Teaching at San Pedro High School

I taught my first full lesson to three classes on Thursday. It went very well! I taught the Pythagorean theorem. At first, I questioned students about the right triangle (legs, hypotenuse, etc.) and then I talked about American Football. I gave them a situation with the offense and defense and asked students to come to the board to draw the route that they think the defense should take to stop the offense from getting a touchdown. After this, I showed a short video on how the Pythagorean theorem is used in football and the students loved it. After the video, the students told me what they learned from the video and told me what the Pythagorean theorem is and what it means. After a short talk and notes, I did practice problems with the students. We did some as a class and then the students did some on their own. Afterwards, students had a short worksheet for homework that they started in class.

There are many differences and similarities that I have noticed from teaching at San Pedro High School as compared to the American schools. I have noticed that at the high school here, there is more participation and responses from the students. They ask more questions than my class at Topsail ever did. It is almost as if students here want you to pick on them and they want you to know they understand it. Students here are also always smiling and laughing and joking around in a friendly way. If a student gets an answer wrong, they will just have a huge smile on their face. They also shout out answers and want to say the correct answer first. Whereas in America students are expected to raise their hand, that is not the case here. Although some teachers tell students to raise hands, the norm here is for students to shout out answers and yell “MISS, MISS!” As well, when I am in front of the classroom and talking to the students or doing an example, almost all students are attentive and following along and doing the work. This is difficult to do in my classroom at Topsail because some students just sit there and refuse to do any work. Another difference was the 45-minute periods. I am used to the 90-minute block schedule. The 45-minute classes go by a lot faster and you really need to make sure you manage your time so that you can fit everything into your lesson. One thing that is difficult here is a teacher not having his or her own classroom. When I showed the video to my classes, it was very difficult having to carry the laptop, projector, and speakers to each classroom I taught at. But the students are very helpful and respectful and carried the materials to each classroom for me. Technology is not used very often at SPHS and when it is used, it is very unreliable with the wifi connection and resources. One of the similarities that I noticed is that the classes go at different paces, just like my classes at Topsail. One class can get through a lesson much faster than another class because they understand the material quicker. I thought that this was one of my best lessons and would love to teach this lesson in America and compare to how the lesson went here in Belize.