worst day of school here EVER
I'd like to start with something from an email from my dad. I asked him what he thought, whether or not I should come to this thing the last day of school. He said he thought I should, and this was part of his rationale. Pay attention to the part I italicized...
"Maybe the kids will suprise you. If they realize it is your last day and they
won't see you again, perhaps they'll come up to say goodbye. I think
that happened a lot with Vasia. And if they don't, you already sort of
expect to be ignored so it will only confirm your opinions of them. It
will also give you one last opportunity to observe their
behavior/interactions as their school career comes to an end."
He was more right than he could possibly have guessed...
I don't think I've seen such completely disgusting behavior first-hand in my entire life!! The events of today didn't confirm my opinions of them all, I think they worsened my opinion.
To start off, I'll explain what the events of the last day of school for sexto curso are supposed to be. They're supposed to be at school by around 8:30, dressed in semi-formal attire. At this time they start a sort of parade around the school, singing and chanting and saying goodbye to teachers and so on. It's sort of like when the seniors walk through the school on senior white day at MHS, except here they all go in one big group. After their march, there is a goodbye assembly, organized by the underclassmen. When the assembly ends, everyone goes in school bus to one person's house, where they have lunch and a party (aka lots and lots of drinking).
I really didn't want to go because I've never felt like a part of the group, and therefore their traditions/events are usually awkward or just plain boring for me. Now I'm glad not to be a part of their group, because I would be quite ashamed of myself...
On to what actually happened:
We of course started our march through the school late... we are talking Ecuadorian time here... When we started, so did the destruction and chaos. I was rather shocked and overwhelmed that something like that was a tradition here, and did my best to stay back and not get trampled. Here is a list of all the lovely things my classmates did on their march today:
-tore down anything on the walls, including but not limited to posters, fliers, pictures, art projects (including all the cute pictures in the elementary school section)
-dumped out garbage cans and recycling bins and threw their contents all over the place
-banged their fists (really, really hard) on lockers and closed doors, to the extent that lockers were dented and some doors were actually broken
-took any visible binders/notebooks (some of the underclassmen lockers don't have doors and so on), ripped out all the papers and flung them everywhere
-grabbed things out of lockers and destroyed them... I saw one kid take a metal lunch box from a young kid's locker and bang it on railings, doors, lockers, and walls until it was barely recognizable... not to mention that he almost hit me with it...
-stormed into classrooms, doing I don't even know what kind of damage (huh, wasn't so dumb as to follow that mob into a small space like a room...), though what I heard from the upset teachers later was along the lines of ripping up their students' projects, overturning desks, and in some cases taking decorations (like vases) and intentionally breaking them
Is it sad that being with this group of kids all year, I actually thought this was normal? Thank goodness I was wrong, or else I would have absolutely zero faith in the values of this school...(though at this point I'm not sure how much I have anyway...)
After our fun little parade, we headed to the gym for the assembly. But when we arrived, the principal was there got everyone quiet for a speech. It was something along the lines of how disappointed he was, that this is not acceptable behavior, and they're considering canceling the assembly. I guess he went and inspected some of the damage for himself, and did indeed decided to cancel the assembly. You should have seen the number of bawling sextos... Most of the girls, and even some of the boys, were in tears. They were pleading, begging, arguing with the principal to not cancel the assembly, but to no avail. What bullshit excuses/explanations they had, "It was only like, 5 people who destroyed stuff! Don't punish all of us for that! It's not fair!" Offers to clean up and similar tactics also did no good, they wanted all the sextos to leave, now.
My feelings the whole time were that they brought it upon themselves, I don't see why they're so shocked and think they're being treated unfairly. And just 5 people causing all that? Yeah right! If it had just been 5 people I wouldn't have been worried about my physical well being! No pity from me folks. For that reason, I did an even better job than normal of standing off to the side and not saying anything...
One of the teachers in the middle school section (a gringa, of course) was ranting about their behavior, with good reason (they destroyed her classroom, ripping up projects, overturning desks, and intentionally breaking a vase or two). I was rather tempted to thank her for saying what I've been thinking the last 5 months, something along the lines of "Grow up! You guys are supposed to be the future of Ecuador? That really scares me! You're horrible, you disgust me!"
I guess it didn't go over too well with the rest of the school when they said they were canceling the assembly, because no one left the gym. Since they wouldn't let the sextos in, the quintos (juniors) came out into the field to do their thing there. The administrators let it go on a little while, I guess to calm the sextos down a bit. Heh, I honestly think they should have stopped it long before they did.
Anyway, after the lovely events of the morning, no way in hell was I going to their after party. I think a decent number of them were already drunk (I got offered tequila at school... that's a first for me...), and all the crying drunk people were no fun. Plus they didn't surprise me... I was pretty much ignored the whole morning, except where I asserted myself. I told the 2-3 people who I would sort of consider friends when I was leaving, and that we had to see each other before then. But that was it. I left.
I didn't cry on the last day of school at MHS, but I almost did here... I almost cried from relief at being liberated from that nightmare of a school. Goodbye Colegio Americano and class of 2006, and good riddance!
"Maybe the kids will suprise you. If they realize it is your last day and they
won't see you again, perhaps they'll come up to say goodbye. I think
that happened a lot with Vasia. And if they don't, you already sort of
expect to be ignored so it will only confirm your opinions of them. It
will also give you one last opportunity to observe their
behavior/interactions as their school career comes to an end."
He was more right than he could possibly have guessed...
I don't think I've seen such completely disgusting behavior first-hand in my entire life!! The events of today didn't confirm my opinions of them all, I think they worsened my opinion.
To start off, I'll explain what the events of the last day of school for sexto curso are supposed to be. They're supposed to be at school by around 8:30, dressed in semi-formal attire. At this time they start a sort of parade around the school, singing and chanting and saying goodbye to teachers and so on. It's sort of like when the seniors walk through the school on senior white day at MHS, except here they all go in one big group. After their march, there is a goodbye assembly, organized by the underclassmen. When the assembly ends, everyone goes in school bus to one person's house, where they have lunch and a party (aka lots and lots of drinking).
I really didn't want to go because I've never felt like a part of the group, and therefore their traditions/events are usually awkward or just plain boring for me. Now I'm glad not to be a part of their group, because I would be quite ashamed of myself...
On to what actually happened:
We of course started our march through the school late... we are talking Ecuadorian time here... When we started, so did the destruction and chaos. I was rather shocked and overwhelmed that something like that was a tradition here, and did my best to stay back and not get trampled. Here is a list of all the lovely things my classmates did on their march today:
-tore down anything on the walls, including but not limited to posters, fliers, pictures, art projects (including all the cute pictures in the elementary school section)
-dumped out garbage cans and recycling bins and threw their contents all over the place
-banged their fists (really, really hard) on lockers and closed doors, to the extent that lockers were dented and some doors were actually broken
-took any visible binders/notebooks (some of the underclassmen lockers don't have doors and so on), ripped out all the papers and flung them everywhere
-grabbed things out of lockers and destroyed them... I saw one kid take a metal lunch box from a young kid's locker and bang it on railings, doors, lockers, and walls until it was barely recognizable... not to mention that he almost hit me with it...
-stormed into classrooms, doing I don't even know what kind of damage (huh, wasn't so dumb as to follow that mob into a small space like a room...), though what I heard from the upset teachers later was along the lines of ripping up their students' projects, overturning desks, and in some cases taking decorations (like vases) and intentionally breaking them
Is it sad that being with this group of kids all year, I actually thought this was normal? Thank goodness I was wrong, or else I would have absolutely zero faith in the values of this school...(though at this point I'm not sure how much I have anyway...)
After our fun little parade, we headed to the gym for the assembly. But when we arrived, the principal was there got everyone quiet for a speech. It was something along the lines of how disappointed he was, that this is not acceptable behavior, and they're considering canceling the assembly. I guess he went and inspected some of the damage for himself, and did indeed decided to cancel the assembly. You should have seen the number of bawling sextos... Most of the girls, and even some of the boys, were in tears. They were pleading, begging, arguing with the principal to not cancel the assembly, but to no avail. What bullshit excuses/explanations they had, "It was only like, 5 people who destroyed stuff! Don't punish all of us for that! It's not fair!" Offers to clean up and similar tactics also did no good, they wanted all the sextos to leave, now.
My feelings the whole time were that they brought it upon themselves, I don't see why they're so shocked and think they're being treated unfairly. And just 5 people causing all that? Yeah right! If it had just been 5 people I wouldn't have been worried about my physical well being! No pity from me folks. For that reason, I did an even better job than normal of standing off to the side and not saying anything...
One of the teachers in the middle school section (a gringa, of course) was ranting about their behavior, with good reason (they destroyed her classroom, ripping up projects, overturning desks, and intentionally breaking a vase or two). I was rather tempted to thank her for saying what I've been thinking the last 5 months, something along the lines of "Grow up! You guys are supposed to be the future of Ecuador? That really scares me! You're horrible, you disgust me!"
I guess it didn't go over too well with the rest of the school when they said they were canceling the assembly, because no one left the gym. Since they wouldn't let the sextos in, the quintos (juniors) came out into the field to do their thing there. The administrators let it go on a little while, I guess to calm the sextos down a bit. Heh, I honestly think they should have stopped it long before they did.
Anyway, after the lovely events of the morning, no way in hell was I going to their after party. I think a decent number of them were already drunk (I got offered tequila at school... that's a first for me...), and all the crying drunk people were no fun. Plus they didn't surprise me... I was pretty much ignored the whole morning, except where I asserted myself. I told the 2-3 people who I would sort of consider friends when I was leaving, and that we had to see each other before then. But that was it. I left.
I didn't cry on the last day of school at MHS, but I almost did here... I almost cried from relief at being liberated from that nightmare of a school. Goodbye Colegio Americano and class of 2006, and good riddance!