Elizabeth Putnam

Small Group Reflection

When speaking with my partner, Franck, I realized that we had almost no similarities in

our schooling and many differences. The similarities between our schooling was that we both did

presentations in our math classes and we both took many quizzes. Besides these similarities, our

school systems contrasted a lot. Firstly, Franck’s school system is French and smaller, with a

graduating class of 62, while mine was English and larger, with a graduating class of 800. Since

Franck’s school is so small, he didn’t do any projects either with anyone. The only projects he

did were when he was very little, but he said that in his school they only ever did quizzes. This

differed from my schooling system in Nevada because we did many projects in all my classes,

and we had big tests and finals throughout the year. When Franck told me this, it was hard for

me to imagine only doing individual work and never working with others, but he said it was

strange for him to think of having all different types of tests and projects with other people when

he was still a teen. He also mentioned that his school system was set up into two schools,

primary and high school. Primary was ages three through ten, and high school was ages ten

through eighteen. This system is different from mine because we had three different schools

children went to, elementary for ages five through eleven, middle school for ages eleven through

fourteen, and high school for ages fourteen through eighteen. Franck also said that when children

in the Ivory Coast go to high school, they go to school for a specific “major”, like math and

science or arts, which is slightly like certain schools we have in Nevada. In Las Vegas, we had a

small amount of high schools that teens could apply to that had certain focuses for the students to

learn about, like performing arts or STEM. This wasn’t every high school though like Franck’s,

so most students in Las Vegas went to a public school. Franck also mentioned that his school had
amazing teachers but could always tell what mood they would be in by what color they were

wearing. For example, if his teacher was wearing red he knew not to get on their bad side

because if he did, the teacher would hit him for misbehaving or talking back. Franck also said

that the students would be hit as discipline if they didn’t know the correct answer when asked by

the teacher. This differed from my school experience because in America, teachers are legally

not allowed to touch the students, and I could always tell what mood a teacher was in by how he

said hello to the class. I found that very surprising because I didn’t think teachers were still

allowed to punish children using hitting in other countries, but to Franck it was completely

normal. Franck also shared that his school started at 7 am and went until 6 pm every day with

only a one-hour break at noon, and he had eleven classes a day. We differ in this sense because

my school only went from 7am to 2pm every day, with a 30-minute break in the middle. I can

recognize that this was normal for Franck and wasn’t very hard, but i felt that I wouldn’t have

made it if I had to transition from school in Nevada to school in the Ivory Coast, because of the

extremely long days. After speaking with Franck, I realized that our school systems weren’t very

similar at all except for the education we received.

One thing that I learned about Franck’s school that I would love to implement in schools’

back home is no homework. I think students don’t benefit from busy work and homework only

creates more stress for a teenage student.

Franck stated that he never participated in partner work in his school system, so we didn’t

face any of the same challenges. I did inform him that I often encountered the challenge of

wanting to put more effort into projects and assignments than other students did. I told Franck

that the way I solved this issue was by becoming the delegator of the group, like a democratic

small group, and I would assign tasks for everyone to do, because I would then know who their
part didn’t do if something wasn’t done for the project. I also took on more work in these

situations because I knew that the work, I took on would get done well, and I would put trust in

my partners that they would do the same thing.