That's it! My first week in Sacred Heart High School (SHHS) is passed so I am going to tell you my whole week.
PARENTING
I start my day by parenting. It is a subject really original in parallel with those of France. The concept of this class is to learn the parent's role and the child rearing by the physical development and the intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood.
The first time I went to this class I was very surprised because the class starts with background music and then comes the moment of the daily video. This video is viewed by all students. It begins with the national anthem (you have to get up then) then being in a private high school, there is prayer. After that, the director makes a speech and finally two people make the classifieds: that is to say they inform the students if there are meetings...
GYM
After the 1hour and half of parenting, I continue with my gym class. In this class, we end up with people of a higher grade. (Alyssa and me are in grade 11 but in gym class we are with people of grade 12) This class is really small. As a matter of fact, we are only 13. In this subject, we started by playing tennis, we will continue this sport during the first 2 weeks of classes, then we will surely play golf , soccer and maybe curling. To play tennis, we have to go to the tennis court at 10 minutes to the high school by running. In the gym of the high school, everything is with the image of the logo. The room is in black and red as the logo of sacred heart high school. (see the picture at the left) The walls of the hall are decorated with banners won each year at sports competitions by high school sports teams. Most of the students in my class wear the special sports uniform. (t-shirt with the school logo and black shorts)
Lunch
At the lunch time, everything is different from the schools in France. First of all, there is not a «self», so everyone brings their own meals. It was explained to me that it is early childhood in kindergarten where the children are already taking their own meals. On the other hand, there is a cafeteria. (different from selfs) In this one, there are snacks. (only greasy things so it is not necessary to eat there every day) We only have 50 minutes to eat between two classes and it is at this moment that we meet up with Alyssa’s friends in a large room designed for this purpose.
LAW
After lunch, toward to law school. I think that is the most complicated class to understand because we are talking about Canadian laws, different from French laws. I was very surprised because in this class during the first days we made games and drawing to get to know the others (unthinkable to do this in grade 11 in France). The teacher is very folklore and speaks very very very quickly which is quite fun.
ENGLISH
For my English class, I asked to be in a class a grade below (in grade 10) my grade (grade 11) to be in a level that better matches my English abilities. In this subject we work frequently on Chromebook.
IN ADDITION
Here are all the things that I find special:
First of all, what I find most strange is that you have the right to eat during class, to drink and to be on your phone.
We also have the right to go outside to the washroom.
Also, the classroom atmosphere is cooler people are more relaxed and that’s really something to enjoy. For example, in law school, a student was walking around in socks through the classroom, and it didn’t seem to bother anybody.
Then, the schedules are much lighter: than 4 courses per semester so 8 in total during the year.
There is also a free breakfast room open in the morning. So we can serve ourselves in the morning if we are hungry.
Finally, students have 2 weeks to change classes if they find the chosen one too complicated or because of their tastes.
Thanks for reading about this part of my trip,
Louise DOCHE