The Power of Teamwork

I apologize for not posting in a while. I forgot my blogger password then my internet was sketchy. This was written on February 12.

On Wednesday my class had a big history test. History class was the last class that day. I had two periods of Portuguese class before. Usually on Wednesday I also have Sociology, but I had Sociology in place of Portuguese on Monday (The teachers switched times). So I had over three hours of Portuguese class on Wednesday. During the class, students were frantically skimming their history books and trying to get in some last minute cramming. Some of them mentioned that they wanted to get the test postponed. I thought the kids were kidding, but they said they could try to. During the break before history class, the entire class waited outside the teachers office for our history teacher. Our history teacher is very intimidating so the girls pushed the guys closest to the door. The teacher came out and a brave student explained that they weren't ready for the test and they needed more time to study. She looked really angry and said something in Portuguese to the class. A kid translated for me and the teacher said if we found a free classroom next Thursday, we could take the test then. Three minutes later, we had a room reserved from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. I explained to the class that at my old school, if we had a test planned, we would take it on the day it was scheduled. Though, we never tried confronting the teacher before class started with every student from the class, not that I'm encouraging any deviant behavior... Teachers are a lot more flexible here. They don't assign much homework. I only have Sociology homework this week. But students have to study a lot more. Tests count for a large percentage of student's grades. Only my Psychology and Sociology tests have multiple choice questions along with many short answer questions. History tests have documents that you have to use to write essays (similar to DBQ essays). Students have to buy their own testing paper for every test that they purchase at the Papelaria in the school.

I do not have school on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday next week because it's Carnival. It's celebrated forty days before Easter, right before the start of Lent. People dress up and have parties. In Brazil it a much more important holiday. Here it just means no school and hanging out with friends. Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, is having many concerts over Carnival. Singer Joss Stone will be performing in Lisbon along with other bands. Happy Carnival!