#22

           Before I came to Saipan, I used to go to big school in Korea. Our school had about 40 students in one class, and there were about 10 classes in one grade. It was pretty big, so I had many students that I don’t even know names. The school that I am going now on Saipan is very small compared to my previous school. Our class is the only class for juniors and we have about 30 people in our class. The important thing is that our class is the biggest class in our school in fact that our school is really small. I prefer small schools to big schools for several reasons.

           First of all, teachers can give more attention to students individually. In big schools, teachers cannot pay attention to every student individually because there are too many students. However, in small school, since there are much less students, teachers have more time to interact each student. It is good for students to contact teachers and be close to teachers because they will eventually feel comfortable to ask what they want to know and thus they will be intellectually developed.

           Secondly, closer friendships are created among classmates in small schools. In small school, even though the grade is changed, the class is still the same. However, big schools change the class every year. In Korea, I always hated the first day of school because I am not very good at talk first to the strangers. On the first day of school in every year, everyone in the class is strangers except when one of my friends is put into same class as I. However, I don’t feel any awkwardness or uncomfortable feelings because I already know everyone in our class. Since our classmates have known each other for at least 2 years, we are pretty close to each other. Thus, there is no bullying in our class because everyone is everyone’s friends. In big schools, a lot of bullying goes on. However, in small school, there is much less bullying than bullying in big schools.