Classrooms

Teaching here is a completely different feel.  Teachers move classrooms instead of students, the available resources are extremely limited, and there is no AC.  The classrooms are all the same size but can vary from 18-38 students.  They all have assigned desks and chairs so if you want to rearrange the seating, students have to carry their desk and chairs to their newly designated area. Here's an example of a classroom:

You can see the teacher standing talking to students.  The windows are all open because that is the only way air circulates through the room.  The desks are very simple, and yes the students have plastic lawn chairs for seats.  They all have to wear a uniform and the dress code is strictly enforced.  The red ties you see the girls wearing designate their grade level (red is 4th form, which basically means that they are seniors).  The walls are plain and the back wall is actually a divider between the connecting classroom and sound travels very easily through it.  The floor is concrete and provides for a lot of noise when movement is required.  Almost all of the students have a bottle of water present with them since it is usually around 85-90 degrees.  At another angle you can see the board that the teacher have to use.  They have a plain blackboard with white chalk to write with.  While there is not much to use, the teachers do not complain and the students are not bothered by anything in the classroom. We rely heavily on electronics and handouts while here they do not even have luxuries like air conditioning.  The most impressive things about the school is the students.  They do not complain and they all seem to want to learn everyday.  They enjoy the lessons and are active in class discussions.  Everyday there is a genuine greeting for their teachers and sit to do their work when asked.

Perceptions

While teaching in the classroom, I have not noticed disabilities.  The students all get along and there is no calling out based on differences.  This makes me believe that there is good inclusion of everyone in the school.  While this is an important topic for school, I have seen more inclusion of people with disabilities in the community.  Everyone on the island treats each other equally.  Everyone is treated the same and there is no blocking out of someone based on a disability they may have.  This seems to be a cultural thing in the area because everyone is extremely upbeat, relaxed, and happy.  One such individual in the community is a local painter named Kurt.  He is partially paralyzed but he enjoys his days painting outside a shop and people come and talk to him just to enjoy his conversation.

Teaching Strategies

While teaching in Belize I have noticed that there are not many things done to help students that may have difficulty in class.  I see a lot of distracted students and the teachers seem to just let them sit there and not work.  In my 2A class I have seen this quite a bit.  In order to help this issue I have started to co-teach with my placement teacher.  I thought that this might keep the students focused since there is more than one person to listen to and the teacher that is not teaching can help students if they need it.  After doing this for three straight days I have noticed that the students are having a better time in class and are paying more attention.  This has also helped me out because it proves to be more fun for everyone in the class.

Zoo day

First off, I apologize for the previous post.  For some reason it messed up and I can't fix it, so the order of the blogs is now off and the text doesn't match up with the pics, but you can figure it out.

Now, on our last day inland we left the place we were staying at 9am.  I had heard that some people in the group had gone to this iguana place the previous day, and since I love lizards so much, I had to go.  And I am glad I did.  I walk to this resort at 7:50am and start the tour at 8am.  I get a brief intro and we head into the iguana area.  I see a buch of rather large iguanas and start snapping pics.

This guy's name is Gomes.  He was a fun iguana and also the biggest in the reserve.

He was very calm, cold, and people friendly.




The guy leading the tour decided to show me exactly how friendly Gomes and the other large iguana are.

Just when I thought I couldn't be happier, we head to the baby iguana area.  These little guys were still very green and young and were perfectly fine around people.  Since they were all comfortable around people, the guide decided to have some fun with me.

He starts by putting some of the smaller ones on my hand to hold and I snap some shots with my free hand (thanks to Colin for letting me use his camera).



The guide then gets a little lizard happy and starts sticking them all over my torso.  In the pic on the right I've got those 4 on me plus the ones in my hand.

He then goes a little overboard:

I think there are about 20-25 iguanas on me at this point (there were a couple on my back) and I couldn't be happier.  This set up the rest of my day perfectly.

Once we left San Ignacio, we headed to the belize zoo.  At the entrance there was a sign where you could buy passes for "encounters" with some of the animals.  One of which was the jaguar, so naturally I had to do it.  Five of us split the cost ($10 U.S. per person) and went straight to the jaguar cage.  Here is what we saw:
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In case you couldn't tell what was happening when I'm laughing and you can't see the jaguar's mouth at the end of the video, this is what was happening:

This wonderful shot (taken by Colin) made my day.

After the jaguar we continued around the zoo checking out the different animals.  Here's a shortened version of some of the cooler/funnier moments.
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2nd Excursion

On Wednesday we went to a caving/museum place called ATM (Actun Tunichil Muknal).  We had to hike a bit to it, which was fun.  We had to cross a river 3 times to get to it and we had a camera happy guide named Martin. 

We trekked through the woods and into the river wearing all of our clothes (including shoes, which my purple high top adidas retain a ridiculous amount of water).  

After a good hike we come up to the main camp part before we get to the cave and I see one of my favorite things:

After getting the pic of the lizard we head to the entrance of the cave we're going into (hence the helmet attached to me in the pic above the lizard).  

We get there and see an amazing entrance to the cave. 

We go into the mouth and swim around a bit, do some jumping into the water off a formation in the cave. From here some of us follow a new guide, Emil, who's been doing this tour for 11 years, so we feel we're in good hands.  We head into the cave and do some squeezing and climbing and walking and get to an area that is a in location museum.  In this area are old Mayan artifacts from well over a thousand years ago. 

These pots are still very well preserved and were broken by the Mayans for ceremonial purposes.

The picture to the right is of a skull of what is believed to be a human sacrifice.

Below is an almost complete skeleton of another sacrifice that is found at the very end of the tour.

After this we head back to the entrance, taking a different route than the one we took in that included some more difficult climbing, but it was a lot of fun.  This tour cemented a decision to go to a more intense cave that our guide, Diego, talked about at Caracol.  

Crystal Cave

So, after the ATM tour myself and 3 other interns went to Crystal Cave with our guide from Tuesday.  We hiked up a bit to the entrance of the cave and then Diego went to work in setting up our anchor to rappel into the cave.  I of course decide to film the entrance (you'll see that in a second) and Colin decided to take some pictures of me since they said I looked like I was going to play basketball.

You can't really tell how intense the mouth of this cave is in these pictures but the videos will.  In the video is a series of clips that include our guide rappelling into the cave, a small "room" we climbed down into, shots of the various formations throughout the cave, including the farthest part of it, and a little special clip at the end.
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On the next blog: ANIMALS!

Belizean Culture

As I've been meandering around Belize, I've taken notice to some of the cultural aspects that are seen often.  Almost everywhere I've been music has been present and they are very active in festivities.  Also, the entire town of San Pedro shut down during Easter.  Many businesses were closed during the day and it became a little difficult to locate food during breakfast and lunch.  The entire town is religious and everyone follows, what I assume, are the standard religious practices during this time, which is very different from the U.S.  There is also a large emphasis put on enjoying oneself with others around.  This includes dancing in the street, eating with others and having a good time.  This is interesting to see and it ties in very well with seeing how the students are.  While they do have a religious backing at home, they clearly like to be out and about and doing things with others whenever they can.  They'll meet up for meals at any point in the day and they do everything from playing soccer and volleyball to having dance parties in the street.  This should help me with working with the students.