For our second weekend in Belize, we spent Saturday doing jungle zip-lining and cave-tubing at Jaguar Paw. The experience was unforgettable. Our tour guide, Eddie, was very friendly and has been to Missouri. He even had a Missouri driver's license! It was fun to connect with a Belizean local who was also familiar with our home state. Eddie was very knowledgeable about Belize's cave systems and gave us a very detailed, interesting tour. The caves of Belize were once believed to be the gateway to the Underworld by the Mayan people. The caves were massive, some containing mini-waterfalls and rapids. The water was a beautiful turquoise and was the perfect, refreshing temperature on a sunny, 90 degree day. Sunday was mostly spent relaxing, with a quick trip to the Cahal Pech Mayan Ruins, which are located just a 15 minute walk from our guest house here in San Ignacio. Below are some pictures of our week two weekend adventures.
Our weekend was wonderful, but for this week's post I want to focus mainly on the schedule of a typical school day here in Belize. As you learned from my blog post from week one, our reason for travelling to Belize for the month of November is to work and complete a portion of our student teaching in the schools. Liz and I are working at St. Andrews Anglican Primary school and Chloe is working at Sacred Heart College, one of the secondary schools in the area. I am working in a Standard IV (6th grade) classroom at the primary school, and for this post I want to share what a typical school day is like in my classroom.
School begins at 8:30 a.m., however most of my students show up early to work on completing their homework before school starts. When the first bell rings at 8:30 (there is a series of 3 bells every morning, break time, and at the end of each day), the students must freeze. The sound of the second bell lets the students know it is time to form their lines outside of their classrooms. The third bell sends the students' into their classrooms. Below is a picture of my Standard IV classroom schedule.
Every classroom at St. Andrew's has the same academic schedule, so everyone's day begins with their morning prayer, which is memorized by all students and recited each morning. This is followed by Scripture. The Scripture lessons in my classroom typically consist of reading a Bible chapter or a parable followed by a discussion of the reading. The teacher then writes notes or key points from the reading down on the whiteboard and the students copy them down into their Scripture notebooks. Some of my students are engaged in the Scripture lessons, but many are disengaged because they are not of the Anglican faith. Although St. Andrew's is an Anglican school, many parents send their children there because of their high achievement levels, not because they are Anglican. In fact, about half of the students in my class do not come from religious families.
Let me take a moment to explain the timed schedule, student notebooks, and note-taking guidelines for St. Andrew's Anglican School. The bell schedule at St. Andrew's is not automatic, it is a bell that is manually rung each day, usually by the principal or vice principal and sometimes by a teacher. Lunch is not at 11:45, it is at 11:45-ish. First recess is not at 10:30, it is at 10:30-ish. The school days here are very much non-linear compared to the school days in the US. The students all have notebooks for each subject, plus an extra notebook for homework. St. Andrew's is very strict about the neatness and precision of the students' notebooks. Students must begin each daily lesson in their notebooks with a heading that is neatly written and underlined using a ruler. This heading is two lines, the first line stating their name and the name of the school and the second line stating which Standard they are in and the date. Starting in Standard I (3rd grade), the students are required to write in cursive. Their handwriting is expected to be a certain size, not too big or too small. The students must also use proper spacing between each word. If the students handwriting and headings are not neat, they must tear out their page and start again. The government comes into the classrooms periodically to check the students' notebooks, checking that they are neat and that the teachers have been checking off for their work. Below is a picture of the students' notebooks and a picture of a student using his ruler to complete his classwork neatly.
After Scripture, the students move into Language Arts. During Language Arts lessons, the students usually read aloud a short story out of their language textbooks. The choral reading strategy is used most often because the school lacks an adequate amount of text books for each classroom. When students choral read, it ensures that every student in the class will hear the story even if they do not have a book directly in front of them. After the students finish reading their story, they lead a class discussion using the story questions provided in the book. Then, the teacher makes notes of important details from the story and the lesson and the students copy them neatly into their notebooks. You will start to see that lessons at St. Andrew's tend to follow the same structure each day: reading, class discussion, student's copying notes from the whiteboard.
Two hours into their day, students have their first 15 minute recess break. At the front of the school campus along the fence next to the gate, there is a snack hut. The students frequent this snack hut during each break, buying chips, fruit, candy, and drinks to enjoy before they head back to their classrooms. Although the school has a swing set and a teeter-totter, students usually spend their breaks socializing and snacking. Teachers do not have recess duty; students are trusted to carry on responsibly during their breaks. At the end of break, the 3-bell system repeats again and the students freeze, line-up, and head back to their classrooms.
The next subject of the day is Math. Teachers have a topic in math that they must focus on each week; the topic this week was long division. For many of my students, math is their favorite lesson of the day. Math in my classroom is simple, yet interactive. The lesson begins with a guided practice problem that the teacher works out on the whiteboard while students follow along. Next comes the independent practice. For the independent practice, students get to rearrange their desks into ability groups to complete the problems. The higher students are at the front of the classroom and the lower students are at the back of the classroom. The teacher focuses on the higher students for the first couple of days to make sure the students fully grasp the concept. The last few days of the week are used to get the lower students up to speed. Once the higher students have achieved success with the topic, they can assist their classmates in their class work. My cooperating teacher does a very good job of switching up the materials she uses for math lessons; some days she provides the students with mini-whiteboards to work out their problems and other days she passes out problem cards and has the students work in teams to solve them. The students really enjoy the different activities. Below are some pictures of my students during math class.
The students' lunch period comes right after math and lasts from 11:45-ish to 12:45-ish. The students are free to leave campus. Some students walk home for their lunch break, some buy snacks and sandwiches from food trucks that park outside the school grounds, and some students even meet their parents at restaurants down the road. The majority of the students spend their lunch breaks unsupervised.
When the students return from lunch, they spend 15 minutes doing silent reading before moving into either Science, Social Studies, or HFLE. HFLE stands for Health and Family Life Education. The structure of these lessons is the same as Language Arts. They begin with review and recall from the previous lesson on that subject, spend some time in discussion, and copy notes from the board. However, I have found the HFLE lessons quite interesting because the main topic that they have covered since I have been here is HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS is a much bigger problem here in Belize than it is in the U.S. Therefore, secondary and primary schools alike spend time educating their students of all ages about the virus and disease, including what they are and the various ways they are contracted. Below are some HIV/AIDS murals. The one on the blue and tan wall is the outer wall of St. Andrews Anglican Primary school.
The last block of time for the school day is Physical Education on Monday, Spanish on Tuesday, Social Studies Wednesday, and Expressive Art (club time) on Fridays. Thursdays are short days because the teachers spend the last hour of the day planning with their teaching partners.
Physical Education is taught by the Computer teacher, the students simply refer to him as "Maestro" which means teacher in Spanish. He takes the students to the park a couple of streets away and does an activity with them for an hour. Although the classroom teachers do not teach PE, they are required to go with their class to watch and help with management.
It is mandatory for teachers to teach Spanish once a week for the students. The national language of Belize is English and children are required to speak English in the classroom. The students typically speak Creole in their homes, which is sometimes referred to as "Broken English." Creole is a simplified version of a language and has been spoken by Belizeans of European and African descent for hundreds of years. About half of my students speak Spanish in their homes.
Expressive Arts, or Club Time, lasts for one hour at the end of every Friday. Students in Infant I and Infant II have a half day on Fridays, so they do not participate in Club Time. Several clubs are held throughout the school grounds, such as Art Club, Dance Club, Choir Club, Band Club, Karate Club, Girls Sports Club, and Boys Sports Club. The students sign up for their club at the beginning of the year and must stay in that club for the entire year. Each teacher is assigned to a club. The clubs are very laid back and are a form of entertainment and socialization for the students at the end of each week.
The last 10 minutes of each day is designated for Homework Time. St. Andrew's requires homework every night in each subject that was covered that day. For example, if Language Arts, Math, Science, and Spanish are taught that day, then the students will have a number of homework questions for those subjects that night. The homework follows the same format as the rest of the written work in the classrooms throughout the day; it must be neat. Homework is not graded but is used to give students practice in their learning each night. Below is a picture of the homework my students had one day last week.
Typically, the teacher is still copying down the homework questions when the last bell rings at 3:10 so the students usually stay at least 10 minutes late each day to copy their homework down and say their afternoon prayers. Once the students' homework questions are copied down neatly, they are free to head home for the evening.
The laid back, non-linear school days here have been an adjustment, to say the least, but I must say it has been an interesting adventure!
Until next time! ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment