The Ford Fallout: “Sometimes it feels like my hand will fall off from holding it up so long”
Luna Fernandez Arrechea is a nine-year-old Grade 4 student at Regal Road Junior Public School. She likes art and books. She does not like her increased class size. Part 2 in our series
Read all the Ford fallout stories:
How do you like school?
I really like my school—everybody’s nice and my teacher’s cool. But since last year, the classes have gotten really big. We have about 30 kids in my class because a new student came yesterday. Last year, we had 20.
And you have just one teacher? No assistant?
Yeah. I wouldn’t mind it if we had two teachers. When we have to take a test and we need help, the teacher can’t always come at that moment. We have to wait and sometimes we don’t get a turn. Sometimes it feels like my hand will fall off from holding it up so long. And some people are shyer in big groups, like my friend Christine—she’s really nice, but she has a really quiet voice.
Any other problems with so many kids?
It can be harder to learn. With all the noise and other voices,
I get more distracted. We have headphones we can put on when we’re working that are supposed to help, but everybody goes crazy for them, and there aren’t enough for everyone. There’s a girl in my class who’s really funny but weird. Today, I think, the huge class was getting to our teacher and she had to send that funny person outside.
How did you know it was getting to your teacher?
I could just tell. She was also mad at some kids for chatting on the carpet.
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How do you like school?
I really like my school—everybody’s nice and my teacher’s cool. But since last year, the classes have gotten really big. We have about 30 kids in my class because a new student came yesterday. Last year, we had 20.
And you have just one teacher? No assistant?
Yeah. I wouldn’t mind it if we had two teachers. When we have to take a test and we need help, the teacher can’t always come at that moment. We have to wait and sometimes we don’t get a turn. Sometimes it feels like my hand will fall off from holding it up so long. And some people are shyer in big groups, like my friend Christine—she’s really nice, but she has a really quiet voice.
Any other problems with so many kids?
It can be harder to learn. With all the noise and other voices,
I get more distracted. We have headphones we can put on when we’re working that are supposed to help, but everybody goes crazy for them, and there aren’t enough for everyone. There’s a girl in my class who’s really funny but weird. Today, I think, the huge class was getting to our teacher and she had to send that funny person outside.
How did you know it was getting to your teacher?
I could just tell. She was also mad at some kids for chatting on the carpet.){kind=link}