It has been two weeks since the start of my school’s second semester, and that means that I have new courses with different classmates. After having gotten to know my new courses I’ll be sharing which courses I am currently taking and my thoughts on each class.
My first-period class is English and so far we haven’t actually done too much. Throughout the first week, we’ve gone over basic grammar such as proper sentence structure and how to use conjunctions. We even took a day to make posters for the “Seven Grandfather” teachings which is basically how you should treat other people. It was only until recently that we started with the grade 9 curriculum with storytelling and narratives. The class material hasn’t been too difficult so far though.
As for the people in the class, there are some students that just don’t stop talking, and it doesn’t matter whether the teacher is presenting or if we’re doing independent work. What I find most annoying about it though is that the teacher doesn’t even try to keep them quiet and instead talks back to them. This can become quite distracting, especially when we’re assigned in-class reading and all you can hear is the teacher and students talking back and forth really loudly.
After English, I have Non-Tradition Arts and the course revolves around art, except it’s mainly using computer technology such as animation and Photoshop. During the first week, it was quite interesting and fun learning how to use Photoshop, but the current assignment that we are working on right now is pretty frustrating.
Since the teacher doesn’t exactly have time to go around showing every single what they should be doing, she put up an example online. However, she explained how a majority of the examples would only get you around a 70-79% mark. The instructions on what to do haven’t been really clear. Even if you follow the guidelines she set at the start of the assignment she’ll tell you to change something because “I might not catch it when I’m marking it.”
For my third-period class, I have Science which has actually been relatively well. Taking notes in class is quite easy since we take them using a PDF file course package that the teacher has given us. I’m also really glad that we had the option to take a digital version of the textbook so my bag doesn’t get too heavy. The only problem I have in the class is with the people. Just like my English class, it feels like some students can’t stop talking and just want attention. At times you can visually see on everyone else’s faces that they’re just annoyed after a while. Other than that though, Science has been fun and we even get to use the lab room.
My last-period class is French which is probably the most normal class I have this semester. The only problem I have with the class is that I’m really bad at French. If we’re covering reading and writing I can usually do alright, but when we get to listening comprehension I can’t really figure anything out. Despite that, I feel like French class passes the most quickly out of all of my other classes which might be a good thing.
Overall, I would definitely prefer my classes from semester one over the current one. However, I think that if even just a couple of this semester’s classes start to shape up a little bit better I just might start enjoying it a bit better.