La escuela en Latinoamérica

La estructura La primeria – grados 1-6La secundaria – grados 7-9El colegio/El preparatorio – grados

10-12

School is mandatory depending on the city or state.

School is free until “el colegio”, where you must pay for your textbooks.

La vida en la escuela

• Poverty is an issue in many Latin American countries therefore many students don’t get to attend school after grade six because of cost.

• Also, children tend to work to help their family.

• Literacy rate 96% versus 98% in the U.S.

The school year runs from about mid September to the end of June.

There usually are not half terms.

There are A LOT of holidays! But no summer vacation.

Uniforms are typical even in public schools.

The grading scale in Mexico is commonly 1 to 10, and teachers give examinations 5 times a year in each grade. The tests must cover the national curriculum, but are developed locally. There is a national examination at the end of the school year. Students who score less than a 6 on the test are retained in the same grade level for the coming year. 

 Every Monday there are patriotic exercises in which the children display the flag, sing the national anthem, and listen as adults exhort them to be respectful and conscientious students.

Mid-morning there is a "recreo," a break to eat snacks and play outside. 

There is no mandatory bus service.

In Mexico, children grades 1-6 are in school for 4 hours a day, and some urban students work in the morning and attend school in the late afternoon. In grades 7-12 school is 7 hours long

Mexican students are expected to show respect to the "maestro/a" (the teacher). Parents usually assume that teachers will make the best decisions for their children, and it is not the norm for parents to intervene in school matters unless asked. 

Eye WitnessesI have 14 subjects: Math, Literature, Physics

and Chemistry, Civics, Typing, History, Geography, Artistic Expression, Guidance, Computer Science, Language, Spanish, and Phys Ed. I like Artistic Expression and Geography because they're not hard or as boring as the others. The subjects almost everyone likes least are Physics and Chemistry, because the teacher is "mala onda" (very strict and demanding).

Eye WitnessesLiterature and Language are in

English. For Literature, we read stories, novels and short stories, and in language we study grammar, communication and spelling.

We have 5 minutes between classes to get to our room.

Eye WitnessesDuring recess almost everyone eats

"molletes" (a bread roll split in two and covered with beans and cheese). Anyone at Sierra Nevada who hasn't had "molletes" is missing out on something delicious, or else he doesn't know where the "Cafe" (cafeteria) is.

 We also play soccer at recess and "gorreamos" -

sponge - potato chips off our friends.

Eye WitnessesThe hardest thing for me is that

there are a lot of exams; I have between 1 and 5 a week, and there's a lot of pressure. There's a good side to everything, though - there are no term exams or finals at Sierra Nevada, and you can be excused from taking the exams every two months if you have a 9 average.