I should like to introduce you all to my school-life. So I should like to post for you an article I have written.
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My school is a small, SMALL, classical school. Seriously, it is tiny. There are 63 students in the 7th-11th grades. That’s the Logic and Rhetoric stages… we don’t do “middle” and “high” school. They add on a new grade every year (starting with K-1st grades in 1999), and I am at the top!
There are 4.5 people in my class. There is me, the curly-haired eccentric; my other telepathic triplets, a.k.a. Amazingness and Princess; Sir Apathy, who is… apathetic; and the Televenth-Grader, who is in 11th grade but takes all 10th grade classes. Now that you are acquainted with my class, I shall acquaint you with my day.
7:30 a.m. Wake up. Stick hypothetical tongue out at public school students who are already in class. Silently thank Headmaster-who-realized-teenagers-need-more-sleep-than-kids. Hit the snooze button until…
7:48 a.m. Why is the “sleep” on the alarm in increments of nine minutes? That’s so random. The box advertises it as “convenient.” Hah. After thinking about this for several minutes, I jump out of bed and dress in my khakis (skirt or pants) and logo-ed polo. I then attempt to tame the bush on my head. I threaten it with weed clippers. I give up.
8:15 a.m. Do devotions. Eat breakfast. Check Facebook. Brush teeth. Pack backpack.
8:30 a.m. Realize I should leave. Kinda wish I could drive. Remember I still need 55 hours before I can get my license.
8:35 a.m. Stroll into homeroom and catch up with Princess. Both of her parents are teachers, so she is always there early.
8:40 a.m. Homeroom! We have homeroom divided by grade and gender. I have homeroom with the 9th-11th grade girls. We never do anything. Sometimes they take attendance.
8:48 a.m. AP Calculus. We’ll pretend it’s Friday. I have different classes every day, so it takes me about 3 weeks to memorize my schedule every semester.
I take Calc by myself… it’s just the teacher and me. He’s awesome. He is Princess’ dad. We usually spend 25% of the time talking about life and/or throwing sarcastic remarks back and forth with Amazingness, who teaches herself “Advanced Mathematics” in the same room. We spend the rest of the time on previous homework and new material. I love that class, for the most part. I’ve taken one test all year, but I’ve learned a lot.
This is a definite PRO of being a guinea pig.
10:10 a.m. Break. During break, I usually talk with my triplets or we all head downstairs to the dilapidated piano-thing. There I attempt to scratch out songs; Amazingness and I sing somethingorother; and Princess (who is also a ballerina) dances. Then I eat food. I have a doctor’s note.
10:20 a.m. Latin. RUN upstairs, because the teacher is not soft on tardiness. Did I mention that the Latin teacher is also the Calculus teacher is also the World History teacher is also the Greek teacher is also the guys’ Gym teacher? Yeah. Small school.
This is one of my favorite classes. Amazingness, Apathy, and I have already had 3-7 years of Latin, each. The teacher gives us some translation work then pretty much sets us loose, as long as we get it done.
After we’re finished, sometimes we play with our class pet, Oscar the Hamster (who has a Facebook fan page). More often, we all go slap-happy and have rambling conversations that go from a bird flying into the classroom window to Cookie Monster, within 7 steps. Documented.
We couldn’t be this free with a larger class. So, it is a PRO.
11:45 a.m. Lunch. Lunch is awesome. I sit with my triplets and our favorite tenth grader. We discuss things like theology, philosophy, and the love-that-is-Regina-Spektor. We are not normal teenage girls.
12:15 p.m. Junior Thesis. This is the class period in which we are supposed to work on our big 16-20 page paper. We choose the topics, we write the papers, we do the presentations, and some poor people have to grade them. I wrote mine about truth, goodness, and beauty in Russian literature. Our Senior Thesis will be something like 25-35 pages. Yay?
At least, that’s what we’re supposed to do. In reality, we organize our binders and do other homework. It’s really hard to work on a paper like that in school.
This paper is probably a CON, but for the school in general, not for being a guinea pig.
12:58 p.m. Bible (Doctrine). I love this class. The teacher is pretty strict, but he does a mean impression of Vizzini from The Princess Bride. We get awesome discussions, and he doesn’t really expect us to agree with him in everything.
This class is totally a PRO. You don’t get discussions like that with huge classes.
1:45 p.m. Break. Second break! What we do varies. Whatever we do we do together, because we go together like Switzerland, Mongols, and the Black Death. Thank you, AP World.
1:55 p.m. Teacher’s Aide. Princess and I grade papers for her mother or the Headmaster while Amazingness and Apathy take Spanish. Sometimes we laugh at silly spelling mistakes (who knew that “morph” is spelled “murf”?), but we’re not supposed to do that.
Teacher’s Aide is totally a PRO. It gets us out of Gym.
3:18 p.m. Dismissal. I catch a ride with somebody to the Grammar School campus. Grammar School = 2nd-6th grade. The PreK-1st graders also find their abode here.
3:45 p.m. Chorus. There are five of us, including two Grammar School-ers. I play the (very un-dilapidated) piano, and everybody sings some song. We usually have fun.
This is a CON. It is the sum total of all music programs for Upper School-ers, as we call ourselves.
4:30 p.m. Home! This is the best part of Fridays. I return to my house, change out of my uniform, put a hat on over the bush, and relax. Until I get to my homework… yeah. I actually DO homework on Fridays. Dork.
Recap. My day is full of edification and entertainment, writing and rambling, awesomeness and alliteration. I love being part of a small class. I suppose I would like more electives or choice in my class load, but what does that matter, really? I love the community. I love that my teachers are like family. It’s very writing-intensive and we get a lot of homework, but it is worth every bit. My school is 30% discussion, 40% independent work, 23.782% random, 6.218% lecture, and every bit of a family.
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Katie
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