Children's Corner

By Holly*

Have you ever thought what it is like to attend school in a different country? MK Holly* describes her Russian school, where dishwashing and errand-running are just part of the school day:

"In my school, students are school helpers every 15 weeks. When I was a helper with my friends, Zina and Natasha, we didn't have any lessons, but instead spent the whole day serving the school. In first period, we took attendance and wrote down lunch orders. Then teachers and students gave us money and orders for items to be purchased at the store.

Off we trudged to buy seven packages of Ramen noodles, three Suharies (a crunchy, spicy bread snack), and ten pieces of paper for instrumental drawing. We had to hurry up an icy, steep shortcut to another store to find the exact paper the teacher wanted. We returned to school only five minutes before the next bell rang, and passed out the ordered snacks to the waiting teachers and students.

During the third period, we set tables in the kitchen for the fifth through eleventh grades. Dishwashing in our school is without soap or dishcloths: we rinsed the dishes in hot water, then cold, and that was it. Fourth period, we repeated the process, laying out kielbasa (smoked sausage), bread, and spaghetti noodles, and soup for the youngest kids. Everyone pays 13 rubles (45 cents) for lunch, but the small children get more food. We "washed" the dishes again, scraping off all the leftover food into a bucket, including the compote, a popular drink of hot fruit juice. Then we were asked to dig out all the uneaten kielbasa out of the bucket to save it for the next meal!

By the time Zina, Natasha, and I finished our duties, we only spent a few minutes in class. It's definitely different here. Americans throw everything away because they have so much. In Russia, people are careful not to waste anything. They can't afford many possessions, and they aren't constantly buying or wearing new clothes. They often wear the same outfit for weeks in a row. Here, instead of having lunch ladies serve us, we serve each other."

You know you are in Russian school if.

You can take fireworks to school.

The curtains are hung with paper clips.

You only get in trouble when the stuff you are throwing hits an American kid.

Relay races are competitions to see who can peel and slice potatoes the fastest.

* Name has been changed.