First day at the school

I have finally done my first 2 days at San Pedro High School and oh what an experience it has been. I am going to try to explain as best I can my experiences and observations, but words can not put into picture exactly what life is like here. First off, we bike to and from school everyday right on the beach. We get to the school around 7:40ish and all the teachers arrive whenever they would like pretty much. My teacher that I am with is Mrs. Iris. She is such a sweet teacher. I observed her the first day, and had no idea what to expect. The first thing I noted was that students do not raise their hand. They call out answers whenever they want to and they want to be heard the loudest. “MISS, MISS, MISS...” and they will repeat that until they know you hear them and respond to them. Students are always joking around with a smile on their face and I can’t help but laugh at times. Students all wear uniforms, which I actually like because it differentiates the students from the teachers. The girls also wear colored ties, which tells which grade they are in. A green tie is freshmen, yellow tie is sophomore, blue tie is junior, and red tie is senior. Instead of 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade like we call it in America, here they have Form 1(9), Form 2(10), Form 3(11), Form 4(12). Students also can not miss more than 21 days, which is a lot! At Topsail, students can not miss more than 9 days! Doors are open and windows are open and you can hear the other classrooms through the walls and from outdoors. I feel like in America that would distract every single person in my classroom. With the littlest bit of noise outside my classroom at Topsail, students would turn and get distracted and off topic. But here, it does not faze the students. The daily schedule is also very different. There are 8 45 minutes classes with one 15-minute break after 1/3 of the day and a 45-minute lunch after 2/3 of the day. During lunch, there is a cantina in the campus where students can get food and there is also these 2 women who make delicious smoothies for you for only 2 Belize dollars, which is 1 American dollar. There is also this man that is outside the gates of the school and sells chocolate covered bananas through the gate to students. It sounds sketchy, but I have gotten it and it is absolutely delicious. The students also do not move to different classes, instead the teachers move around to the classrooms and the student’s stay in the same classroom all day with the same students besides the break and lunch. Therefore, teachers do not have their own desk in the classrooms. Instead, they have a huge staff room that all the teachers’ desks are clumped together. When first walking into the staff room, it looks like pure chaos. But after being around it for a while, I noticed that it is organized in their own way. Everything here is so different, yet similar in many ways. Students have their notebooks and pencils and calculators. Students are answering questions and participating and asking questions. Student’s here are learning and collaborating and participating. Although the methods and the way the material being taught is different, the same thing is getting accomplished: an education. One thing I was surprised about was today in Mrs. Iris lesson she focused on one problem from a testing booklet that was very similar to the Common Core Testing back in North Carolina. It was similar because one problem had several different parts and for each part, the students got a certain “mark” (also known in America as point) depending on how much of the problem they got correct. This is exactly how it was done on the Common Core Testing the past semester for Geometry. I was surprised at how aligned and similar their testing was.

I have only been in Belize for 5 days and in the schools so far for 2 days and I already have learned and experienced so much. I thing I do have to note is that the food here is so fresh and delicious. From banana juice, to freshly squeezed orange juice, to fresh local vendor tacos, to papusas, to local fish and seafood, to amazing coconut ice cream, and so much more. Not to mention the prices are on point and so much cheaper compared to American prices. I feel like I have so much to say but not enough words to describe this experience for someone to fully appreciate it.