Uniforms Everywhere

This was the first week of school for the kids in Guanajuato. It was quite an event. Over the last couple of weeks, everyone has been buying school supplies, backpacks, and uniforms. And Monday morning, everyone was out in the street walking their kids to school. It's made for a more interesting walk to class for me. Here are some observations that I think are interesting about the schools and the students:

1. All the schools here require their kids to wear uniforms. All of them, public and private. Each school has a different plaid or central color. As I walk to school I try to figure out where each different uniform group is going. No one seems to mind wearing the same clothes as everyone else and they all look really sharp.

2. The amount of clothes the kids wear while walking to school is incredible. I think their parents are afraid they will catch their deaths of cold. For example, the little girls wear wool skirts, long-sleeve button-up shirts, sweaters, knee socks, and often a wool coat (like a peacoat) with a scarf and mittens. For me, this is an outfit for mid-January, but here it is barely chilly in the mornings, so I don't really understand it.

3. The setup of the school buildings. The classrooms are located around an open courtyard in the middle of the building. Because there is no real place to have recess, the kids take their break in this courtyard. As a result, it is always very loud. I can't imagine being a teacher and having to talk over the recess noise that is happening two feet away from your classroom door. Talk about a distraction for the students.

4. Many of the schools have two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The morning session begins at 8:00 and ends around 2:00, and the afternoon session is from 2:00 until about 8:00 at night. As a result, there are children in uniforms all day long. I'm not sure how lunch time goes because the main meal is eaten around 3:00 by most families, so I don't know if the kids eat at school or not.

5. There are a number of kids who wear face masks to school. I'm assuming that this is to prevent the spread of Influenza A (H1N1) or the swine flu. At the entrance to each school there is a person with the biggest container of hand santitizer that I have ever seen, and each child gets some as they go into school.

All in all, I think it would be an interesting experience to go to school here. Obviously most of my observations have been from outside the school walls, but it would be really neat to be able to compare the classes and the classroom settings with those in the US. Another interesting aspect would be the mindset of the students, that is, whether they are excited about school or if the attitude is one of "just get me out of here." I'll have to ask someone someday.

*The photo is one of the secondary schools here in GTO. You can see that there is a courtyard under the metal room and the classrooms are around the courtyard.