San Pedro High School

I can’t complain with my days at San Pedro High School. The day starts off with me waking up at 6:30 and getting dressed and ready for school. I start my mornings with fruit and some freshly squeezed pineapple orange juice from Maria’s Fruit Stand. Me and the other high school students bike over to San Pedro High School around 7:30. It is about a 10-minute bike ride, not bad at all. San Pedro High School is right on the beach, literally. You can walk outside of the school and be on the sand. The view from the staff room and the classrooms on the 2nd floor is a beautiful clear ocean view of the horizon. Class starts at 8:00. There are 8 periods but my teacher only teaches 4 periods. The day begins with the first 3 periods. Student’s stay in the same classroom and the teachers move around to the different classes. Then there is a 15-minute break where students and teachers can leave the classrooms and get food from the cantina, stand where ladies make food and milkshakes, or hang around outside. After the break, there are periods 4 and 5 and then two different lunches, first lunch and second lunch (period 6). Forms 1 and 2 (Freshmen and Sophomores) have first lunch and Forms 3 and 4 (Juniors and Seniors) have second lunch. During lunch, teachers can leave but students need to stay on school property. We leave and go right around the corner to this little stand where a woman makes delicious burritos and garnachas. I usually get 2 garnachas, which are circular crunchy tostadas with beans, cheese, cabbage type toppings, and hot sauce. It is delicious. I then go next door to a smoothie stand and get a banana oat smoothie, which is the best smoothie I have ever gotten. After we get out food we walk the 20 second walk to the beach and sit down on the beach and eat our lunch with the best possible view. My teacher has both lunches so my lunch is about an hour and a half long so I usually hang around the beach. After lunch, there are periods 7 and 8 and the day ends around 3:15. I can’t say that it’s a day to complain about.

I am with 4 different Form 3 (Juniors) classes. The students are very nice and respectful. They love to joke around. You need to be able to take a joke or joke back with them with this group of students.  I have not taught a full lesson on my own yet, but have walked around and worked with individual students and groups as they were working on problems. Since resources are limited here, students are many of times doing work in groups so that they can share calculators or protractors or such resources. I think this is beneficial for the students because whenever I was walking around, I hear students talking to each other about the problem and asking questions and hearing students explain/teaching to other students what should be done and why. I teach my first full lesson on Thursday on the Pythagorean theorem. I was supposed to teach it tomorrow, Wednesday, but things always come up here and lessons are always moving around and being modified. So, Thursday will be my first teaching Form 3 and I am really excited. I found a great video on how the Pythagorean theorem is used in American football and plan to show that video to the students. Many students here are interested in sports and I think they would like to see that video. Hopefully all goes well!