Mrs. Alvarez is a Spanish teacher here at Marblehead High School. She moved to America almost six years ago after marrying an American man in Spain. They both moved to Canton, her husband’s hometown, in search of jobs during the 2013 economic crisis in Spain. She hopes to move back to Spain sometime in the next four or five years as originally intended.
Ada is a Spanish exchange student from the village Bobadilla del Monte, which is just outside of Madrid. Through the program F-1, she is staying in Marblehead until June.
Many Americans kids watch High School Musical, Clueless and other quintessential American movies. They marvel at the high school experience depicted in these movies, thinking that it’s similar to real life, only to get there and realize that their perceptions are completely unrealistic; however, the impression is quite the opposite for most foreigners. When asked if Marblehead High School is similar to schools in the movies, Mrs. Alveraz laughed and answered, “Yeah, yeah absolutely. I mean they stick to the standard.”
It’s hard to see because we have lived here all our lives, but we kind of do. We have Friday night football games, with smiling cheerleaders and a peppy marching band. We have the long hallways lined with tall lockers and the crowded cafeteria. We have all the stereotypes listed out in countless Disney films. At the football game last Friday, Ada uploaded multiple videos of the spectacle because she had never seen anything like it. Even having school-run activities is a foreign concept to many other countries, where all clubs and sports are done by independent companies that are not associated with the school system. This can create an overload of contact with the same people. Mrs. Alveraz explained that as a kid, “We always had two groups of friends: friends from school and whatever activity you do after school.” Therefore, even friend group dynamics differ between America and Spain. In general, American school schedules also work very differently. In Ada’s old school, they would start classes at nine and wouldn’t end until five, but they had a two hour lunch break. This coincides with a cultural norm in Spain, where lunch is by far the most important meal. Although the schools in Spain and America are very different, they both give high class education and consistently rank well into the top fifty in the world.