Expert interview: school in Costa Rica

Today Madeleine and Henry agreed to an interview about going to school in Costa Rica.  Sullivan was already in bed, so his interview will have to come later.  Enjoy!

How is school going?

M:  Esta bien

H:  Good

What was most surprising about school?

H:  How nice everyone was.  Also, nobody is absent or late to school.

M:  How everyone actually makes an effort to be nice and try to help us.

How is it that kids can be nice when you don’t speak the same language?

H:  Hmmm, very complicated question.  They are nice by motioning so that I can understand most of what they are saying.

M:  It may be because they are Costa Rican, or maybe because we are different or more interesting, so they want to be nice to us.

How does school here compare to school in Portland?

H: It is a lot different.  The playground is a lot different.  Lunch is always good; it is always rice and beans with other things.  We have more PE time here.  School is a little bit shorter, and there are no substitute teachers [so when teachers are out, there is no class].

M: It is definitely a lot more laid back here.  In general, the kids are more friendly.  If the language was the same (English), school here is more fun.  But I have to admit you would not learn as much here.  The teaching is different;  here all the teacher has is one extra notebook, a planner.  Mostly they just use the workbooks we have for teaching.  Projects here seem very laid back.  People just goofed off when we were meant to do a social studies project on my first day.  We had to meet the next day at someone’s house to finish the project.

How does the coursework compare?

H: There are a lot less books.  It is all compacted into 4 subjects: math, science, social studies and Spanish [and English too].  You copy most of it off the board.  So far there are no tests, except one that I had to bring home for homework [an assessment].

M: Yes, you copy lots of stuff.  It seems like you don’t even have to do that much individual work.  The teacher always writes the answer on the board, and everything is right in front of you.  You don’t have to work hard at all.  The answer is always right in front of you.

Do you think you are teaching the other kids anything, or will you?

H:  I am teaching them some English, I have to say.

M:  I probably will be able to.  I can help in math.  I can only help in English right now.

Are you ahead of where they are in school?

H: I feel like I am behind [Henry is in 4th grade here, compared to 3rd in Portland].  Probably in math, the school here is ahead, as we are covering numbers up to 100,000.  It is harder here because it is all in Spanish.  In social studies, it is all new material for me [geology of Costa Rica].  In Spanish, we have been working on comparing words used in different Spanish-speaking countries.  We did not do that in English in Portland.  In the computer lab here, we are learning how to program things: making cartoon things move on the screen and do certain things.

M:  Math problems here are easy, unless it is a story problem, since I don’t understand the Spanish yet.  In social studies, it is all new, since it is about Costa Rica, and I have not studied this before.  The Spanish work here seems behind the English work in Portland.  Here they are just studying punctuation.  In some subjects like social studies, I looked ahead in the book and there is info on early humans, as we already studied in Portland.  Same with science; some material coming up is the same as we had studied already in Portland.  [the school year just started here in Feb]  It is hard to judge things though, as we have only been here for 2 weeks.  

How is the behavior of kids in class different here?

M:  Hooo!  Kids are more naughty and talk a lot in class.  Sometime the whole class starts to yell and the teacher does not do much about it.  Today our teacher started yelling at them and was mad.  She had to move some people because they were talking and not paying attention.  Only a few kids (girls) really pay attention.  The first day of school, everyone said if you don’t want to be picked on, you have to use bad words.  Even the girls use bad language.  They say a certain 4-letter word in English, then they look at me and say “ohhh, sorry!” to me when they realize what they said.

H: In my class there was only one kid who was misbehaving.  He pushed another guy into a puddle and he got in trouble.

What do kids do at recess?

H:  We run around and play soccer and play games in the soccer court.  We play tag and get chased.

M:  All the girls walk around or bring out phones and listen to music and sit around.  All the boys play soccer, not like that matters or anything.

What kind of music?

M:  1D [One Direction] and Justin Bieber

What would you like to tell or show your friends from Portland?

M: They would definitely not make it.  

Why?  

M:  They would have no clue, and it is so different here, they would not know how to handle it.  There was one time yesterday when some kids thought school was over, so they were packing up to leave, then when the teacher told them school was not over yet, they walked back in and the other kids started whooping and hollering at them.  Everyone wrestles at recess and they pull each other down the stairs.  They are always smiling and not hurting each other though.

Do teachers stop the wrestling?

H: Oh no

M: They don’t care at all.  

What is hard about school?

M:  I hate sitting in school and not understand anything they are saying.  I don’t know what to do.

H:  The hardest thing is not understanding my friends.

Are you trying to speak Spanish?

H:  Si. I am trying to speak to my friends, but they only understand me 3/4 of the time.

M:  Right now, I don’t really want to speak Spanish.  

What is your favorite thing about Costa Rica?

H:  All the animals and birds.  Everything is fun.  That is a trick question for me.

M:  My friends

What is your favorite food here?

H:  Gallo pinto [rice and beans with a tangy sauce]

M:  Gallo pinto, I guess, because we don’t eat much else.  Also fried plantains and the galletas (cookies).  

Are you closer to your siblings now that we are in a foreign country?

M:  Snort.

H:  Mas o menos. Now that I have my friends, I don’t need to be so close to my siblings.

- Erica

Sullivan's Lego beetle house with occupant.

On our jungle trail today in the rain.

Henry enjoyed World Math Day yesterday.  He competed with kids around the world in math and science quizzes.  Thanks Mrs. McKenzie for setting him up!