: Physics, (some class where we watch movies), English, Math, and Language

Friday: Language, Math, History, (?) Research maybe?, and... Math.

We bring our lunches from home, and mine is always something delicious in a Tupperware container, which I heat up in the microwave. 

We can buy candy from that girl over there who sells it out of her backpack. Or you could just save your money for after school when we can walk to the store across the street and buy: soda, french fries, pastries, etc. 

That's basically all, besides the fact that it's not illegal to walk to field trips. Here are some photos.

This is my classroom

Still my classroom

it opens right up into the courtyar

This is the courtyard where we spend our breaks.

I am in 10th Rauli. 10th is the grade, and Rauli is a tree. All the classrooms are named after trees

This is me on a field trip to a college fair. It's also my school uniform.

friends. :-) View also the guy's uniform and the jacket.

the gym

the 18th of September is independence day. It's like a month long holiday.

We have random things in English throughout the school. Like this sign, the sign for the library, the classrooms, etc. I'm not really sure why.