Grades

Grades

By Emily

6-19-14

Our girls have always enjoyed school in the past. We have gone the public school route for various reasons (another blog another day maybe), and wanted to continue in that vein here in Nicaragua. Mostly we wanted more exposure to kids their own age, and opportunities to hear and practice the Spanish language. In the end, we chose private schools in Camoapa for the kids (mostly due to smaller classroom sizes, closer locations, inexpensive tuitions, and the advice of neighborhood friends.) The girls were not eligible to attend the Hogar School where Andy works because those funds are for underprivileged children whose family meet certain at-risk criteria.

When Leila and Elsa started school last September, just about a month after we got here, we told them not to worry about getting good grades, doing homework, or even understanding what the teacher said. We just wanted them to experience some Spanish immersion. I would sit through class with them (Elsa all morning and Leila all afternoon), and often we left early, if they were exhausted from the language difficulties. Helen was taking online courses, so she didn’t enroll in school here last fall.

“Summer break” started at the end of November and school didn’t start up again until early February. By this time, the girls knew a little Spanish and felt more comfortable attending school by themselves. Leila especially had made some friends and we had been playing board games and soccer a lot with Denzel and Dietmar over the break. Helen was ready to start school too, although somewhat worried about getting the work done. So we just reminded them that grades were not important, but participating as much as possible, and just being around kids their own age would help so much with their language learning, as well as making a few friends. None of them asked or needed me to stay at school with them anymore, especially Helen, who wanted to navigate the whole thing by herself from the start (thanks to her cousin Allie who was visiting at the time, she wasn’t alone for the first day).

In the past, our girls have been able to pull off straight As fairly easily. They have been challenged at school to varying degrees and take pride in their good grades. So we didn’t want them to feel like failures because we knew that it would be impossible to make As here and we warned them that they may not even have passing grades. We told them we didn’t care about their grades, just as long as they tried to understand, communicate and learn a little Spanish. Grades from here do not transfer to Decorah schools anyway so there would be no lasting effects from any low grades earned here. (I could also digress here into my ideas about reward systems such as grades, but I won’t go there either.)

So, having said all that, as preparation for the following report cards….what do you think of these grades? They are from the first quarter, which ended near the end of April.  Speaking for myself, I have never been more proud of a 61, a 74, or an 87!! Especially when the girls tell me that many of their classmates had far lower grades!  (There are no secret report cards here and often test grades are announced out loud in class.) There are even a few 100%s, mostly in topics such as Math and English. (For your interpretation, AA: 90-100, advanced learning; AS: 76-89, satisfactory learning, 60-75: AE, elementary learning; and AI: < 59, initial learning.)

Elsa’s report card (1^st grade):

Leila’s report card (6^th grade):

Helen’s report card (9^th grade):

I thought that the biggest complaint our girls would have at school here was that they couldn’t understand the language. But that hasn’t been the case. They complain more about the rampant copying of homework that goes on, the tons of wasted time, the disrespect towards teachers, the constant talking and getting up during class, and the many missed opportunities for making learning more fun and interesting, etc.   But I’d better stop here, because I don’t really want this blog to turn into a Nicaraguan Education Bashing Session. I know that resources are tight, and cultural expectations are different. But I can’t disagree with the girls when they say that they wish they could just transport some of their classmates or teachers into a Decorah classroom for just one day, so show them what school can really be like!!

Well, we have tons of people to thank for their success in school, including Maria Alejandra, Lidielba, Yessenia, all of Leila’s classmates, and all of their teachers, just to mention a few. But much of the credit has to go to our girls themselves, because they don’t get translation during school at all, and don’t have access to google translate either while at school. They rarely ask for help with homework any more, and even Elsa has willingly completed her homework all this past week without me even asking about it. Today her homework consisted of using vocabulary in sentences and she wrote all three sentences in Spanish all by herself!