Maggie's new school

Sacrado Corazon, or Sacred Heart, is a private catholic K-12 Bolivian school about 5 blocks from our apartment. Maggie started here in 9th grade at the beggining of their school year, Feb 1.

The tuition is $40 a month. This is about one-tenth as much as the International school but is still too much for many Cochabambinos. The school day is all in spanish except the english class. All Maggies homework has to be done in spanish and NEATLY. Much more emphasis on rote memorization, neatly printed homework and copying pages than what we are used to in the states. For example, music class is copying songs neatly into your notebook and then writing an analysis of what the lyrics mean. The songs are things like the national anthem, the navy song, stuff like that. I'm not sure if they have actually sang the songs yet. Mags is making friends and recently went to a camp about 1 hour outside Cochabamba for 2 days with the entire school. There are about 35 kids in each grade. Maggie was impressed that they had no problems taking all those kids out to the camp. She said the worst thing that happened is that the 18 year old seniors went to smoke ciggaretts in the woods. They have a lot more control over the kids than teachers in the states. I think its because the kids are taught more respect in the home. The kids come to school with stronger values and a stricter upbringing from home, making the job of the teachers a hell of a lot easier than what the teachers in the states have to deal with.

Maggies 9th grade (primera de Secondario) stays in one room for the school day of 8am to 1:30pm. (then everybody goes home for lunch) It has a wooden floor, plaster walls and one large green chalk board in the front of the room. Windows are painted white to minimize daydreaming and distractions out the window, and the seats are wooden desks like we are used to seeing in antique shops. 2 kids per bench. The teachers come to the rooms and so the 9th grade stays there. The teachers have so supplies. They often ask one of the kids for their book to teach from and they have no pen or pencil. So there is no borrowing from the teachers! No posters on the walls, no globes, no "hands on activities". Its just a teacher and a peice of chalk. No printed hand outs or worksheets. You are responsible for copying the notes they write on the board. Teachers show up minutes before the start of school and literaly punch the clock in the office. They lock the school rooms minutes after school is out, and go home. Uniforms are required, but as you can see from the photos, they aren't super strict about this, loose ties etc... Maggie likes it and rides public transportation to school in the morning amidst many other uniformed kids all over the city headed for thier schools.