Katy ISD vs Sweet Small Town Spanish School

Oct 4, 2018

Kinda crazy to think that tomorrow is the last day of my THIRD WEEK of school here.  Time has flown by and it feels like I just got here.  School has been a huge adjustment.  The biggest change is language, because here almost all my work and curriculm is in Spanish and at times it's hard to follow... but I'll explain that all in detail below.

School here seems to go by so much quicker and I enjoy it most the time.  It helps that I've made a super good group of friends that make me laugh so much and just keep school fun.  In the US, I would dread school and sometimes the whole social aspect was so weird, and here it's similar but different because I have a group of friends so they all kinda watch out for me and help me since I'm at a major disadvatage sometimes with the language.

These are the MAIN differences...

Clarification: Just because they are different doesn't make one better or worse. ONLY DIFFERENT.  I like and dislike aspects of both types of schools, and I'm so grateful that I get to experience this because I have so much more understanding for ESL kids and Spanish culture.

Grading

Spain:  Grade out of a 10 point scale and 5 and above is passing.  10 or 9 are difficult to get so 8 is more common (or below)

Texas: Grade out of a 100 point scale and above 69 ish is passing.  100 is difficult to get but 80-95 is more common depending on the person.

*Although you would think that it's easy to traslate grades from Spain back to the US it's very difficult because a 7 isn't a 70 it's more like a 85 so trying to transfer creates so many issues.  We are planning on having all my teachers give me either a "pass" or "fail" for my grade and then my sophomore year will couny for credit but won't be averaged into my GPA.

Course Selection

Spain:  Pick a track which the only options are "letters" or "sciences".  Once you select your track that determines every class you take except 2 electives.  The electives options are: music, drawing, French, technology, and computer science.

Texas:  We have requirements to graduate but the rest is pretty open to whatever you want, so lots of choices.  We have almost a hundred electives it seems like.

*I was put in the letters track (even tho I like math and science more) because it's more Spanish so hopefully I can learn more. We are doing high level grammer in Lengua class right now and it's so crazy to think that last year I could barely write a sentence and now I'm labeling all the parts aand functions.

School Size

Spain: My grade is the biggest and we have almost 150 but I think there's around 400-500 kids in my school and it's public for ages 12-18.  The class sizes are about 27 ish.

Texas: I went to a big high school for ages 14-18 ish and we had over 4,000 students and class size varied but usually 28 ish students.

Teaching Style

Spain:  Here is much much more lechure style and we rarely leave our seat during class.  We take lots of notes and writing what teacher writes or listening and taking notes which is impossible for me currently haha

Texas:  More activities and hands on type things.  A lot more interactive games and projects but tests are multiple choice so easier to cheat and the typical kid studys less in the USA in my opinion.

*I fall asleep in class here a lot so I'm trying to work on that, but it gets super boring when the teacher talks fast and I can't follow what he's saying so I fall asleep lol

Sports/Activities

Spain: ALL activities are after school including tutoring, sports, clubs, or fine arts.  The school has no sports teams or after school things.

Texas:  Tutoring is offered for free before and after school and we have a club or team for EVERYTHING haha even like food clubs.

* I take guitar classes here from a neighbor and I take Sevillana/Flemenco dance lessons twice a week which is the local type of dance where I live.

Classrooms

Spain: Teachers move classes most the time and we stay in the same class for 75% of our classes.  This was the weirdest thing to me but classrooms only have chalkboards, projectors, desks and chairs. No decorations or other stuff.  Also to use the bathroom here we have to go to the front desk and sign a sheet and they give you the key and then after you have to return the key and teachers get annoyed when you ask to use the bathroom.  We have AC like half the time lol

Texas:  Teachers have their own class that they ALWAYS stay in and decorate and personalize.  Every class has a SmartBoard or iPads and kids move classes and come to the teacher.  Bathrooms are always open to use whenever needed and we have a bunch in different parts of the school.

Food and Phones

Spain:  No phone or eating in class. Phones are a hugeeee NO at school here.  We also don't have a lunch class here, only a snack break that everyone eat a sandwhich and when we get home our family eats lunch together at 3:00.

Texas:  We can usually use our phone in class and eating typically isn't a big deal.  We have a lunch class and then don't eat until dinner at 5:30pm.

Dress Code

Spain: Literally ZERO dress code it's great.  Girls were spandex all the time or tube tops.

Texas:  Bottoms must be past mid thigh and shirts must be the width of three fingers and must have straps so no off the shoulder shirts.

School Time

Spain: 8:15-2:45. Each class is an hour and we have 30 minute snack break outside.  Passing periods are difference because most the time majority of my class has the same next class and usually the same room so we just leave our stuff and go stand outside until the teacher arrives.

Texas: 7:25-2:35.  Each class is around 45/50 minutes and we have 7 minutes to get to the next class and if you aren't in the class when the bell rings then you get a tardy and if you get a lot of tardies you get written up.

With love, Ruthanne