Day 10 (6.1.16): Cultural Arts Day

Okay, so I just couldn’t help slipping in a vocabulary lesson. On with the day’s blog post.

-Mr. Seeley

Wednesday started off as the coldest Argentinian day we had yet experienced. It was 8 degrees Celsius (48F), but the wind made it feel more like 5 degrees (51F). This was to be our first true morning at the school;  by this I mean we heard their announcement session as it is normally, rather than words alerting the school to our presence. Unlike or first experience with their announcements, this session lasted only a minute or so before ending. After Señor Pauni completed his remarks, we went inside the school for shadowing. I attended a business class. This was perhaps the most different thing between us from a school perspective. The closest thing that we have to it would be economics, but even that wouldn’t be a good description. While we focus on theory and economic systems, business class students study those and their more individual application, i.e., businesses themselves. While perusing their textbook, (which was thankfully in English) I noticed that they delve into every function of running a business. They focused also on the intricacies of leadership, of employee relations and the different types of businesses. It was something that I have never heard of happening in the US, but I found myself wishing that we have. Even in a very limited time, I learned a huge amount about the classification and functioning of business in the world–something I doubt I would have learned otherwise. Another thing that surprised me was how the class was run. Their class was less centrally focused than ours are at Cary Academy. By this I mean that there was a significant amount of discussion that did not involve the teacher. However, from what I could tell the majority of it was on topic.

After finishing with that class, we went to theater. After warming up, we spent most of our time acting out different emotions (which, apart from being fun, provided a welcome review of the language). We also acted out an eight-line play in pairs in Spanish. It was interesting and difficult to convey in Spanish emotions that we normally use only in English. Another interesting part about the play was that it was very broad in its script, i.e. there were no directions as to the actual environment we were acting out. Therefore, it was up to us to utilize our emotions and body language to create a scene and characters. It was very interesting to see what people did with this creative freedom. There are two teachers who help with drama, both of whom were very helpful in helping us figure out those problems before we presented our dramatic interpretations on stage.

A translation of the script:
A: Are you missing much?
B: No, no. It is here.
A: How lucky!
B: All is well, it’s already here. Give it to me.
A: You brought it.
B: No, you had to bring it.
A:  I can’t believe you, I didn’t bring anything.
B: This is crazy.

 The above is an embedded playlist of multiple videos. To access the list of videos and elect one to watch, click the button in the top left with three horizontal bars and a play button.

As students of QHS normally do, we split up for lunch. I went with several others to the house of a student where we ordered empanadas from a local restaurant.  after that, we returned to the school for the day’s Main Attraction: a trip by bus into Buenos Aires to visit MALBA (Museum of Art Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires). On the bus, the high school’s head of school Professor Pauni talked to us about the history and significance of Buenos Aires. One interesting fact that he brought up was that the casino is on a boat because it is illegal to have casinos on soil in Buenos Aires.

We then arrived at the museum. I have been the unhappy visitor of many art museums, but this one surprised me. Rather than being just modern art from across Latin America, it contained art and sculpture from Argentina’s long history. This made for a good experience in the museum before travelling back to meet our host families at 5 and ending another great day in Argentina.

-Jonathan