An American mom living in Barcelona took to social media to share her adventures (good and bad) about what it’s like to be a mom and raise children abroad. While there are indeed some significant differences, some of the biggest shocks come from the culture of schooling in Barcelona.
“As an American mother in Barcelona, I still can’t get over some school culture shock years later,” Alexis Charbeneau says in her video.
“Okay, first, the long days. The days are so long. My daughter gets on the bus at 8:00 am so comes back at 5:15 am. Yesterday, she had an extra “escuela” – extracurricular activities. She didn’t get home until 7:45 p.m. get out of class didn’t end until seven o’clock in the evening. 8am to 7.30pm is crazy for a six year old!
Charbonneau then had another shock – the grandmothers were Very Participate in your child’s schooling, including pick-up and drop-off.
“The grandmothers were very engaged. It was really exciting for an American. The line to pick up the car was more than half full,” she said.
As for extracurricular activities, they sometimes take place during the school day, Charbenot said.
“Sometimes they do it during lunch break. After lunch, there’s music class at recess. So, you don’t have to come and pick up your kid. They can still take the bus home or have it. They go home because they Do this during the school day.
Finally, she noted that children as young as elementary school age go home for lunch.
“I’m officially out of time, but going home for lunch, going home for lunch is a concept we don’t know in America, and it doesn’t happen much in cities. It happens more in… than in cities… … It doesn’t happen a lot, but it’s an option and a lot of people do it, pick up their kids for two hours and then go back to school.
In a follow-up video, Charbenot listed more of the school’s culture shock, including the deep affection teachers had for their students.
“The teachers here are very affectionate with the kids – hugs, kisses. We don’t have that in the United States for a number of reasons. Look, of course, I understand why they have these rules, but as a mother, look at you It’s wonderful for children to experience love outside of the family,” she said.
Next, she joked that in the summer she can’t wait for her children to go back to school lunch because in Barcelona it’s so nutritious.
She continued, “I don’t know if other moms share this mentality, but it’s my honest opinion about how well they eat in school. And, these kids have a lot of time to eat lunch. In America, we have about Having 20 minutes to wolf down is how we learn to wolf down fast…”
Chabenot also pointed out that “real school”, also known as full-time school, begins at the age of three.
“Real school starts at three, three, what a bad day!” she exclaimed. “Everyone is doing it.”
“Like a law, you can keep them until six o’clock [years old] Basically, then you have to send them to a real school, but no one does that. Being three years old and being in the same building with teenagers from 9am to 4:30pm every day is a really hard thing to adjust to. This is.
In Barcelona, Charbenot said, children adjust well to school because they start some kind of preschool or daycare from the age of one, and parents send them to school so early because, Shockingly, this is affordable!
She pointed out that elementary school students do swim in schools.
“These kids swim in school. That’s crazy to Americans. No matter how great the school is, we can’t swim, we can’t swim in school. And here… maybe your school doesn’t have a pool, hopefully. They don’t take you on a bus to a pool to learn how to swim,” she said.
Finally, Charbenot points out, homeschooling isn’t really “something” that parents in Barcelona do.
“Homeschooling isn’t an issue here. If it was a thing here, it would be regulated. It’s regulated. So if you have that attitude, I’m not going to say, ‘I’ll always do that,’ but If you’re a homeschooler and you want to teach your kids what you want, it’s kind of impossible because the regulations here are very strict.”
