By Miriam Siroky (Fulbright Scholar’s daughter)
Dear Diary,
Today was quite an average school day. To be honest, I didn’t want to get out of bed, but I was excited to see my friends. I slowly got out of bed and ready for school, but I really didn’t really want to go outside, and started to imagine: “If only there was a zip line from my bed to the classroom…”
I really have nothing to complain about, since my whole commute takes less than oneminute by foot. Only when I sleep over at a friend’s house do I have a reason to complain about how long it takes to get to school, and it only makes me grateful to live so close to school. As my feet drag me through the two doors of the school, I start to question why I’m not in bed still, since it’s only 8. As the second door opens, I go straight to my locker, where I change my shoes, and put my jacket inside. After exiting the locker room, I head up the two flights of stairs to my classroom, where I see my friends! About a minute later, we are saying ‘not it’ for who needs to go for the keys (which are three flights of stairs up.) Usually, I am the one who gets the keys along with one of my friends.
Once we unlock the classroom, we can go and sit down in our seats. We each slowly take out Czech Language for our first period, then our pens and pencils. I also take out my phone to quickly text my friend in the seat next to me before class officially starts. As 8:30 comes around, our teacher comes in, and we put our phones away in our backpacks. Then our teacher says the words of horror: “Please take out Czech Language,” and the whole class sighs.
The class starts out with this seemingly innocent drill that kills your soul. It’s called a dictation. The teacher dictates a few sentences that have ONLY exceptions. Let me give an example. Czech grammar offers its speakers something called ‘Vyjmenovany slova,’ which is a bunch of words (about 30) that you need to memorize to determine which words have a ‘y’ as opposed to an ‘i’. Czech children have nightmares about it. On the first day of school, I recall when the teacher asked us to say ‘Vyjmenovany slova’. After some initial reluctance, all of my new friends repeated the list of words like robots.
After she dictates the first few sentences, we check for our mistakes, and turn it in again. When I started off this year, as a new student who had never been in a Czech school before, I had more than 20 mistakes in three or four sentences, but after doing it every week, I am now down to one or two mistakes per dictation. I think my teacher and even some of my friends are surprised. Most of all perhaps, I’m surprised.
After Czech Language, we have a break, as we do after every class. It’s incredible. Our teacher leaves the classroom; and in ten minutes, we manage to make an impressively BIG mess. The boys are usually fighting or pulling each other’s hair (although they don’t have much). Girls will often be talking, making a hair salon out of the classroom (which the boys hate), or doing some gymnastics from one side of the class to the other.
Then the second period – math - starts. When we work in our math books, there is always a race to see who will get it done first. Ester, my friend, usually wins, and I come in second. Most of the boys are quite slow. Once in a while, we will work in groups. But most of the time, we just help each other, even without being put into groups. Then the bell rings, and it’s BREAK again. And the whole thing starts over, until our next class: music.
I really enjoy music and especially singing. Sometimes, we sing Czech songs that are new to me. At other times, we sing English songs that are familiar to me. My favorite English song goes: “Go home! Nobody home, eat no, drink no, ever have I known. Everybody will be happy…” Once we sang “Twinkle little star”. Music is also a break from hard work, which important because, as I explain to my friends, “ I start off with 10 brain cells in the morning. Czech takes up 6, Math takes up 4, and when we have music they recharge.”
After Music, we have English. Or as my friends like to call “a break for Miri, my nickname” I really like our English teacher. We play a lot of games, and we also learn. My favorite game is “Guess the Word”. Someone has a piece of paper with a picture on it, and we have to guess it with a series of questions.
Then someone asks what our next subject is - and we all reply in a grumpy voice, “Czech.” As we start our second Czech class of the day, we get our dictations back from the first Czech class. If you make a mistake, then you have to use it in a sentence, explain why it’s a mistake and then rewrite it. It can take up to 20 minutes. Then we read. I am currently reading a book called “Prašina” that my friend, Sara, gave to me. I am really enjoying it because it’s an adventure, and I feel like I’m living through an adventure as well.
Then there’s lunch. We rush to get everything clean before we can head to the cafeteria. Even though no one is very fond of the food, there are always long lines for lunch. Our parents ‘pay for it’ with their money and we pay for it with our stomachs. When we’re done, we give our plates to the lunch lady. If we return less than an empty plate, we get a mean look that freaks every kid out. That’s for free.
When my friends and I finish lunch, we often all go to my apartment to hang out and do girls stuff, like dancing, making videos, hair styling, and pillow fights. Then my friends go home, and it's family time, dinner, homework and my bedtime routing. In addition to Czech and Math, which are everyday, we also have classes in History, Science, Hebrew Language, Jewish Education, Parsha, Physical Education and (my favorite) Art! On some days I have activities after school, like swimming, Aikido, Choir, flute lessons, and Torah study.
As I lay in bed, I can’t help thinking to myself what an amazing Fulbright life it is!
Once we unlock the classroom, we can go and sit down in our seats. We each slowly take out Czech Language for our first period, then our pens and pencils. I also take out my phone to quickly text my friend in the seat next to me before class officially starts. As 8:30 comes around, our teacher comes in, and we put our phones away in our backpacks. Then our teacher says the words of horror: “Please take out Czech Language,” and the whole class sighs.
The class starts out with this seemingly innocent drill that kills your soul. It’s called a dictation. The teacher dictates a few sentences that have ONLY exceptions. Let me give an example. Czech grammar offers its speakers something called ‘Vyjmenovany slova,’ which is a bunch of words (about 30) that you need to memorize to determine which words have a ‘y’ as opposed to an ‘i’. Czech children have nightmares about it. On the first day of school, I recall when the teacher asked us to say ‘Vyjmenovany slova’. After some initial reluctance, all of my new friends repeated the list of words like robots.
After she dictates the first few sentences, we check for our mistakes, and turn it in again. When I started off this year, as a new student who had never been in a Czech school before, I had more than 20 mistakes in three or four sentences, but after doing it every week, I am now down to one or two mistakes per dictation. I think my teacher and even some of my friends are surprised. Most of all perhaps, I’m surprised.
After Czech Language, we have a break, as we do after every class. It’s incredible. Our teacher leaves the classroom; and in ten minutes, we manage to make an impressively BIG mess. The boys are usually fighting or pulling each other’s hair (although they don’t have much). Girls will often be talking, making a hair salon out of the classroom (which the boys hate), or doing some gymnastics from one side of the class to the other.
Then the second period – math - starts. When we work in our math books, there is always a race to see who will get it done first. Ester, my friend, usually wins, and I come in second. Most of the boys are quite slow. Once in a while, we will work in groups. But most of the time, we just help each other, even without being put into groups. Then the bell rings, and it’s BREAK again. And the whole thing starts over, until our next class: music.
I really enjoy music and especially singing. Sometimes, we sing Czech songs that are new to me. At other times, we sing English songs that are familiar to me. My favorite English song goes: “Go home! Nobody home, eat no, drink no, ever have I known. Everybody will be happy…” Once we sang “Twinkle little star”. Music is also a break from hard work, which important because, as I explain to my friends, “ I start off with 10 brain cells in the morning. Czech takes up 6, Math takes up 4, and when we have music they recharge.”
After Music, we have English. Or as my friends like to call “a break for Miri, my nickname” I really like our English teacher. We play a lot of games, and we also learn. My favorite game is “Guess the Word”. Someone has a piece of paper with a picture on it, and we have to guess it with a series of questions.
Then someone asks what our next subject is - and we all reply in a grumpy voice, “Czech.” As we start our second Czech class of the day, we get our dictations back from the first Czech class. If you make a mistake, then you have to use it in a sentence, explain why it’s a mistake and then rewrite it. It can take up to 20 minutes. Then we read. I am currently reading a book called “Prašina” that my friend, Sara, gave to me. I am really enjoying it because it’s an adventure, and I feel like I’m living through an adventure as well.
Then there’s lunch. We rush to get everything clean before we can head to the cafeteria. Even though no one is very fond of the food, there are always long lines for lunch. Our parents ‘pay for it’ with their money and we pay for it with our stomachs. When we’re done, we give our plates to the lunch lady. If we return less than an empty plate, we get a mean look that freaks every kid out. That’s for free.
When my friends and I finish lunch, we often all go to my apartment to hang out and do girls stuff, like dancing, making videos, hair styling, and pillow fights. Then my friends go home, and it's family time, dinner, homework and my bedtime routing. In addition to Czech and Math, which are everyday, we also have classes in History, Science, Hebrew Language, Jewish Education, Parsha, Physical Education and (my favorite) Art! On some days I have activities after school, like swimming, Aikido, Choir, flute lessons, and Torah study.
As I lay in bed, I can’t help thinking to myself what an amazing Fulbright life it is!