Week One: You Better Belize It!

My name is Shelby Sullivan and I am one of three student teachers who has embarked on an adventure to Belize to complete one month of my student teaching experience.  We attend Missouri Southern State University in Joplin, Missouri.  We are two months into our student teaching experience and we have all been teaching in local schools in Missouri.  I have been teaching at Columbia Elementary school in a 2nd grade classroom.  It has been a wonderful, eye-opening, and exciting experience thus far.

At 6 a.m. Monday, October 27th, our journey to Belize began!  Our flight arrived in Belize at 11:30 and we met Tosh, our charismatic driver, who drove us from Belize City to San Ignacio, the town in which we will be living for the next month, teaching during the week and being tourists on the weekends.  The drive was an adventure in itself, as we drove past several villages full of busy civilians going about their daily routines.  We saw children roaming the streets for their hour-long lunch break, where they are aloud to leave their school grounds and are on their own for lunch.  We saw construction workers laying cement in the middle of the street where passing cars didn't slow down or even make much room as they drove past.  We also a policeman napping in his vehicle on the side of the road.

When we finally arrived at the Casa Blanca guest house in San Ignacio, we were eager to unload our bags, find some lunch, and explore our temporary home.

Our first meal was at Han-Nah's, a restaurant directly across the street from our guest house.  I ordered the national dish of Belize, which is Rice and Beans with chicken, coleslaw, and plantains.  It was delicious.  Below are pictures of the guest house, Han-Nah's (the yellow building), and my meal.

Our first day in the schools was Tuesday and teaching may prove to be our biggest adventure of all while we are here.  Let me begin by explaining a little bit about the school system here in Belize.  Aside from the private schools, most schools in Belize are funded and ran by the church.  The church that myself and my fellow student teacher, Liz, are working at is called St. Andrew's Anglican Primary School. The levels in the school are Infant I (1st grade), Infant II (2nd grade), Standard I (3rd grade), Standard II (4th grade), Standard III (5th grade), Standard IV (6th grade), Standard  V (7th grade), and Standard IV (8th grade).  Liz is working in one of the Infant II classes and I am working in one of the Standard IV classes.  My students range from 9-12 years old.  At the end of each year, students take a test that determines whether or not they move on to the next level.  If they don't pass the test, the repeat that level the next year.  Chloe, the third student teacher, is working at Sacred Heart College, which is one of the secondary schools in San Ignacio and has students ranging anywhere from age 11-18.  She is teaching PE.

All of the schools are open-air, meaning they do not have air-conditioning.  There is a computer lab with old, bulky, Dell laptops that the students get to visit once a week.  This room and the office are the only areas in the school that have Wi-Fi.  Resources are limited, but I was impressed with my classroom.  It is very bright and colorful.  The walls are covered with student work, helpful posters, and management strategy signs.  My classroom has a small library which consists of one shelf with weathered books, but the kids seem to love it and get a lot of use out of it.  Below are some pictures of my classroom and my students.

 

There are some similarities between my classroom in the States and my classroom here in Belize.  Both classrooms have students seated in groups because the students complete many group activities throughout the school days.  Both classrooms also have management posters posted throughout the classroom, such as the pole that has "Things To Do When You're Done."  One really cool parallel that I observed this week was when the principle came into the classroom to teach a math lesson.  The topic of the lesson was multi-digit multiplication but when the principal was teaching, she realized that the students did not fully understand the concept of place value.  Therefore, she back-tracked her lesson to focus on place value and the importance that place value has when working with multi-digit math problems.  This was cool to see because the week before I left the States, my principal came into my 2nd grade classroom to co-teach math with my cooperating teacher and found the same issue: the students did not truly understand the concept of place value.  My students in the states were simply learning how to use a hundreds chart, but the understanding of place value was the core of that lesson, as well.  It was cool to see the principal come into both classrooms and teach the same thing two countries apart.

The biggest difference I observed this week was that schools in the States tend to be much more strict on behavior than the schools in Belize and the schools in Belize are much more strict on neatness and spelling than schools in the States.  Here in Belize, students are loud and rowdy.  Once the teacher stops talking, the students immediately begin talking amongst themselves.  Students interact more aggressively with each other here than they do back home.  However, they are very strict on neatness and presentation here in Belize.  Words must be spelled correctly, handwriting must be neat and the appropriate size, and rulers are used constantly for headings and underlining.  When mistakes are made, the students must use a ruler to draw one single line through their mistake, and then the word must be re-written.  In the States, handwriting is important but students aren't expected to all write the same size.  In the States, spelling isn't the main focus of writing.  Students are encouraged to use their "best spelling" by using what they know about spelling patterns to help them stretch and sound out words.  The last big difference I observed this week was that teachers in Belize leave their classrooms often to confer with other teachers, use the restroom, or make a trip to the office, leaving their students alone in the classrooms.  In the States, classroom teachers do not leave their students unattended because of the risk of something bad happening while the teacher out of the room.

So far, I have observed many similarities and differences between both of my classrooms.  I look forward to my next 3 weeks in my Belizean classroom and the memories I will make working with my class.

Our weekend held quite a bit of adventure, as well.  Friday was Halloween, or Day of the Dead, as some people refer to it here.  We walked the streets of downtown San Ignacio and handed out candy to trick-or-treaters.  It seems that children here don't go door-to-door, instead they trick-or-treat at local shops, restaurants, and pedestrians out for evening strolls.  Below are some pictures of the fun costumes we saw.

 

 

Saturday we were up bright and early for our first tourist adventure, the Caracol Mayan Ruins Tour.  Our journey began with a rather bumpy 2 and a half our ride through the jungle.  Once we arrived, we set off on a hike to the ruins.  The ruins that we saw were palaces and temples.  We were able to climb and explore the ruins and learned a lot about the history of the Mayans and how they lived their daily lives.  We also got to see some interesting jungle wildlife, such as toucans. We ended our tour with rice and beans for lunch and another bumpy ride through the jungle. It was quite the adventure!  Below are pictures of our jungle drive and the ruins.

This first week has been quite the adventure and we can't wait for what the next three weeks has in store! Until next time!  :)