Wow. It was quite an adventure. The first thing that hits me was just how huge the compound was, well at least when compared to my school in Singapore. Classrooms are all enclosed and when the doors are closed during lesson time, the hallways are very quiet. Lessons are range from 1 and a half hours to 45 minutes and then the students have 6 minutes to get to their next class. The students don't really have a home class and they may have different classmates for different subjects, kinda like college.
They are a magnet school for math, science and computer studies. It is like my school's center of excellence for science. I guess they have advanced curriculum in these subject areas and I look forward to taking a look what they do in these classes.
The most shocking thing for me, is the fact that students don't wear uniforms. That's fine most of the time, but some of girls' dressing leaves a lot to be desired. Plus some of them are constantly touching up their makeup so much so they have little time for anything else. On the other hand, I have entered classes where the students are engaged, actively contributing to the discussion and learning.
So it caused me to think, what makes or breaks a class. Of course the subject matter makes a difference. Some subjects or topics may seem more interesting to the teenagers and so it's less effort for the teachers. But good teachers can turn boring subjects interesting and bad teachers can well ...
I had a lot of fun attending my first biology class where the teacher started the topic of ecology by playing a snippet from the Disney's production of Pocahontas and asking the students to categorize things they see in the film as biotic or abiotic factors. I had the chance to walk around the classroom when the teacher had the students do some work in groups and it was fun to work with them and helped them understand the concepts.
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