Sunday was the final final game in the local men’s soccer league (I say final final because the real final game was the Sunday before but they ended in a tie so they did it again the next Sunday). Unfortunately I don’t have pictures because based on what I’d heard (tons of people, fights break out, the usual soccer helter skelter), I wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to bring my camera. The two teams in the finals happened to hark from two different towns which made it all the more fun to cheer for our home team who won & were rewarded with a trophy that was taller than most of the players.
After their victory & some necessary victory dancing around the giant trophy – which was quite entertaining seeing as these guys actually know how to dance – the team walked down the main street (which is also the highway, but whatevs) followed by a caravan of screaming fans in trucks & hanging out of car windows announcing to the rest of the town exactly who won the league this year. It was muy alegre (very happy).
We are also counting down the days left in the school year (28 by my counterpart’s count today) which ends at the end of November. I don’t think I ever mentioned here the schedule change that was decided at the end of August so I will explain now. All schools run on two shifts, there’s the morning shift (7am – roughly 12pm) and the afternoon shift (roughly 12:30pm to roughly 5:30pm), in my high school here in town the morning shift is 7th thru 9th grades only and the afternoon as 7th thru 11th but there were only two sections of 7th, 8th, and 9th grade and they have tended to be smaller than the morning classes which is always nice. Although we started out with a good 50+ kids in each of those 6 sections, some had dwindled to as few as 20 students regularly showing up plus a few randoms who only came some of the time. This “problem” of smaller class sizes was most prevalent in 7th grade but also in 8th.
So at the end of August someone decided that those sections should be combined, which was feasible in 7th grade, kinda crowded in 8th, and overflowing in 9th – we still had more than 30 students showing up regularly so when combined the 9th grade section was at 60 to 70 students. Luckily they’re well-behaved and many of them actually like to learn English so it hasn’t been too much of a problem. Now, you don’t have to be a mathematician to know that fewer classes means fewer teaching hours sooooo several teachers got their hours cut, my counterpart lost three hours off his schedule & was told he would now teach Civics to these three sections. Needless to say, he was not happy being told to teach a subject he’d a) never taught before and b) knew pretty little about.
Now with the end of the school year within reach, even these combined classes are shrinking in size. In the old system, students could skip tons of class but still show up for the big final exam & feasibly pass the class, even if they didn’t there was always summer school & reparaciones – exams they could take before the next school year & a passing grade meant they would pass the class. However, this year we’re assigning points based on attendance, discipline, participation, & projects & small quizzes which means if they don’t show up to class they’ll probably fail. The word on the schoolyard is that they’re still gonna do reparaciones though. Should be interesting to see how many kids have to take them and if there’ll be pressure to make them “passable” - if you know what I mean.
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