Just before the school vocation...

[tigrenok]

This week was the last week at our school.


A week ago some of the kids from the last degree took part at the special program. Students, who have already entered community colleges and haven't got enough skills to start their study, have to take specials preparation courses; and pay for them to colleges a lot of money, of course.

So the school decided to help these kids and organized for them for a week program giving the possibility to prepare and take some tests still in the school to reduce money and hours that the students will spend on their preparations courses in their colleges. The program lasted every day during previous week from 8 until 1.30 pm and included pizza and cookies at the noon break for more fun.


The manager of this program asked volunteers to come help students to prepare to their tests.
Students were suppose to study towards their tests themselves learning from computer programs, but some of them still had problems. So we came help them, and in this way I had an opportunity to see how the kids are taught here.


The program included two main parts: English (grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension et ctr.) and math. You can easily guess which part was mine (: I can't help in both, you see it...)
Math program wasn't too difficult (it wasn't for universities, just for colleges that level isn't to high). But I liked the computer program. People who worked on it had done really great job!

For example, on Friday I helped a girl who studied fractions and their adding, subtracting, multiplication and division... Well, I understood that this learning program was written for more little kids, not for students on their way to colleges … (Well, I was already “lucky” to met one student for economy degree in a college demanding explanation for this. The student demanded the explanation and claimed that this subject is very difficult and she wasn't supposed to know it. And the college demanded the great name of “University”, but fortunately didn't get an approval. )


But the program is wonderful... They started it from a little animated story: two new dogs arrived just before a weekend and they need to plan their meal in advance... And to learn the fractions division: to divide one fraction to another it's just multiply the first fraction with the inverse of the second one. So a little monkey come down from the rope …to switch the second fraction …

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This program was finished a week ago, and this week was the end of the school year. My student Ruth is going to the twelfth degree this fall and then to a college next year. She is pretty smart and intelligent girl, but a little lazy :(. After we started worked together she got her hundreds at her level, but she doesn't want to switch for the higher level, although, in my opinion, she definitely could. I believe if she works harder and makes more efforts she could continued her studies in good college.
At least, I hope she won't need this program: she already knows fractions.