I remember back in the Philippines when everything was done by hand. Our test answer sheets were numbered by hand. Correcting homework was done by hand(through exchanging works with the person sitting next to you). Even our arithmetic was done by hand. That's right, no calculators. You can imagine our test papers whenever there was a problem that involved long division 0.o
Which reminds me, even the elections were carried out in a manual way. AKA, the tallies were counted by hand. Voting was done with a sheet of paper that had all the names of the candidates on them. This led to the extremely long period of waiting on the people's part. The winners would be announced weeks after the closing of the ballot box. But, the recent 2010 elections used a new automated counting system to facilitate the process.
Which leads me to my next point. You can imagine my surprise when I entered 7th grade as the new kid in
a country largely unfamiliar to me. As far as I can remember the "bubble in" tests back in the Philippines were also graded by hand, and those only happened once or twice during a final exam during my entire elementary school career. I almost didn't know what to do when my science teacher handed me the first quiz of the year: it was on a ScanTron.I was so used to the routine taking out a piece of paper, writing your name on the top, numbering it from 1-10, and listening to the teacher recite the questions and answers. So unsurprisingly, I've also never used a looseleaf binder before. Most of our notes were painstakingly handwritten on composition notebooks, with sparse photocopies of handwritten notes made by either a teacher or a classmate(in some classes the students organized presentations, and even those were handwritten/drawn on sheets of manila paper often larger than the students that made them).
Another thing that struck me dumbstruck: we weren't given disposable books. I bet my parents have spent an untold amount of money buying books for each semester. I have to admit, I liked having my own brand-new book to keep forever. But the used school-issued books were of a much higher quality than anything I ever had in elementary. And much heavier too. Probably because I used to receive paperback textbooks with back and white text, unlike the full color hardcover textbooks of 7th grade.
One of the most interesting aspects of American public education that I discovered is the dress code. I have memories of having my dimensions measured by a seamstress and my parents picking up my school uniforms a few days later. The opposite is the case by 7th grade. No longer can I quickly grab the required shirt color for each day. Now every morning I have to spend 2-3 minutes filing through all of my clothes to find something to wear.
And those are a few things I've reflected on recently. I have some more, but I'm afraid you'll kill me if I write another paragraph. Maybe in a later post....
