Today I had the pleasure of visiting two of the international sections at Quintinye College. I found these sections rather intriguing because the students in these classes are fluent in both French and English. This allows for a more in-depth conversation with the students since there is not as much of a language barrier as there is with a student who is only partially fluent in English. As far as I can tell, there is a pretty even split in terms of preference between the students and teachers who have experience in both American and French schools. Students and teachers alike both like how they only have class until noon on Wednesday, but dislike how the school day goes until 5 in the afternoon the other four days. One trait of the system that the teachers love is that they officially spend 20 hours in-school each week, but I'm confident in saying that they spend an additional 20 hours out of school.
I also spent a bit of time looking for various forms of technology around the building, but I did not come across anything out of the ordinary...it was actually quite the contrary. Unlike most U.S. schools, there is no wireless internet network (not even a secure network for teachers to use). This really shocked me because of the vast amount of time that I have spent using internet based resources in the classroom over the years. In all honesty, the most advanced piece of technology that I came across was a single basic Epsom projector in one classroom that was not even capable of usage yet. This "lack" of technology leads me to ask myself if technology is more of a educational tool or a distraction...
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