I'm Teaching In Belize!

My Last Day of School

2009-04-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

I have a fair amount to share seeing as I didn't get to post on Thursday, so you'll have to bear with me as I recount the final days of my teaching at San Pedro High School. To begin, Thursday was a relatively boring day for me. Miss Usher had the students take a test on pronouns where they had to copy a paragraph that was written on one side of a piece of paper and write it on the other side. I could tell this annoyed some students, because it probably would have made more sense for the students to just fill in the answers on the front side of the paper, but after speaking with Miss Usher, it is important for students to copy correct writing so they can get accustomed to it. While I counted on this taking maybe 15-20 minutes, most students took the entire class period to answer this test, which seems a bit ridiculous to me. I expected good grades on it, seeing as students took so much time concentrating on it, but I was sadly disappointed when I graded the tests and a majority of the students only got five out of the ten questions correct, and many got fewer than that. Heck, a handful of students filled in all of the blank spaces with nouns and verbs. This was frustrating, to realize that I spent two class periods with students and they didn't even walk away with the concept of what a pronoun is.

One of the things that surprised me on this day was when I entered a classroom and two students were sitting in plastic patio chairs. I should probably point out that, since all students stay in their rooms all day, they all have "their own desks," meaning, when I asked a student to move to a different part of the room, they would take their desk with them. When Miss Usher asked the students about what happened to their desks, they simply didn't know. I figured that maybe a teacher needed extra chairs, but when the students went searching for their desks in the other classrooms, none could be found. This was a strange occurrence, and one that I couldn't imagine happening in American high schools.

During the tests on Thursday, I saw Miss Usher whisper to students and they would give her money. I wondered what was going on, but I assumed that it had something to do with the trip they are taking to Las Vegas. When I got to school on Friday I was surprised to find out that Miss Usher was collecting money from her students so each class could buy me a gift to remember them by. When the first class came out, Miss Usher told them to take a seat on the bleachers so that I could get a class picture of them. After that, one of the students made a quick speech. Each student was so well spoken and they speeches were extremely nice. Most students spoke about how nice it was to have me in class and how much they would miss me; I was very impressed by the speeches and was really touching to think that maybe I was able to have such an influence in the classroom, having only been teaching for three weeks.

Next, someone from the class presented me with a gift from the class. I got so many cool things: a mug that has a map of Belize, a key chain with some Belizean sand, a black coral necklace, a hat that says San Pedro Belize, and a ceramic plaque with a picture of my 1A students that has all of their signatures. I couldn't believe I was getting so many gifts. The rest of the time the students asked me questions and we talked about my future plans. I told them that I hoped to come back one day, that I'll be teaching at a middle school when I return home, and that I will make sure they each get an email from a student back home. Miss Usher made it a point to tell me that all of the students asked if they could have a party for me the last day and that she was merely the one who collected the money. I don't know if I believe this, but it was an extremely sweet sentiment and it really made me feel good about the time I spent with the students here in Belize.

After I met with all of my classes, I thought the day was over. After school we knew that the school had planned an assembly. We were all gathered in the staff room when we heard our names announced and we were called to the auditorium. When we got to the auditorium, all of the students were seated on the outside bleachers of the basketball court overlooking five empty chairs. Guess who the chairs were for. As we took our seats in the center of the court, we saw the school rock group, Rocking Peace, take the stage. The band played four songs for us, including Katy Perry, Guns 'n Roses' "Sweet Child of Mine" and two songs by Central American rock sensation, Mana. This was a really cool way to send us off. While it was only a school rock band, the students were really talented and it made us feel like we had VIP tickets to an actual Guns 'n Roses concert. After all of this excitement, Miss Martha, the co-founder and chairlady of the school thanked us for all of our hard work, which was also quite nice.

After the assembly, we went into the conference room to have a quiet party with the staff. They made rum punch, queso dip, pimento cheese sandwiches, and a fruit cake they referred to as "better than sex cake." This was quite delicious and it was fun to mingle with the staff members. We will be having a party on Sunday at Mr. Gustavo's house to send us on our way.

All in all, this was a great day. I think that many of us got caught up in the work we had to do to prepare everyday for class and all of the excitement of being in a new country that we never got a chance to sit back and think about the relationships we were building with the teachers and students at San Pedro. It was obvious that the students cared about what we were doing and they realized the sacrifices we went through to be there with them for three weeks. At the end of the day, I felt appreciated, as if my time here in Belize hasn't been wasted and that I will always have some fond memories to look back on as I move forward in my teaching career.

Acting Out

2009-04-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

Today was another long day here on La Isla Bonita. I don't mean this in a bad way, it was just full of excitment. Today, I had my lesson prepared for Miss Usher's classes, but when I got to school, she explained that she wanted me to do it a particular way. As I mentioned in my previous blog, Miss Usher told me she wanted me to present a lesson on plays and drama. I had to describe "dialogue" and "stage direction" to the students. I planned on doing this with notes and then using everyday examples. Miss Usher wanted me to go a little further and do some drawing. I'm probably one of the worst drawers, but it is very hard to tell Miss Usher "no."

I began class by explaining the purpose of dialogue and play direction and then started drawing a stick figure of Brad Pitt and had students imagine that he was the star of the play we were creating. From there, I drew a picture of Angelina Jolie, who approached Brad and told him that she was breaking up with him because she found a new man, Mr. Will. The students really enjoyed this scenario. I then explained that the plot thickened, as I decided to break up with Angelina for another woman. When I asked the students who I started dating after Angelina, without any fail, all of the classes shouted "Miss Usher." I don't know what kind of twisted students pair up a twenty-three year old guy with a fifty-nine year old lady, but all of them got a kick out of imagining us in love. Anyway, the moral of the story is "what goes around comes around" and that Angelina was the one who suffered in the end after she broke it off with Brad. Both the students and myself had a good time with this.

After the drawing activity, it was time to demonstrate some acting. I have never claimed to be any type of thesbian, but I had to model some of the concepts of playwriting explained in the textbook, so Miss Usher and I then acted out a scene from "A Man for All Seasons" by Robert Bolt, which tells the story of Thomas More, who was jailed and eventually killed after rebelling against King Henry VIII for taking the head of the church away from the Pope. Anyway, there was a dramatic scene where Miss Usher, who played my wife, Alice, had to grasp my hand in the air and we had to say goodbye. It was very dramatic. There wasn't a dry seat in the house.

Anyway, after performing the play and having a quick discussion, I realized during my first class that there were still ten minutes left in class and there was nothing prepared. I suppose Miss Usher knew this going into class because she took over and began reviewing the topic from yesterday. In each class she discussed heroes and why we need to have heroes, but not one of her lectures was the same from class to class. One of the classes got a lecture on why Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks are so important, one class got a lecture on the holocaust, another was told that they need to stop North Korea from sending nuclear bombs into space, and another class learned about the plot of the movie "Australia" with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman that made her cry. Somehow, everything she said had something to do with heroes and standing up for what you believe in, but it all seems like a blur to me now.

Like many days, probably the highlight of today was lunch, when we had rice and beans, coleslaw, and reef eel, otherwise known as barracuda. I had never tried fried barracuda before, but it was pretty good. It was a perfectly round fillet with the vertebral column in the center of the meat. It tasted like any other oily fish, but it was pretty interesting because the skin was really crunchy. Miss Usher brought me a cookbook today, so I'll have to prepare some reef eel when I get home.

After a long day of teaching, we had to stay after school because we were giving the staff of San Pedro High School some staff development. Dr. K asked my fellow high school teachers and me to do some break out sessions, teaching teachers about some techniques and tools that we use back home. My topic that he chose for me was concept mapping. I like concept maps and think they're useful, but an entire 15 minutes on circle maps, bubble maps, double bubble maps, tree maps, and flow maps isn't terribly exciting. I can be a pretty charismatic person at times, but I struggled at making concept mapping enthralling. While some teachers were really into it, I could tell that I was losing others and they would prefer sitting at home or taking a nap. All-in-all it was a pretty typical example of professional development.

After our professional development, it was time to go home and relax, right? Wrong. We decided to work on a service project where we would paint the high school basketball court. Today ended up being a really good day for painting the court because it wasn't too hot and the mosquitos weren't out in full force at the school. The court is beginning to look really nice. I hope the students appreciate it. If nothing else, it is something for them to remember us by.

Surely after all of this action it was time to go home and work on lesson plans, correct? No no no. Tonight was Amanda's birthday, so we all went out to dinner in town. We went to a pretty nice place called Lily's Treasure Chest, which is located on the beach. I'm rather confident that we all smelled bad from a long day of teaching, sweating, professional developing, and painting, but none of us seemed to mind. Amanda seemed to enjoy it, and it was nice to celebrate her birthday. It truly seems like we are a small little family at this point. I figured that by the final week of this trip, we would all hate each other or grow really close; luckily for us, it is more the latter.

I'm now sitting in my room putting the finishing touches on tomorrow's lesson will be a test on pronouns and we will continue our lesson on heroes. I'm surprisingly not feeling terribly tired from all of today's excitement. I think I'm getting used to this Belizean lifestyle of working hard all day long. It has helped me to appreciate the hours teachers in the United States work. While I still think teachers don't get compensated for the amount of work we do (and the torment some students put us through), at least we are given an environment that is conducive to working (that is, unless your health ratings range somewhere near a 70). While I probably went to school at 7:30 am and worked on lesson plans until 10 pm during my internship, I have seen some teachers who work both at the high school and junior college who get to school at 7:45 am and don't leave the school until closer to 8 pm. This is crazy to me, but I fully realize that there are teachers in the United States who lead the same ridiculous schedule, namely coaches. Anyway, the point I'm getting at is that both my internship at Laney and my teaching here in Belize have given me a pretty good taste of what teaching has been like. While the schedule can be very demanding and students never seem to realize how hard you work outside of school and how much you care about them and their academic success, there is not another job that I can think of that could make feel me so happy and fulfilled day in and day out.

Rainy Days and Tuesdays

2009-04-21T17:17:00.000-07:00

Last night I had one of the best night sleeps I've had in about a week. Typically I wake up three or four times in the middle of the night from either a heat stroke or a mutant mosquito sucking on my back. Last night I had no problems. This morning I woke up and felt something I hadn't felt in a very long time- cold. It seems as though it rained last night and into the morning and this cooled down the island. I couldn't believe waking up and shivering...it was wonderful.

I realized that there are some down sides to rainy weather here. First of all, the dirt roads instantly turn to mud roads, which makes it virtually impossible to ride your bike to school without splatter mud all over your paints, primarily your backside. Also, all of the puddles are a breeding ground for the nasty mosquitos. This wouldn't be such an issue if I didn't have to go into a garden every time I need internet here at Ak'bol. I'm still debating whether checking my e-mails are worth all of the mosquito welts that are surfacing all over my body. So far, I haven't been able to function without my e-mail, so my body continues to get eaten alive.

Having said all this, I can't complain. It was a nice cool day and I had another good day of teaching. One thing I realized today is that no matter how cool it is outside, it is virtually impossible for me to leave the school without being drenched in sweat and covered in chalk dust. I don't know what it is about teaching at San Pedro High School, but I just feel like coming back to my hut and throwing away the clothes I've worn that day because they are usually covered in filth. I can't imagine what it is like in Belize during August. That must be horrible.

Anyway, today's lesson was on heroes/heroines. In true Miss Usher style, she told me I would be teaching this lesson twenty minutes before our first class. We discussed what heroes are (most of them believed that they were super heroes) and then she asked me to discuss Nelson Mandela, since the textbook had a picture of him in it. When I looked for some facts of him in the book, they didn't have any. I pride myself on being a pretty worldly guy, but I honestly don't know that much about Nelson Mandela. I know that he is an equal-rights activist in Africa and that he spent a long time in jail for his beliefs that went against that of the African government, but I am very unclear on the specifics. I was stuck teaching a lesson I knew little about, so for much of the first part of class, I had to pretend like I knew a lot more than I did and dance around any questions students had. This was probably the most uncomfortable teaching moment I have thus far.

After this discussion, students had to work on listening comprehension, so I had to read a story aloud about a boy who saved his little brother from a burning Hyundai pick-up truck. Students then had to recall setting, characters, plot, and theme of the story. After that, students shared stories about heroes that they have seen. In one class, I had a student share a story about one of his peers, Charles, who apparently saved a really large woman from drowning the other day. the students were really happy for Charles and we all gave him a round of applause, which was nice.

The rest of the day was really fun as well. Today I got all of my students' e-mail addresses so that they can exchange e-mails with students at Laney High School. When I explained my plans to get their e-mail addresses so that they could talk with students back in the United States, a lot of them became very excited. I think that some of them are looking for romantic connections, but I had to explain to them that this wasn't match.com (a reference they didn't understand) and that the distance might make any chance at a relationship rather difficult. Either way, they were excited to communicate with the students from America. It should be interesting to see what they write.

Before I left today, I made sure that Miss Usher told me what we would be teaching tomorrow to prevent another "Nelson Mandela incident." I'm teaching drama and play-writing to my first form students, which is an interesting change of pace from today. I'll be sure to write tomorrow to let you know how it goes.

Back to School Blues

2009-04-20T17:02:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, it was awfully difficult to back to school today. I had become accustomed to waking up at 8 am, taking my time eating my chocolate banana pancakes, relaxing on the beach, and then working on my class work. Needless to say, waking up at 6 am, in order to teach a full day of school was no day at the beach. However, I survived and had a good day. It didn't take long for me to get back in the groove of things and realize why I was on this trip.

First thing I should mention is that Ak'bol is inconveniently located two miles away from the high school, so we had to get bikes (and no Mother, they didn't come with helmets...sorry). I haven't ridden a bike since my sophomore year of high school, so this has proven to be quite a surprise to me. However, it is nice to be able to go around town with such ease. It makes our treks much more fun, as well. So, it now takes us about 15 minutes to get to school by bike, which is tolerable compared to the 45 minutes it takes by foot.

Anyway, I felt quite unprepared for today's lesson, seeing as Miss Usher didn't want to ask the teachers in the English department what they needed help with and she didn't give me any plans herself. With that being said, I was pretty sure I would working with Miss Usher for the rest of this week. Since she didn't give me any plans, I just assumed I would be observing a lesson she had worked on for today. Boy, was I surprised when she told me that I would be teaching the first form students subject-verb agreement today. On top of that, a minute before we went into class, she told me to do the ant rap again. I was not too excited about doing the same lesson again, but she's the boss.

I began the class with a review of the ant rap and then I had students rap it back to me, because Miss Usher explained that they would have an exam where they had to memorize the rap. Next, I reviewed subject-verb agreement and then we played a game where I would yell out a verb and either singular or plural and two students would write a sentence on the board using that criteria. The first team to finish their sentence got a point. This continued for the rest of the period.

Probably the highlight of my day, like many days, has been the food in the cantina. Today, I was helping to serve meat pies, when I was told by John to look at what was in the pot on the stove. When I looked in the pot, there was a decapitated armadillo floating in some boiling water. Mr. Gustavo went hunting over the break and was going to make us some armadillo tacos. Thus far, I have not been one to turn down new foods, and I wasn't about to deny this treat a try. When I finally got a chance to make my taco, I had some armadillo, tomatoes, and onions with chili peppers. At the risk of sounding cheesy or cliche, it just tasted a chicken taco. I enjoyed it, mostly because it tasted like any other taco I had eaten. When I open a restaurant, I think I'm going to have quesadillas stuffed with armadillo and call them quesadillos...sorry that was stupid.

Anyway, I did have a low part in my day. The class of 1G had forgotten or refused to do their homework over the break and as a result Miss Usher made them stay after school and do the homework three times. Now, this wasn't some short assignment. Students had to copy three long paragraphs from their workbooks on to paper and then fill in the correct verbs. Once they did this, they had to do it two more times. Of course, Miss Usher asked me if I would stay and watch the kids. After an hour of watching students copy and write in silence, I began to wonder if this was more of a punishment for them or for me. As soon as students finished, I had to collect their work and make sure they didn't skip any sentences. There were at least five students who tried to leave early by skipping sentences and I got really angry that they would do this. I tried to reason with them and explain that I wanted to be there as much as they did, but there was no reason to cheat and try to sneak it past me. This was a bad way to end the first day back, but I'm excited at the prospect of tomorrow being better.

Overall, I'm glad to be back at school. It makes being in Belize seem more important and I feel like I have a purpose. I'm starting to get the itch to get back home and see everyone, but so long as I'm here I'd like to feel like I'm doing something productive. Being at school and working with the students makes me feel good about my time here; it gives me a reason to wake up at the crack of dawn just so I can ride my bike.

2009-04-19T11:26:00.001-07:00

Since nothing is really happening today, I thought I would take this opportunity to talk a little bit more about the Belizean culture, specifically something that is unique in my opinion. As I have explained, the school is tightly knit to religion, specifically Catholicism. As a result, students have to take a scripture class at school, there are crucifixes scattered throughout the school, and before school starts, the teachers often take part in a staff prayer. While they are also very religious, students also have a course called life skills, that is more like our health and wellness class that teaches students how to make good life decisions.

What we learned early on is that Belize has the highest rate of HIV and AIDS. Throughout the town you see billboards and signs that promote the use of condoms and safe sex. I found this extremely interesting, especially given the inherent religious nature of Belizean culture. Having taught in the south, there is a clear debate between those who believe in teaching abstinence and those who believe that we need to teach our students how to practice safe sex. While I'm not going to share my personal views on this topic, I think it is fascinating that Belizean culture is able to put their religious and personal views aside to preach for a cause that best serves everyone, especially young adults. It seems as though Belize has realized that HIV and AIDS has become an epidemic that has gotten out of control and, as a result, they moved away from the push for abstinence to a campaign that tells people that, if they are going to have sex, be safe and use protection.

In America, we have this great debate and it seems like one that constantly conflicts with our personal morals. Whereas the United States cannot seem to settle on what is best for our culture, Belize has whole-heartedly adopted a plan to control the spread of sexually transmitted diseases by choosing a campaign that best suits them. They realized that people were going to have sex no matter what, and decided to teach them how to practice is safely. I don't know how successful this campaign has been, but I can't go a block without seeing a billboard that promotes safe sex. It is crazy to me, because I think topics such as this are rather taboo in our culture and we have a hard time discussing this, for fear of angering someone. This is not a topic I necessarily feel strong about, but one that is seemingly unavoidable here in Belize.

A Quiet, Mosquito Infested Week on the North Side

2009-04-17T13:06:00.000-07:00

I'd like to begin this blog by apologizing for my lack of writing this past week. I wanted to blog, I swear I did, but the days have been so quiet and uneventful here on the north side of San Pedro that I had little excitement to share. This is our second week of Easter break and I have been using it mostly to keep up on my school work to prepare for graduation. I've been working on a teaching notebook, my inquiry project, and my portfolio defense and it has been a rather boring week. However, I have had some opportunities to leave Ak'bol yoga resort and explore some of the sights and sounds of Belize.

For example, on Tuesday I decided that my chi needed some aligning, so I decided to give yoga a try. Dr. K explained to me that people who do yoga get real muscular because yoga provides a workout that you don't get by simply lifting weights. I had felt like a bum this entire trip because my goal to join a gym fell through and I haven't been running like I had hoped, so yoga was a perfect chance for me to get back in the swing of things. It was this morning that I realized yoga wasn't for me. My body simply doesn't stretch and move the ways the yoga instructor, Kirsten, was trying to make it. She would constantly remind everyone that "there is no competition or judgement" when doing yoga, I think because I looked like an idiot trying to replicate the moves and positions and she didn't want me to feel bad, but then she would come over to me and stretch my feet and legs for me and begin laughing...so much for no judgement. Anyway, after our hour and a half session, I was ready for a nap because it tired me out. The next day my core was burning. I think this was a sign that I need to hit the gym when I get back because I am obviously out of shape.

On Wednesday we decided to go snorkeling. All of the science folk were quite excited for this because they got to look at all of the beautiful marine biology- I just wanted to get out and do something. This proved to be a bad choice. It started pretty well. We saw some cool coral and fish on the reef. We even saw a barracuda. Midway through the tour, I started to swallow a lot of salt water and began to feel queasy, but I kept following the group because I'm a trooper. I was so excited to hear our tour guide, Steven, tell me it was time to go back; I had survived a day of snorkeling without chumming. As soon as we got to the boat, Margo and I simultaneously started to feel like we were going to throw up. Unfortunately, I was the only one who followed through with this feeling and ended up feeding the fishes the ham and cheese fry jack I had for breakfast. I felt absolutely terrible. To top it off, Steven decided to take his sweet time talking with the the other tourists while my face was a ghostly white color. Finally, Margo had enough and told Steven to step on it. By the time we got back to the dock, I ran to land and rested in the shaded cabana by the sea, in case I needed to ralph some more. Luckily, the feeling had passed and Dr. K's wife brought out a soda for me to settle my stomach, which helped a lot. We made plans to take another snorkeling adventure next weekend and I think I'll sit that one out.

I spent a lot of time Wednesday getting my bearings back and taking care of school work. By Thursday I was ready to get back out and see more of Belize. We decided to take a trip to Caye Calker, a quiet island south of San Pedro. This was a nice, relaxing day. We did some shopping and I got some goodies for some people back home and we spent some time at a place called Lazy Lizards. This is a bar on the end of the island that has absolutely beautiful blue water. What makes this place even better are the characters we met at Lazy Lizards. There was one guy who approached me and said, "I know you." I was confident that I hadn't seen him before. He went on to explain to me that we had met twice in previous lives and that we were doing some immoral things. I was fascinated by this guy, but not enough to stick around and find out more about my previous life. There was another guy who wore a hat made out of palm leaves and had several different aliases he went by including "Thanks for helping me" and "Dr. Aloe." He rubbed some aloe on Amanda's back where she had burned and then let us feed the fishes by holding out sardines and letting the frigget birds swoop down and take the fish from our hands. This was really cool.

After Lazy Lizards, we decided to look for a pool hall. When we couldn't find one, we asked someone for some help. The guy we found was named Charles and he was from Brooklyn, New York. After failing to find us a pool hall, he decided he was going to follow us around and host us for the rest of the day. He took us to the bird sanctuary, where saw one bird hidden in the trees. After that, we decided to walk on the beach and just relax until our taxi came. It was at this point that I realized Charles was a pathological liar. He explained that he was a carpenter, plumber, electrician, substitute teacher, and the reigning karaoke champion for three islands in Belize. While impressive, Alberto explained to us that he knew the karaoke champion of San Pedro and it wasn't Charles (I suppose they take their karaoke very seriously here). After humoring us for the afternoon, we had to say goodbye to Charles and we went back to San Pedro.

Once back at the dock, I was excited to see some of my students at the bar. Now, I know that students aren't allowed at the bar because if they are seen drinking in public, even if they are 18, they will be expelled from school. They were all wearing the same shirts and I realized it was the school rock band. They were at the bar to put on a show to raise money for the school. I was really impressed by the band. They had some really great musicians and the lead singers were really exuberant. They really got the crowd into it and it was fun to see these students doing what they love outside of school.

After that it was time to go back to Ak'bol. Staying there has been interesting. The lack of air conditioning has presented some issues for me, not because it doesn't get cool enough, because some nights it does. However, we need to keep the windows open in order to get air, and there are no screens on the windows. As a result, I have been eaten alive by the mosquitos that past few nights. This has not been enjoyable. However, the lack of television has forced me to work on my school work to the point where I think I will be well prepared for my final assignments when I get home.

Overall, this has been a quiet week, which has been nice. We are all a little nervous to go back to school on Monday since we have been away for so long. It is crazy to think that there are less than two weeks left in Belize. We will be sure to make the most of it.

Back to La Isla Bonita

2009-04-13T14:13:00.000-07:00

On Saturday it was time to leave the mainland to head back to San Pedro. After packing our bags, it was time to say a sad goodbye to Herman and Paradise. I should mention that this was not a day any of us were looking forward to. Not necessarily because we didn’t want to go back to San Pedro, because I think all of us were ready to get back on the island, but because all of our stomachs had had enough of the traveling and this was just going to be one mode of transportation to the next.

Personally, the day went by rather smoothly. We took an express bus from Corozal to Belize City, which was surprisingly nice. It was more like an old charter bus than a retired school bus. It had pleather seats that reclined and the bus wasn’t packed. After our two-hour journey from Corozal to Belize City, we took a cab to our water taxi. We hopped aboard our express water taxi and after an hour an fifteen minute trip on the water, we were happy to be back on Ambergris Caye. Dr. K was also excited because his wife, Megan, was in town for the next week, so this only added to the excitement of being back.

When we got on the island, we had a boat take us to our new “home” for our final two weeks here: “Ak’bol Yoga Resort.” When I first heard about this place, I thought it was pretty hippy dippy, my feelings were totally accurate.

When we reached Ak’bol, I was happy because I realized that we would be staying on the beach. We had to walk five minutes to the beach when we lived at Pedro’s- it was horrible. Now I just walk out and I can see the beach. However, my joy quickly turned to apprehension after we were taken to our rooms. When we got to the first room, we looked in and all we saw was a wooden platform, with two beds, and a ceiling fan. We don’t have TV, wireless internet, and we have a communal bathroom down the hall. I could see the faces of my compadres fall when the realized what we’d be dealing with for the next few weeks. Remember when I said I wanted to see what it was like to live with less technology- be careful what you wish for.

To be honest with you, I have thoroughly enjoyed my stay thus far at Ak’bol. Yesterday, all I did was sit on the beach and read my book. They serve breakfast here all day and everything is healthy. Yesterday I had multigrain banana pancakes and I usually detest anything lowfat or health-food conscious, but this was really good. I’m even considering doing some yoga tomorrow. It gets a little warm at night without air conditioning, but I’m coping with it well. I slept like a log last night and I’ve gotten more sleep here than I have this entire trip. I think what we all needed was a relaxing time to finish off what has been a fast-paced and somewhat stressful experience. I think Ak-bol will be good for all of us.

Corozal: Day 2

2009-04-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

This was a very sad day, because Allison had to go home. I think she had a really good time on her Spring Break. We were very busy the entire time, so I don’t know how much relaxation she got on her vacation, but if nothing else, it was education and she got to see me, sounds like a great break to me.

After she got her cab to begin her journey home, we got a van to take us to Orange Walk so that we could go on a riverboat tour of Lamanai, another Mayan ruin. At this point I was a little “ruined-out” from all of the Mayan touring we had done, but I felt like I needed to go just to check it out- I’m glad I did.

When we got to the place that would take us on the river tour, we ate some breakfast and chatted with the owners of the place. There was a really funny guy who made it his job to scare Margo. At one point we were sitting and talking and he took a live baby crocodile and placed it on Margo’s hand. They’re lucky she didn’t fling that guy across the room the way she screamed. That’s not to say I wouldn’t have done the same myself, but it was pretty funny. I’m not a big fan of reptiles, but even I thought this guy was pretty cute and I even held it.

After a nice meal and some practical jokes, we were ready for our riverboat tour. This was great, we would be traveling at 60 mph and all of sudden the tour guide would yell out to the driver he would stop the boat. He would then point out a crocodile, or bird, or iguana that was nearly impossible to see. I don’t know how this guy spotted them so well, but it was really cool to see these animals in their habitats. My sister would have loved to see all of the iguanas in their habitat, as she has one of her own.

This was all really cool, but quite possibly the best part of my day was when we came close to the trees and we saw two spider monkey’s swinging from tree to tree. The tour guide, Carlos, then started making a kissing noise and got some bananas. Sure enough, within a minute those monkeys were on our boat! Margo got to feed one of the monkeys and I was really jealous (I was also a little bit nervous after hearing about the monkey that beat

up thatwoman a few weeks ago…luckily nobody was beaten up by these monkeys). To the right is a picture of one of the friendly monkeys that jumped on our boat.

After an hour and a half ride on the boat, we reached Lamanai. This was really neat. It was much bigger than Xunantenich and it had a few different things we hadn’t seen before. For instance, the artwork was different. We saw shrines, and stelas that were illustrations of kings. We also saw a ball court, which is where Mayans would play games with a ball and a hoop and the captain of the winning team would be sacrificed to the gods. The rationale behind this is that, who would you rather sacrifice to your gods, the best or the worst? I’m thinking I might have thrown a game or two just so I could live.After climbing another big ruin, seeing some haller monkeys in the trees, and looking at all of the natural flora, it was time to leave.

It was a really relaxing boat ride back, with exception to this one lady. I should preface what I’m about to say by telling you I’m very proud of my northern roots. I love New Jersey with all my heart, but once in awhile you come across someone who just gives all northerners a bad name. On our trip, there was one lady who was so loud and obnoxious and she had to have a comment for everything the tour guide said. Carlos would be explaining how eleven percent of the Belizean community was made up of Mennonites and this lady would say, “Oh, I live outside of Lancaster County and we have so many Mennonites. They are a lot like the Amish and we also have Quakers too…” or one time Carlos pointed out the blue herons in the trees and this lady had to add, “Ohhh, those are the little buggers that eat all of the gold fish out of my pond back home. I’d like to have a word or two with them.” It’s not even like this lady was being discreet about it, she felt like she was the center of attention. On top of this, whenever something was pointed out, she felt compelled to stand up and block everyone’s view of what we were looking at. As a result I have some great pictures of the wildlife of

Belize with this woman’s head in it. To the left is one such picture where I tried to get a shot of a Belizean rum distillery and instead a got a close up of this lady's head. At times I had visions of a crocodile snatching this woman from our boat, but then I realized that it was Good Friday and that it wasn’t very Christian of me to think such things. Alright, I need to calm down. I can feel my blood pressure rising as I reflect on this lady. Whatever, I’m over it. Not even this lady could ruin my beautiful day on the river.

Off to Corozal

2009-04-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

For the last leg of our trip to the mainland, we decided to go to Corozal Town, which is a small town on the mainland where most of the teachers at San Pedro High School grew up. I don’t know the specific reason why most people at the high school travel to San Pedro, other than they need the jobs. Work on the mainland is highly sought after, mostly

because it is much cheaper to live on the mainland than it does on San Pedro, mostly because San Pedro is a tourist destination. I was stunned at how cheap everything was on the mainland; everything was almost half the price. Subsequently, most teachers have a small house at San Pedro, and often come to Corozal on the weekends. I know that Americans do some crazy things for their jobs, but to live in two places seems crazy to me. It seems to be the way the culture is organized here.

Of course the downside of this is that it separates families. There is one young teacher at San Pedro High who has to teach on the island while his family lives in Corozal. He has a one-year-old son who lives with his grandfather and goes to work with him. When his father comes home to Corozal for the weekends, his son doesn’t even know him; he calls his grandfather “dad.” I suppose these are the sacrifices

some people have to do for their livelihood, especially with an economy that is currently floundering.

Anyway, we got to Corozal in the afternoon. When we left San Ignacio, we were told

that we were staying at a place called “Tony’s Luxury Beach Resort.” Based on the website, it had beautifully decorated rooms, which a beachside view. It looked fantastic. When we got to Corozal, we realized we were staying at the place across the street from Tony’s, Paradise Villas and Apartments. When we got out of our van, we were greeted by this little white man with an accent who

called himself “Herman the German.” This was an interesting character. He was very accommodating and friendly, but he started making some inappropriate sexual comments and I started to feel increasingly skeeved out about this place. In any other experience in Belize I would accept these off-color comments and consider this part of the culture we are experiencing, but with this guy, it became clear that he was just a weirdo. You’ll understand why in a second...

Herman took us into our “luxury villas” and everyone was excited to see that it had more amenities than we had been used to this entire trip. We had a living room with a TV, a full kitchen, two bedrooms and a bathroom. It would be nice if it wasn’t decorated as if we were living in the seventies. Now, I never got to know my grandparents, but I imagine if I had, this is what their house might have looked like. It was honestly like traveling in a time machine to see what interior decorating used to look like. Of

course, the icing on the cake was that the master bedrooms had two mirrors: one on the wall and another on the

ceiling. According to Herman, each apartment had a romantic honeymoon suite. I was one of the lucky ones to

get this bed with the mirrors, lucky me. To the left is a picture of John, Anna (Herman's much younger wife), Herman, and myself.

After putting my things in my room, we decided to take a cruise around Corozal. Herman was nice enough to take us in his old Dodge Caravan. Again, I must explain this hot rod. It had yellow flames streaking down the side of the van, with a huge spiderman decal plastered on the hood of the car. The front windshield had the word “maldito” written in stickers, which translates to “evil” in Spanish and the word “Lucifer” was written on the back windshield. The car was so dusty that I’m pretty sure gang members had used their fingers to write some graffiti on the car. To top it off, when we borrowed the car the next day, there was a gun sitting between two empty beer bottles in the middle console. I wish I could tell you I was lying about any of what I have written, but this is the honest truth. Herman claims he bought the car like that, but I have my doubts. But I digress…

We finally made it into town and as we walked around, we found that this was the quietest town we had been in thus far. This was the farthest place from a tourist destination as there didn’t seem to be much to do. To be honest, it reminded me of the quiet town in which I was raised. It had a small town feel and I could tell, while it was a very poor area, it was probably an okay place to grow up. This was supported by the fact one of the teachers, Mr. Gillharry, showed us around and explained how much he loves coming home. He and his friend, Elson, took us on a tour of their hometown and showed us their high school, which they call community college, and their junior college. After our tour of the town, we went to a grocery store to get food so we could cook for the first time in three weeks. We then went back to the villas so we could relax in Paradise for the night.

San Ignacio: Day 4

2009-04-13T14:07:00.000-07:00

This was another pleasant day because we didn’t have any big plans. I slept in late, ate breakfast at my leisure, watched some SportsCenter in my room, and took my time. A few of the people from the group were planning on going to the zoo, and Allison and I were going to go, but

decided against it because we were not feeling good. Instead, we decided to take a taxi and stroll around San Ignacio for the day. This was fun. We ate some food at a place called Eva’s Kitchen, where we had one of my favotire meals to date, stew chicken with rice and beans and cole slaw. After lunch, we just hung around the town and went shopping. I was able to get some gifts for people back home and che

ck out the town. What I realized this day was that San Ignacio is very different from the other cities in which we’ve been staying for the simple fact that it is not really a tourist’s city. By this, I mean that there is a lot of poverty and the town doesn’t seem to cater to the needs of tourists. The shops are for the people of San Ignacio instead of the gift shops we have seen everywhere we go. While at San Pedro, we can go to our r

esort when we feel uncomfortable; here at San Ignacio I felt like I was really mixed in with the culture. I think it was good for our group to see so that we could experience the other side of Belize- the side that doesn’t make it

on the brochures. To the left is a picture of the town of San Ignacio.

After we got back to Cahal Pech, Allison and I relaxed a little and waited for the others to get back from the zoo. Apparently they saw a lot of cool animals and were stunned by the fact that the only thing separating them from the animals was chicken wire. Imagine if a jaguar got angry one day and went on a rampage. Luckily on this day, the animals were calm and everyone made it back safely.

Later that night we were looking for places to eat on our last night at San Ignacio and I suggested that we go back to Hannah’s. I might have been selfish in wanting to eat there again, especially since there were other restaurants we hadn’t tried yet, but nobody disagreed with me so we ate there again. Instead of changing it up, I decided I needed to eat the curry again one last time, so I got the lamb curry. This was another amazing meal and a great way to end the trip in San Ignacio.

San Ignacio: Day 3

2009-04-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

On day three of our time in San Ignacio, we decided to do another cave excursion. Instead of waterfalls, this was an educational trip to Actun Tenochil Maknul, or ATM for short. We had to take a van for almost an hour and a half all the way into the jungle. Once in the jungle we had a forty-minute hike to the mouth of the cave. I expected this to be pretty similar to the cave excursion I went on in at Caves Branch, but it was very different.

Once in the cave, we had to swim and hold on to the sides of the cave to get from place to place. We were in the water for a majority of the time until we reached a rocky portion of the cave. Once there, we had to take off our shoes and walk

in our socks. The purpose of this was so that the oils from our shoes didn’t compromise any of the artifacts we were going to see from the Mayan culture. This was extremely cool. We were able to go into rooms where Mayans held different ceremonies. We saw pottery that had been broken

for religious purposes and human remains from people who had been sacrificed to their gods. It was really fascinating to see all of this history live and in person. I have never really been a history buff, but even I was astonished by the culture that believed in so many rituals that seem crazy by today’s standards.

After getting out of the ATM caves, we had some time to relax outside of the jungle. It was really crazy to see all of the people who still lived out in the jungle. It was clear that they rely on the resources that surround them. They wear modern clothing, but other than that, they don’t seemingly use electricity or running water. On our way home, we saw a woman washing her clothes in the river. I’ve always

wondered how people can live like this, but they seem as happy as can be. They don’t know any other way of life and this is how they choose to live. It was refreshing for me to see. Sometimes I wish I could live without a lot of the technology that we utilize today, but I realize that, after

living with cell phones, TVs, cars, and computers it would be difficult to imagine a life without them. Seeing a lifestyle

that didn’t require modern technology was truly eye opening to me. To the left is a picture of the UNCW spelunking team. It actually looks like one of those family portraits you can get at the mall...a little creepy.

Once we got home to San Ignacio I took a quick nap after a long day of spelunking. That night we had to travel to several places until we landed in a small sports bar that had the NCAA National Championship on TV. We were excited to watch it until UNC starting running away with the game. What a horrible championship this way. Granted, I wanted UNC to win the game, but I was hoping that it would at least be close. We ended up leaving shortly after the second half started and we got some pizza. Admittedly, I’m a bit of a pizza snob and as bad as some of the pizza can be in the south, it doesn’t get much better once you reach Central America. I think I will stick to the traditional food of Belize because I find myself pleasantly surprised every time I try a new type of food, and I’m disappointed whenever I have American cuisine.

San Ignacio: Day 2

2009-04-13T14:03:00.000-07:00

When we woke up the next day, nobody had made plans. This was a change. It had seemed like everyday had an itinerary and we couldn’t really deviate from it. I’m by no means a control freak, but I like to have some choice in my schedule and this day was the first in a while where I could do whatever I wanted. Allison and I strolled into town and saw Dr. K and the gang waiting at a bus stop. They were going to Xunantenich,

a Mayan ruin twenty minutes away from San Ignacio. This was Allison’s first chance at building her Mayan unit for her history students, so we jumped at the opportunity.

Before we could get to the ruins, we had to cross a bridge. This was no ordinary bridge. There was a man who would operate a twenty-foot wooden plank that moved from one side of the river to next through a crank that pulled the bridge on a pulley. This was v

ery different. Once we got to the other side, we had to travel up what seemed to be a vertical incline that went forever. I haven’t been to the gym at all since I’ve been here and I was getting my work out on this day.

We finally got to the site and were ready to experience some history. Xunantenich wa

s one of the smaller villages during the Mayan time period. There is a lot of mystery with regard to Mayan life and how they came and went. Xunantenich disappeared before the Spanish Inquisition and, if I recall correctly, failed as a result of social and economic shortcomings. While they were very primitive, we owe a lot to the Mayans. During the classical period that had

developed language with hieroglyphics, political systems, they had religion, and even some credit them with inventing the wheel. They are a fascinating culture. They’re architecture is one of the most impressive artifacts we have, and I was able to climb them! How cool.

We decided to climb the tallest ruin there. Again, I got a good workout from this climb,

but it was well worth it once I made it to the top. We had a view of so many cool things; on one side we could see San Ignacio; on the next was a forest of trees; on the next we could see Guatamala. This was incredible. To the right is a picture of Allison and me atop the tallest ruin at Xunantenich.

After our trip to Xunanatunich, we got back on the bus and decided to explore San Ignacio. We were hungry so we stopped at a place called Hannah’s. To this date, this is the best food I have had. First of all, they raise all of the meat they serve on a nearby farm. Anyone who knows me, knows that I love milk and I have been deprived of it for most of my trip here (I know it seems a bit immature, but milk tastes so good and it builds strong teeth and bones, so don’t judge me). I had two glasses of milk and for lunch I had the best pork curry I have ever had. It was simply amazing. Every bite was better than the first. It had a slight kick to it, but only enough to add a little bit of heat to the meal. The pork was perfectly cooked. Ahhhh, I need to stop talking about it as it’s making me hungry.

Once we finished our meals, it was time to head back. Since we hadn’t had a chance to see the village yet, Allison, Dr. K, and I decided to walk home. An hour and a half later, we were exhausted from walking what must have been five miles, uphill, in the Belizean heat. This was when I learned that MILK WAS A BAD CHOICE. It sat in my stomach. I could actually feel it curdling in me from all the heat. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it was at this point that I decided maybe water would be better for me.

We finally got back to Cahal Pech and I immediately jumped in the pool to cool down. Needless-to-say, I slept well that night.

San Ignacio: Day 1

2009-04-13T14:01:00.000-07:00

Our trip from Caves Branch to San Ignacio was an inte

resting one. First, we had to take a short bus from Caves Branch to Belmopan to g

et to get a transfer at the bus stop. I don’t know that I have seen a more disorganized

bus system ever. If you recall my explanation of Belize time, the same principles apply to buses

. I don’t know why they post a bus schedule if they don’t expect to follow it. We waited for about a half-hour for a bus that would go to San Ig

nacio. When we got on the bus some guy started

yelling at the bus driver and tried to force us to get on the bus next to us. As we started to back out, another bus

cut us off from leaving and blocked the exit. Apparently the bus we were on wasn’t supposed to leave for another fifteen minutes and they were making a big stink about

ensuring that the right bus left at the right time (go figure). We had to jump out of the back of the bus. There was a young couple with a baby who didn’t want to jump out of the bus with their

child, so they passed them through a window. That was pretty cool.

We finally got settled on another bus that was packed. The buses in Belize are school buses that probably should have been retired ten years

ago. They are painted in bright colors that would put the Partridge family bus to shame. I felt like we should have started a family band as we toured Belize. Anyway, Belize doesn’t really have speed limits and as a result, the bus drives dr

ive like maniacs. They must have removed any governors because I’ve never been on a school bus going 90 mph. It was a little frightening because I don’t think buses are made to this fast. I saw some of my compatriot’s faces

going green while we were traveling because the shocks were obviously shot and ever little bump resonated through your entire body. I think we were all happy to be on solid ground after our hour and a half ride to San Ignacio.

Once in San Ignacio we jumped in a cab and got to our hotel, Cahal Pech. This was

nice place with an amazing view of the city as it sits atop a huge hill. After settling in we had some dinner at the hotel restaurant, where I had spaghetti with marinara. I think I just wanted some good old-fashioned food that reminded me of home. While it didn’t taste anything like my mom’s sauce, it was nice t

o have something that tasted familiar to me. It’s the small things I’ve begun to miss while I have been here. After dinner, most of us had been tired from a long day of traversing caves and traveling on rickety buses, so we called it a day. Below is a picture of the view we had from our room at Cahal Pech.

My Excellent Adventures on the Mainland

2009-04-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

To ease everybody’s mind, yes I survived my tour to the mainland of Belize. We did a lot of fun and crazy trips and adventures, so I thought I would write a few blogs about my days on the mainland just to catch everyone up and what I did and explain why I’m so very tired and happy to finally be back at San Pedro.

I suppose the best place to start with my trip is from the top. We left Pedro’s Inn on Saturday, April 4 around 9:00 am to catch a water taxi from San Pedro to Belize City. Once we reached Belize City, I split off from

the group with John so we could go to the airport and pick up Allison. I was ecstatic to see her and I could tell she was excited to be in Belize because she’s a much bigger traveler than I, so any chance she has to get out of the country she jumps at.

We then left to meet the rest of the group at Old Belize, which is more or less a tourist destination with a manmade beach and a five-dollar museum that takes two minutes to tour. This was nothing fancy and I was a little sad that this was Allison’s first impression of Belize. However, soon thereafter we got a van to take us to our first tour destination: Caves Branch.

We learned that Caves Branch is a great place because it had a lot of the “out-doorsy” things we wanted to do. When we got there, we realize that we were upgraded to stay in the cabanas instead of the barracks where we originally thought we were staying. This was really cool. These were grass huts with thatched roofs and bunk beds. There was no electricity except for a ceiling fan. We had lanterns for light and we had to take showers in outdoor showers. This was a really cool experience, especially for a guy who loves his TV and fancy amenities. I really enjoyed sleeping there and was upset we only got to spend one night there.

The next morning we all decided on taking different tours. Some people went cave tubing, others we

nt repelling down a cave, and I decided to go on the cave waterfall tour thinking this was my best chance to see a mermaid. While I didn’t see one, I did have an amazing experience. We had to hike about a mile in the jungle to a cave. I learned that you needed to wear long pants for this tour and of course I didn’t bring any. Lucky for me they had some extra pants that I got to borrow. The one catch is that these pants were a shiny blue material that made me look like a competitive speed walker: not a good look. Below is a picture of me in my fancy pants.

I sucked it up and got on the bus to the cave. Once in the cave we had to wear helmets with headlamps on them because, obviously, it is very dark in the caves. We had to crawl, climb, and swim through crevices and stalagmites. This was pretty physically demanding. By far the best of the tour was when we climbed up the waterfalls. We all wondered how we were going to make it back down and figured we would repel down with the climbing rope; boy, were we wrong. They made us jump down from the waterfalls. I’m pretty good with heights, but as soon as I was ready to jump the guide grabbed my shoulder and told me that was about to jump into a pile of rocks under the water. Apparently, that would have been a bad thing. I made a big jump and survived. This was definitely the highlight of the tour for me. I can officially say that I have been spelunking, how cool.

When we got back to the resort we found out that everybody had some really great tours and I think we all were pleased with the excursions we chose. After our excursions we had to pack our stuff because we had to catch a bus to our next destination: San Ignacio.

Week Two In Review

2009-04-03T16:53:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling well rested today as we didn't have school. The reason being, the students at San Pedro High School were competing in a track competition on the mainland. It takes five teachers to take all of those students to the competition. So, with all of those teachers absent and no substitute teachers, the school wouldn't be able to function. It was nice to have a day off. I had forgotten how stressful teaching can be.

I took this day to work on some projects for school since I realized I was falling behind on my graduation requirements and I don't think my parents would like to pay for another semester of grad school. Having completed a lot of work, I think I can spend some time resting and relaxing as we travel to the mainland tomorrow. I'm terribly excited because my girlfriend, Allison, joins me tomorrow. She is a teacher at New Hanover High School in Wilmington and she is spending her spring break with me. Most of the people here are jealous that I get to see her because at this point everyone, including me, our missing our significant others. I'm lucky enough to see her and I can't wait.

I thought I would take some time to reflect on week two of teaching in Belize. This was another fun week at San Pedro High. I continually see my teaching changing and moulding to the needs of a different population of students. On Thursday I learned an important lesson about teaching students who don't speak English. As I was having students break into groups to practice there phone dialogues I noticed that one girl didn't go with her group. When I asked her why she wasn't working, I realized she struggled to give me a response. She speaks only Spanish and didn't understand my directions. I gave her the directions in Spanish, but realized that the people I put her with didn't speak Spanish, so she couldn't work with them. When Miss Usher realized what I did, she rectified the situation by setting her up with a Spanish-speaking student who would work with her. Had I thought on my feet, I probably would have asked the class who speaks Spanish, but at that moment I hadn't even thought about it. This was a good lesson for me. I'm sure I'll be better prepared with an ESL student next time.

Miss Usher continued to educate me later in that class. I started to give students I quick run-down of subject-verb agreement. I was going to lecture for about five minutes and then let them practice it in their workbook. During the middle of my lecture, Miss Usher got up and asked me if I wouldn't mind if she showed me another way of teaching this lesson. I didn't mind, I'd argue that learning a different way to teach is the reason why I'm on this trip. Miss Usher took the chalk and started drawing pictures and showing how a boy named Armando played by himself, which makes it plural. She then drew a picture of a girl named Korina and she is in love with Romundo "who all the girls want to be with because he is so dreamy." She showed that when they fall in love, together they make a plural situation. The students were laughing and getting involved and really understanding the concept being taught. After class, Miss Usher explained to me that the pictures are particularly important for the Spanish-speaking student because, while she might not understand words and letters, drawings are universal and it helps her translate what she is saying in English, into Spanish. It was at this time that I remembered one of my colleagues, Julie Lucier, give a similar presentation in graduate school. This puts her research into practice and showed me that indeed this is a strategy that is used, and apparently works. This was an educational day for me.

The rest of my week was fun as well. I really enjoyed rapping for the classes and creating the ant observatory. It was exciting for me to see all of these students working together to create this formicarium together. It also showed me how interesting students can be when they get out of their seats and work on something different from what they are accustomed to. I think too often teachers think inside the box, myself included, and if we were willing to take some risks, we might find new ways to inspire teachers to learn.

It became clear to us that Easter is a big deal on this island, as we have the next two weeks off. We didn't realize this when this internship was established and scheduled, but it gives us a good opportunity to see other parts of Belize. This next week we are going to the mainland of Belize. Tomorrow we get on a boat at 9:30 am which will take us to Belize City. After I pick up Allison from the airport, we will go to the Belize Zoo, and from there we will stay one night at Caves Branch. This is a cool place because it has some of the more adventurous activities we are looking forward to, like cave tubing, repelling, and zip lining. While I'd like to do all of these, they are a bit pricy, so I'll have to pick one adventure to go on. After a day at Caves Branch, we will be traveling to San Ignacio. We will be staying here for roughly four days because from here we can travel across the island to do all of the other sight-seeing and touristy stuff. I'm hoping to see the Mayan ruins in Lamanai, the old British prison, go to a jaguar preserve, travel to the Blue Hole for some snorkeling, and do a lot of fancy dining. After our time in San Ignacio, we will be traveling to Corozal, which is a quiet town on the northern tip of the mainland. The reason for us traveling here is that most of the people who work at the high school are from Corozal, so we're thinking we might be able to do a lot of free, local things with our new friends. That should be a nice way to end this crazy week of traveling.

For our second week, we have decided to take some time to give back to the community. Last night I was up until 10 pm helping to build a porch for the lunch lady, Miss Dulce, at her house. She hopes to turn her porch into a store front for her food shack. When asked why they were helping her, Gustavo said, "That's just what we do." They are all doing this out of the goodness of their own heart. After working a full day at school, some teachers have decided to give their time to help this lady with her business. I think this is great. While we are on our break, we will be looking for jobs such as this to give back to this community.

I hope everyone has continued to enjoy my blog this week. I was so happy to see all of the comments on my blog this week, particularly from all of my students. Whenever I see the students here in Belize, I'm reminded of the short amount of time I had at Laney and I miss them. They were a good bunch to teach and I was fortunate to have them as my first classes. They say you'll never forget the first class you taught and I'm sure that is the case with me.

I don't think I will be bringing my laptop for the next week, so I apologize if I don't get an opportunity to blog at all. I'll fill you in as I can.

Take care everyone,

Will

Sub Umbra Floreo

2009-04-01T16:50:00.000-07:00

The title of my blog this evening is actually the motto of Belize, which translates roughly to "under the shade I flourish." I wasn't aware of this until Margo named her blog this and told me about it. I don't think I quite grasped what this motto meant until today.

It started like any other, a little humid, some heat in the air, but then somewhere around 10 am, someone turned up the heat. I was doing pretty well with it until I went into the faculty room and the heat just engulfed us. I was walking around during my free period only to find John had changed shirts in the morning because he had sweat through his first one. I think he lost his weight in water before 10 am. I wondered how I wasn't gaining any weight eating all of this delectable food, and it was apparent that walking everywhere and sweating will keep you in shape. It makes for a tiring day, but I've never felt so fit eating such unhealthy food. While I didn't sweat as bad as John, the heat was still very oppressing and it made me quite sleepy. As soon as the day was over, I changed into my board shorts and jumped in the pool at our hostel. EVEN THAT WAS HOT! Don't get me wrong, it was refreshing, but sometimes it seems like there is no escaping the heat here.

Enough bellyaching from me. I had another fun day of teaching. Today was especially fun because one class brought in all of their materials for their formicarium and we put together the ant colony. Students were really fascinated by the ants and even the students who misbehave were fascinated by the observatory they made. It was very impressive. From here, students will have to watch the ants as they hopefully build a new life for themselves in this false environment we created for them. After observing for a week, students will have to write a report about their findings. I like that we are making the lessons interdisciplinary. Dr. K even helped with the class so that he could help point out the queen ant and all the helpers to the students. It was a fun lesson.

I had a bit of an embarrassing moment today, however. As I was reviewing with the students, I asked them what the fancy word for ant observatory was and one student said "fornication." While I tried to ignore it, I told him that fornication was very different from a formicarium and I attempted to move on. However, one girl pulled me to the side and asked me what fornication was and I told her I didn't feel comfortable telling her. This is apparently when my face turned red according to Miss Usher. It was then that the young girl took out her dictionary and started looking for it. I thought I was in deep trouble, talking about fornication in class, but Miss Usher called the girl to over to her and explained exactly what it was. I was in the clear. This girl will apparently have a head start when she has life skills class next year.

Anyway, some of the other classes that were less prepared got a less interesting lesson- sorry, that's what you get. Today we reviewed how to talk on the phone with friends and then we started another fascinating topic: subject-verb agreement. I was hoping all my classes would be ready for the ant activity today so I wouldn't have to put them to sleep with this lesson, but they weren't, so I had them napping midway through the class. If students aren't prepared tomorrow, I'm going to have to continue teaching grammar. For my own sanity, instead of giving students notes, I think I might try subject-verb charades, where either one student or a group of students will do an activity and students have to make sure that the subject and verb match. I'll let you know how it goes.

Well, tomorrow promises to be another great day. It is our last day of classes before Easter Break, so the students should be in rare form. However, I have a feeling we are as excited as they students for a break, seeing as we will be traveling to the mainland for a week during the break. I'll fill you in more tomorrow. It's dinner time and I'm hungry.

Sending my best from Belize,

Will

Grand Master Fass and the Funky Four

2009-03-31T15:22:00.000-07:00

I had a really fun day today at San Pedro High School. I had no idea what I would be teaching because I was unable to get up with the department head, Miss Usher, on both Friday and Monday to find out what my schedule would be for this week. When I saw her today, she told me she had been out on both days because she had to have an abscess removed and the doctor told her to take three days off; she decided she only needed to take two days off, so she came back today to teach. When I met her, she told me that I would be working with her today.

She started talking about the plans for the day and she asked me to perform a rap about ants for her class. Where ants fit in with the curriculum I'm not quite sure, but I was in no position to question her. I had started working on the rap last night because she had mentioned last week that she might want me to do this rap in class. It just so happened that she wanted me to spit hot rhymes about ants in class today.

Along with this lesson on ants, I was responsible for teaching a lesson on ways to speak on the phone. I had to provide certain phrases that one might use (and not use) when speaking to others on the phone. We then explored the way a conversation might go when speaking to someone else on the phone (e.g. you greet the person, identify who is speaking, the reason you are calling, if you need to leave a message, and say goodbye). I don't know why I needed to teach this, as many students know and love to speak on the phone. However, as I mentioned before, teaching form one English is really like teaching them another language. I have to teach the basics of how proper grammar is used in everyday situations.

This sheds some light on the reasons for my ant-rapping lesson. Students have been compiling materials to create an formicarium, otherwise known as an ant observatory. The purpose of this lesson is to teach students how to follow directions in English, as they must first make the formicarium by putting wood together, glass on top of the wood, and then they must fill it with sand and soil, and then they must find the ants. All of this teaches them how to follow step-by-step directions as well as how to work together. This falls perfect into my inquiry project, which I've decided to study cooperative learning across cultures.

Cooperation is an important part of Belizean school culture. Aspects of the school are in the hands of the students. For instance, students are given roles every week. Some students must take roll for every class, while others must clean the classroom after school. That's right, you read that correctly, students must clean the school. We don't have custodians, so the students are responsible for their own mess. When a student gets a detention, instead of sitting in the cool air conditioning for an extra 45 minutes after school, students must rake the compound and make sure that the school looks clean. It is amazing to see how clean the school can look when students take some responsibility (whether they choose to or not) for the cleanliness of the school. This doesn't work as well with my project on cooperative learning, but it does make an interesting statement on how students learn to be cooperative in school, something that often seems absent in American schools.

Anyway, back to my teaching. After teaching students to speak on the phone, I had a chance to share my rap. Students seemed to get into it. I made them keep the beat, while I performed the rap from the book. After I performed, I split the class in two and made them "rap battle" to see who would do a better job. Some students and classes were shyer than others, but overall I was very pleased with how well the students handled this lesson. All-in-all, I probably looked a little foolish, but the students seemed to appreciate the fact that I was willing to check my pride at the door for their sake. I had a really good day of teaching today. Below I have included a video of myself rapping for my last period class. The sound isn't great, but it is cool to see how the students interacted with me. Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch check it out...

Finally, a Boring Day

2009-03-30T14:11:00.001-07:00

Whenever I speak to a fellow teacher, one of the old adages they often tell me is, "Well, at least there's never a dull moment when teaching." Whoever said that is a liar. Today we had to sit and proctor tests for the standard six students (the equivalent to our grade eight) that determine whether the students are allowed to go to high school next year or stay in standard six. Some of us were excited to get a little break from teaching, since our experience thus far has been non-stop. However, I think we all would have preferred to teach today. We had to be at school at 7:15 am and we sat and watched students take a test until 1:45 pm, with a measly 45 minute break in the middle of the day. It was honestly like watching paint dry all day. My sole responsibility was to remind the students how much time they had to finish each section and escort the boys to the bathroom to make sure they weren't cheating. What a boring experience.

Before students could take their tests they had to bubble in their names. I was stunned at how many students struggled with this portion of the test. Now, I don't think that bubbling in one's name is necessarily a pre-requisite skill for entering high school, however there is a certain amount of basic logic attached to writing letters in a box and then filling in the correct bubble that corresponds with that letter. I literally helped one student fill in his name for two minutes because he would just fill in random bubbles. I fear for those children who struggled with their name. They might be in standard six one more year.

The one nice part about today is that I had plenty of time to just sit and think, which is something I tend to take for granted. As I sat in the room with 25 students, I looked around and saw something strange: a student with a similar complexion as me. Of course, when he asked me a question, I realized he had a creole accent, but seeing him made me think about the situation in which I'm in. I found out that of the roughly 420 students at San Pedro High School, about one of them is Caucasian. It is a completely different situation for me to be a member of the minority; I can't honestly count the number of times I have experienced this on one hand.

When I teach here, I am staring at a sea of faces that look completely different from me. Often we tend to gravitate toward those people who are most like us, but I don't have that option when I'm in the classroom. As a result, I really need to to get to know my students in order to find those similarities that aren't so easily apparent based on appearance.

To give you a little background on me, I had decided that I wanted to be a teacher after my senior of high school. I had a wonderful senior year of high school and I knew I wanted to affect students the same way my teachers had affected me that year. In short, I got into teaching to teach students like me. One of the stunning changes I realized during my internship at Laney is that I really got to enjoy those students who were very different from me. This feeling has only been strengthened during my short stay in Belize. While the differences between myself and my students are physically evident, the students have made me feel so welcome that it wasn't until today that I realized how different I was from them.

I can recall the application process I had to go through to earn a spot as a teacher in Belize. During my interview, Dr. K asked me why this trip was so important to me. After reflecting for a second, I recalled an important lesson I had learned in my critical theory class one semester. Jacques Derrida, a literary critic known for his work dealing with structuralism, had a concept he referred to as "binary oppositions." The idea behind this theory is that our world is organized in greater or lesser relationships, i.e. black is black because is not white, man is man because he is not a woman. Power is then distributed amongst those different groups. One thing I hoped to learn during this experience is what American education was by seeing exactly what it wasn't. While I'm learning this, I'm also learning a lot about what and who I am, by seeing what I'm not. Teaching in a school built on a different culture than myself has provided me with the time to reflect and think introspectively on the person I am. I have thought about the advantages I have had as a white, middle class male in a society that gives me every advantage possible. Being in a developing country and seeing the struggles people are forced to experience on a daily basis makes me appreciate where I have come from as well as makes me appreciate those students who I teach. I think this will be an invaluable lesson for me as a teacher.

Alright, that was my little moment on my teaching soapbox. I apologize for how sugary some of that might have been. If you get a cavity from reading that, I'll pay for your dental bill. I just thought it would be useful to share my candid thoughts as I had the time to think about it. I promise I'll have more stories of teaching and misbehaving students tomorrow as we enter back into the classroom.

Will

First Week in Review

2009-03-28T16:14:00.001-07:00

As any good teacher will tell you, one of the most valuable things you can do is reflect, so here ya go. After one week of teaching in San Pedro, I feel really good and, more than anything, fortunate. I've realized a lot about culture in which I was raised as well about the world. Having never really left the country before this, being immeshed with the people of another has made me realize many similarities and differences.

First of all, people in Belize are very pleasant. They bend over backward to make sure we're happy. We haven't paid for a dinner yet this week because everyone wants to cook for us and show us their homes. The cuisine is different and delicious. I haven't come upon a meal that hasn't challenged my taste buds and showed me a different way cooking. Although, last night we had barbecue chicken, cole slaw, and dirty rice and it was as good as any southern cooking I've ever had. Honestly, everybody has treated us with such kindness and care that you would think they all work for the department of tourism. They don't ask for anything back in return, simply that if some day they make it to North Carolina, we show them the same hospitality.

The prospect of them coming to North Carolina isn't so far fetched since teachers at San Pedro plan a trip together every year during a four-day weekend, which leads me to my next point: teachers in San Pedro are very tight-knit. I've already explained the functions they have for birthdays, but I forgot to mention the trip they plan every year. All year they plan a trip by fund raising in numerous ways. One such way is that students pay for dress down Fridays. They pay a dollar to wear flip-flops, two dollars to wear a t-shirt, one dollar to wear excessive make-up, etc. Students don't mind, because they get to wear something other than their all-white uniforms and I think they understand that it is another way to help their teachers. Another example of their fundraising is that they had a barbecue hosted by the Lions Club. Community members, students, and teachers all take part in this event, and it becomes apparent that everybody rallies around the teachers at San Pedro High School. The teachers have taken trips to Mexico and Miami in the past and this year they plan on going to Las Vegas. Like I said, teachers here like to have a good time and really love the company of their fellow employees. These fundraisers force them to work together for a common goal and they all put their effort into this cause because they have high standards for this trip. Community is a large part of the culture here.

One last point that I am pleased with is the fact that my teaching has already begun to change. My students at Laney could attest to how much I loved to use technology in the classroom. At the very least, I would have PowerPoint presentations every day which explained what students would be writing about for their daily journals. Here, I don't have that option. There is one LCD projector for the entire school and almost everyday the fuse is blown, so you don't know when you will have electricity. Margo found this out the hard way when she took her class to the computer lab to look at National Geographic's site on volcanoes, only to find that there was no electricity. She had to think on her feet, and from what I heard, she did a good job of taking her plans and making a successful low-tech lesson. It stinks that students don't get to use the computers, but you have to constantly be on your feet if you are going to risk using technology. Subsequently, I have decided to stay away from the technology. My decision was made up before I even stepped on the plane for Belize. I wanted to challenge myself to see that I could teach without using some of the technology that I found myself using as a crutch. I think technology is an ally for any teacher, especially with students who need constant stimulation, but I have really had to revise my teaching strategies to account for the lack of computers, LCD projectors, SmartBoards, and digital imaging projectors.

Like any week of teaching, this first one has had its ups and down, successes and failures, high points and pitfalls, but overall it has been a learning experience. I have taken advantage of learning from everyone: the teachers at San Pedro High, the students, and my fellow teachers who are going through the same thing as myself. I am yet to feel abandoned, intimidated, or nervous about my experience in the school, in large part to the support that I have with everyone who I am teaching with, both at the high school and the elementary school. This journey has piqued my interest in other cultures and in the stratified views our world has with regard to students and education. I should be so lucky to have another week such as this one.

I'll be blogging as more adventures come my way. I have to go now because in about an hour, Belize will be celebrating Earth Hour, in which we turn off all of our electricity along with the rest of the world.

Thank you to everyone who has been writing me supportive emails during my time here. It can be difficult being away from home for this extended period of time. It means a lot to me that I have so many people who have been keeping up with my experience here and are actually interested in the new and strange things I'm seeing.

Take care,

Will

The Wild World of Concept Mapping

2009-03-27T07:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was another fine day here on La Isla Bonita. The task I was given was to teach introductory paragraphs and thesis writing to third form classes. I felt rather confident teaching this topic, as it was one I taught at Laney. I don't think that students in America loved it that much (particularly because they had a standardized test attached to their essay writing), so I didn't get too excited about teaching it. However, I had some fun with it, and the students did as well.

I began class with students writing a short journal on a time in which they got into an argument. We then discussed how we argue and how one wins an argument and then applied similar principles when writing an argumentative essay. We then had a debate on who the best artist or group is. Students got into it and surprised me by naming primarily American artists like Slipknot, Disturbed, Linkin Park, and Tupac. Not so surprising was the fact that probably the most popular artist was Bob Marley.

I then introduced the students (and the teachers) to circle mapping to begin planning writing. This was a concept that nobody had heard of. For teachers in New Hanover County, ideas like concept maps are pretty basic and old shoe, but I think I might have blown their minds with them. I read students' theses last week, and they were simply one long sentence separated with a barrage of conjunctions and semi-colons. I decided to teach the idea of the introductory paragraph, which separates what students were writing for there thesis into three to four sentences. I was really impressed with the work they did. I understand that things are different here with regard to writing and grammar, so I don't know if what I taught will be something they will continue, but it is certainly a new perspective on teaching for both myself and the other teachers.

Something that never ceases to amaze me is how outgoing the young female students are here. I don't know if it's my pasty white skin, my generic brown eyes, or my bed-head hairdo, but I the students make me feel like a celebrity. I have had several girls ask to take pictures with me and I (along with my cohort) will be sitting and class writing observations, only to look up to see a group of faces staring at me. We quickly realized that this island is rather small, and we really can't go anywhere without being recognized as those "teachers from America." To make things worse (or better, I suppose) we just had two articles written about us in the local newspapers. When I went to the breakfast bar this morning to get my OJ, the guy behind the counter said "Hey, I saw you guys in the paper!" in which case he told Kristen that she should sign her picture for her students who keep asking for her email address: for what purpose, we haven't figured out.

Another cultural difference that became apparent yesterday is that teachers here at San Pedro love to have fun. Now, I'm not saying that teachers in North Carolina don't, because I had fun everyday with the teachers at Laney, however, these teachers love to celebrate everything. The teachers had a collective birthday party for all of the teachers with March birthdays. I don't think it was a requirement to attend, but every teacher was there from the school. The way high schools are organized in America doesn't really lend itself to interdisciplinary relationships; the history department is on one side of the building, the English department is somewhere else, and who knows where the math department will be from day-to-day, seeing as many float. At San Pedro High School, all of the teachers know each other and hang out during the day and sometimes during the evenings (that is, if they aren't teaching at the junior college as well). Now, probably the biggest reason for this is that the staff is made up of only 31 teachers, where as the faculty of most high schools is at least twice the size, maybe even three times depending on where you are. This makes relationships amongst teachers a little more difficult, but it is fun to see how much these teachers enjoy each other's company.

Now, back to the faculty birthday party. I don't know if their goal was to make the Americans look like fools, but we sure did our best to ensure this would happen. The party began at 3:30 pm and we were so tired that we needed to go back to our hostel and relax a little to recharge our batteries. When we got back to the school, we were just in time for musical chairs, in which case Kristen pushed me and I fell out of the chair and landed on her foot; this is the first foolish thing I did. Next, the teachers chose two groups of four and the teacher had to teach us how to dance salsa and meringue. I quickly was reminded of my lack of dancing skills as both the men and women in my group could move their feet and hips in ways I couldn't even fathom. At one point, they made us go out on a cat walk and show off our skills. I chose to educate the teachers on some of my personal moves including ones I've now entitled "the rump shaka" and " the monkey." Don't ask me to repeat these flashy steps, as I don't think I could. After embarassing ourselves, it was finally time for the pinata. We had a pinata that was shaped like a mermaid. I don't know if they did it in our honor, but instead of the traditional fruit-flavored hard candy, and corn-shaped lollipops (which I'm a little scared to try), they had Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs. Evidently the pinata had been sitting out in the sun a little too long, because all of the chocolate had melted by the time one of the teachers cracked it open. This didn't stop me from eating them: it was a little reminder of home.

After the party, I had expected to go home, but Alberto insisted that we hang out with him. John, Dr. K, and myself decided that we wanted to watch the basketball games, so Alberto took us to a sports bar. When we entered the bar, they were all watching football (aka soccer) and we had to request that they put on the basketball games. I felt bad until a guy came in wearing a Villanova jersey. We played a lot of pool and had another nice evening out on the town. Of course, I was just in class and one of the students (who I have never met before) said "Mr. Will did you have a good time at the Royal Caribbean bar last night?" Apparently he saw us out last night. I'm telling you, this island is too small and we stick out like a sore thumb. Now I know why Brad Pitt gets so angry with the paparazzi. Look for us on the local Belizean TMZ.

The Craziest Birthday for a One-year-old

2009-03-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

So last night was another cultural learning experience. Gustavo, the dean of the junior college, told us that he was going to have a birthday party for his one-year-old son, Gustavito (which translates to "little Gustavo"). We had a cab called for us by one of the teachers that was going to pick us up at 6:30 pm. I learned an important lesson last night; there is a concept called "Belizean time" which means that if you have an appointment at 6:30 pm, that means that you can count on having that appointment around 7:00 pm or thereabouts. The same can be said for teachers. Today I was taking roll during homeroom and the teacher who was supposed to take over the class for first period wasn't there. Margo, one of the science teachers traveling with me, started to realize she might have to take over the class because her partnership teacher didn't show up on time. He had dirt bike troubles and showed up 15 minutes later...no big deal. That is just the way Belizean time works.

But I digress, the cab ended up showing up 45 minutes late and we travelled to the north end of the island. It is not a particularly nice area as there are many shacks and trailers in this part of town, but we were there to celebrate an infants birthday, so it couldn't be that crazy...right? Boy was I stunned. The party was in Gustavo's front yard. There was a canopy and balloons, and a lot of beer. We knew where the party was, because they had a sound system blasting reggaetone music that would put some of the clubs to shame. Mind you, this is a Tuesday night and they are playing music that was entirely too loud for the front yard, let alone a neighborhood.

As soon as we got to the house, people kept handing us plates of food. We had several dishes: chips with a spicy chicken dip, tamales wrapped in banana leaves (for extra flavor), conch ceviche, and sausage marinated in lime (strange, but really good). I ate so much food that I didn't even save room for cake. Probably the most fascinating part of this experience was the fact that they kept handing us beer, one after the next. I started to wonder if the teachers would be taking the day off on Wednesday, because they kept drinking and drinking. We were being responsible and decided to leave somewhere around 9:00 pm, which is even a little late for a school night. However, some of the teachers were trying to convince us to stay later. We then found out that those were the teachers who don't have to come to school until 9:00 am or 10:00 am. When we got to school today, it was obvious that some teachers were nursing a hangover because they decided to shoot some pool after the party (which ended around 1:00 am) and then they decided to go to the disco. They are a tough bunch to keep up with.

Birthdays are obviously a big deal (even for a one-year-old). On Thursday the teachers are hosting a party for the people with birthdays in March. It will be held at the school, but apparently there will be a lot of food and some liquor as well. They don't mess around in San Pedro.

I wanted to clarify a few things that I wrote in my last blog. Many people having been asking about the student population here, so here are some of the facts. School here is not paid for by property tax. Students must pay roughly $400 per term (and there are three terms in a school year). Kids are required to attend primary school, but they do not need to attend high school. However, almost all students do attend school (about 95%). However, whether or not they will graduate is a different story. For instance, first form is comprised of four different classes of roughly 35 students. Forms two thru four have only three classes of the same size. It was explained to me that roughly thirty students will drop out or fail first form. However, most students who make it to form two will make it to form three and almost everyone who makes it form three will probably graduate. One of the major issues that the schools are dealing with is that some students attend school, but cannot afford to pay. Instead of turning these students away, they will allow these students to continue coming to school, which is great, but funds are already low.

It has been an amazing experience to teach in classrooms without air conditioning, without technology, and without even the luxury of marker boards. Throughout the day I will usually end up sweating and then I'll erase the chalkboard and I'll be covered in chalk dust. I thought that my classroom at Laney was dirty because it wasn't cleaned everyday, but I've never come home feeling dirty and dusty before. This has really given me a new perspective.

Speaking of new perspectives, the lesson I taught today was dealing with Wuthering Heights. The teachers like me reading to the students because they can hear the story in a different dialect. However, at one point we let the students read. Believe me, you've never experienced Emily Bronte until you've heard her words read in a creole accent: unbelievable. I always here a british voice in my head when I read this novel, but this put a Caribbean twist on it. I don't know that it's ever been read quite like this.

I realized that yesterday I didn't get to share one of my favorite aspects of San Pedro High School: the cantina. Instead of a cafeteria, they have a little shack where wives of the teachers come to cook and teachers operate during lunch time. On any given day you can have some of the more fascinating foods that I've mentioned, like fried whole fish or cow foot soup, or you can have meat pies, hamburgers, or fried chicken. It is a very different situation. We don't have any "free or reduced lunch" at our school. Many of the students who can't afford food, typically don't eat or wait for someone to share whatever they won't eat. Miss Usher usually ends up buying meals and drinks for those students who can't afford to eat. It is apparent that those students truly appreciate Miss Usher because she cares enough to use the

little money she makes (and believe me, teachers here don't make much money at all) and give it to her students and she is the only teacher who sits with the students during lunch time. It is one of the most endearing interactions I have ever seen between a teacher and her students. Above is a picture of the cantina.

Cultural Connections

2009-03-24T15:34:00.000-07:00

So, today I had the pleasure of working with Miss Usher, the head of the English department here at San Pedro High School. Miss Usher is 59 years old, and has been teaching forever. As a result, she is only responsible for teaching form 1 students...the freshman. In this respect, every student goes through Miss Usher if they want to make it to form 2.

She teaches English language, which I was excited about at first, because I have increasingly realized the value of grammar. However, I was stunned when I realized that language is really a class to teach these students who speak a mixture of Spanish, creole, and Garifina, and teach them how to speak proper English. The be

st way to describe it, is that it is similar to the way we treat students in high school who are learning Spanish, French, or German; we provide them with scenarios

, practice listening comprehension, and explain rules and then we practice them.

Today's objective was to work on listening comprehension. We were reading a short dialogue about dogs and animal cruelty. I asked students what they knew about animal cruelty and they explained that dog fighting is a tradition that they have in Belize, however most students are adamantly against it. I then read the dialogue between the two characters in the book and students had to tell me who would agree with certain statements about the mistreatment of dogs and taking animals and putting them into captivity. I took this opportunity to then extend it to their personal opinions and thought that I would use a technique I learned in graduate school where students show their opinions by getting out of their seats and going to a side of the room that has the words "agree" or "disagree" posted on the wa

ll. It was apparent that this was a new method for students that they had never seen before, nor had Miss Usher. I found the same issues I had with my class at Laney were present here in Belize: some students wanted to talk during the activity, while others were more quiet or disengaged. However, the students seemed to enjoy the change of pace and I even got an ovation after class. This support is very helpful to me and makes m

e excited to wake up in the morning and go to school.

Lunch was also full of excitement. Today we had a fight break out in the auditorium where students eat lunch. I had missed it, but Miss Usher told me that it was part of a typical problem at the school: gangs. And which gangs do you think might have caused these problems? That's right, the bloods and the crypts, the same ones we have in our schools in North Carolina. However, unlike New Hanover County, San Pedro does not have a gang task force, nor do they seem to have any support from the city police.

I got an email today from one of my professors, Dr. Smith, and he had a few questions about my school, which made me realize that I really haven't described the envir

onment in which I'm teaching. First of all, I wake up in the morning and take a stroll down the beach while watching the sun come up: not a bad way to start your day. After twenty minutes, I reach the school. The beach is literally the backyard of the school, as you can see by this picture on the left. Kids in San Pedro are required to go to school to about the age of sixteen and they have two options: they can go to a Catholic school or a public school. The Catholic school does not cost any money, however students must pay to go to public school. I'm no

t sure on the cost right now, but from what I have heard it is not very expensive. At our staff meeting yesterday, we realized the struggle of making families pay to send their students to school, as many bright students cannot afford to attend school because of fam

ily or economic issues and those who can afford, sometimes don't care.

The most obvious characteristic of the school population is that all students must wear their uniforms Monday thru Thursday and teachers wear khaki and white those days; Friday is "rag" day when the students and teachers can wear more casual clothing. The o

utfits are all-white clothing with the boys typically wearing white dickies and a button-down shirt with a patch of the San Pedro High School emblem. The girls have to wear a white dress with a small tie that is either, blue, yellow, green, or red. I believe the ties tell what form they are in, I will have to check on this. You can see a picture of my students listening intently to one of my stories in the picture to the left. By

the way, if you look closely through that window behind me, you can see the ocean, not too shabby.

I included a picture of the school in my last blog and you could probably tell it didn't look much like any school we are accustomed to. It has thirteen classrooms and one staff room where the twenty-five members of the staff have their desks. Interestingly, students do not move from class to class, the teachers are the ones who move. Students have a homeroom and that is where they are expected to stay all day long. It is no wonder they are so antsy by the time we get them for 8th period English. Oh yea, I should probably tell you

that classes are only 45 minutes long and there are eight periods in a day. It has been a change of pace to work on the traditional schedule, but I can see the advantages and disadvantages of this schedule versus block scheduling. To the right is one of my classrooms. They have these things called "chalk boards" where people use chalk to write on these slate boards. Apparently, this is what we used to use before white boards. Teachers have to bring their own chalk, and they are very territorial; they don't like to share it. It's like gold to them.

The curriculum is very much driven by the test students must take in order to get into college: the Caribbean Examination Council, or the CXC. I have noticed that when teachers at the high school have approached me about teaching a novel they have said "Don't worry about reading the novel, just read the analysis in this guide and use the guided notes." I don't know if this is how they typically teach, but I have seen a trend that many of the lessons are built around these pre-built curricula which is reminiscent of the prototypical direct instruction many of us tend to move away from. While I don't think students here would succeed under student-based instruction, I will be working on ensuring that the lessons I present will have some activities that students might enjoy, rather than simply reading from a script. The trick is, how to do this without coming off elitist and inadvertently stating that our way of teaching is better than theirs. So far, the reception has been successful from both teachers and students, so I won't try to rock the boat too much. I'm just trying to show a different way of teaching.

The curriculum is also driven by religion. You can't find a classroom that doesn't have a crucifix hanging on the chalkboard. Students take classes like math, science, and English, but then they also have to take classes like life choices, which outlines healthy living rules, and religion. You can tell that morals and religion are closely tied to public school.

These are the differences that I have noticed. I'm sure I'll find some more small things to discuss as I spend more time here. I'll be in touch with more tales of Belize. Until later,

Will

My First Day Teaching at San Pedro

2009-03-23T17:41:00.000-07:00

Whew! What a day. So today was my first day teaching at San Pedro High School. My cohort and I got to the school around 7:25 am today to begin the school day. Today was my first day teaching classes, while my colleagues in the science department were observing. To the left is an image of the front of San Pedro High School.

For my first day, I was partnered with Miss Kristina Romero. For our lesson today, she was working on listening comprehension using the short story "The Lottery," by Shirley Jackson. Miss Romero gave me a broad overview of what she had planned to do today; my responsibility was to tweak it and make it a lesson I wanted to teach. For those unfamiliar with the story, "The Lottery," it is the story of a village that has a lottery to see who will be killed for the annual sacrifice to appease the gods for the upcoming crop season by stoning the "winner" of the lottery to death. As a result, I thought I would a lottery in the beginning of class, and after reading the story, see what the reaction was of the student who won the lottery. They had a good time with the activity and students laughed when they realized they won the lottery. Of course, in lew of throwing stones at the students, I gave the winner a candy bar.

The classes in which I taught this lesson were three Form Two classes (sophomores). This was the age group I taught at Laney, and I noticed that there weren't too many differences. I had to read the story in class, because Miss Romero explained to me that students wouldn't go home and read it for assignment (aka homework). I was pleased with how attentive students were. It became apparent to me that, while maybe the information isn't new or any more exciting when I present it, the mere fact that a different voice with an American accent was in the classroom captured their attention. While they don't have "honors" and "on-level" students here, there are huge gaps between the engagement in certain classes. While one class could be very conversational, another would struggle to answer any questions. It was fascinating.

During lunch, we were served the fish we had caught on Saturday. Gustav's wife came in and fried the snapper for us and the teachers and put a spicy habanero, onion sauce over the whole fish and served it with sauteed onions and squash. This was a delicious treat for lunch. Just as a side note, my most interesting meals have probably come at the school. On the first day, I had cow foot soup with tripe. I've never really eaten the organs of a cow before, but it was delicious. On another day, we had dirty rice with fish fingers, which I suppose is the closest thing to chicken fingers and french fries that I have seen. I'm doing my best to hone my culinary pallet during this trip. I don't know if Taco Bell will ever please me after experiencing some of the gastronomical adventures we have experienced in Belize.

After school, we had a staff meeting. It was astonishing how similar the hot button topics were at the meeting as compared to those at staff meetings in North Carolina. They were arguing about school dress codes and attendance policies, something we struggle with everyday in the States. While everyone had an opinion, no solutions were presented and no decisions were made. It was frustrating to sit there and listen to some of the arguments because they were all too familiar.

After the staff meeting, we had to hurry back to our hostel because we were being interviewed by the San Pedro Sun Times. They were excited about us being here and it was obvious that the newspaper was familiar with Wilmington and recognized us as members of their sister city in the States. I would be interested to see how many people in Wilmington know that we have a diplomatic partnership with the country of Belize. I have a feeling the answer would be very few. Overall, I feel that they really appreciate us being here in Belize because this is one of the few connections Wilmington has been able to make since we developed this relationship in 2007.

Alright, I need to be off to get some sleep tonight. It is late and I need to prepare for a lesson on animal cruelty (how that is connected to language arts, I couldn't tell ya), so I'll let you know how it goes in my next blog. Until then,

Will

Teach a Man to Fish...

2009-03-22T07:27:00.000-07:00

What an amazing day I had yesterday. The dean of San Pedro Junior College, Gustav, asked us if we would like to go fishing. Of course, this was an opportunity we did not refuse. John, Kristy, Dr. K, and myself were the lucky ones who went on this trip. We had to wake up at 6:30 am to go the boat of Captain Guerro, who was the first tour guide on the island of San Pedro. This trip was fantastic because they took us through every step of the fishing process.

First, we picked up Gustav and a carpenter of the school, Alberto. Next, the captain took us to a site where we would catch the bait. He finds the bait by searching for where the fish are surrounding the water. Our bait for the day was sardines.

Next, the captain took us into the middle of the Carribean Ocean. He's been doing this for roughly 45 years, so he knows where the hot spots are. Now, anyone who knows me understands that I am not a big fisherman. The last time I went fishing was probably when I was seven and I had my child tackle box with beginner's rod. I was never successful, but on this day we couldn't go a minute without one of us catching a fish. After an hour of fishing, we caught 95 fish! They made it so easy. Mostly we caught snapper, but we also caught two grouper, one of which is endangered and we had to throw back; the same for the one puffer fish we caught.

Once the fish were caught, the captain filleted the fish on the boat and Alberto made us a delicious ceviche on the boat, which is tomatoes, onions, cilantro, and fresh fish. They then squeezed fresh lime juice over the fish which, according to Alberto, cooks the fish. We actually saw the fish change colors from opaque to white. I was surprised to see that it actually cooked the fish on the boat. Then we got a chance to eat it with tortilla chips. Oh my goodness, it was so delicious. I've never had something like it before, but it is a very traditional dish here in Belize. It is something I will do my best to replicate when I get home to the states.

After the boat trip, we came back to the dock, where I thought our day was finished; boy, was I mistaken. When we got to the shore, Alberto began cleaning the boat for the captain and then they took the fish and put them on a stand next to the dock. Alberto and Gustav started cleaning the fish. I have never cleaned a fish before, but I had seen it on Top Chef and I was intrigued. However, I don't like touching slimy things so I was a little leery about touching the fish. When it was my turn, they showed me how to scrape the scales off the fish, gut it, and put three slices in the body. If you happen to grab a fish that is still alive, you have to take the knife and stick it through his brain...I purposely looked for dead ones so I wouldn't have to do that. I was very proud of myself for cleaning the fish, because this is something I would have never done. It was quite an experience. Gustav told us that he was taking most of the fish inland to sell, but he was going to give us ten fish for them to cook for the teachers on Monday at the school. This made us feel really good about our work.

Again, I thought our day was finished after the cleaning of the fish, but after taking the fish to the captains house to put them in the freezer, Gustav and Alberto invited us to play pool with them. Of course, we didn't want to refuse so we went to, literally, a whole in the wall with two pool tables and slot machines in a back room. After hanging with the locals at this little dive bar, we were ready to go home. This was a great way to end an amazing experience. After that, I was ready for a nap.

As a sad side note, I got an email from my Mom today that told me that my childhood dog, Murph, had passed away. This was very sad news for me, especially being so far away. Anybody who knows me, knows how much I loved him. He was a wonderful dog. Luckily, I got a chance to say goodbye to him before I left since I didn't know if he would live long enough for me to make it home. Everyone show your pets some love today.

Until my next adventure,

Will

whatchaboy!

2009-03-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

Hello again. Today is day three of my super fantastic Belizean adventure. This was a very invigorating day because this was my first day being immersed into the classes of San Pedro High School. As aforementioned, the head of the English department there is Miss Estelle Usher and she is primarily responsible for showing me the ropes.

I started the day by waking up at 6:30 am. I had anticipated hitting snooze a few times, but once that alarm went off, I was too anxious to go back to sleep. I left early and took my stroll on the beach which leads to the high school; what a gorgeous sight. I got to the school around 7:15 am and the only teacher there was Miss Usher. She likes to chat with the students as they walk into school, something the students really seemed to appreciate. They all joked around with her and she hit them back. Around 7:45, students were all filing in and Miss Usher invited me to the morning prayer, which I don't think would every work at public school in America. After that, it was explained to me that I was more or less just going to be passed around to all of the teachers in the English department all day.

This school operates on nine periods of 45 minutes. So I felt like I was constantly moving. The teachers introduced me as Mr. Will and I spoke a little about myself, where I'm from, what I'm doing here, and then let the students ask me questions. Most of the students didn't have much to say except for the students in Miss Usher's class as she told them that they looked stupid if they didn't ask me questions. As soon as one person asked a question, the others followed. A lot of students wanted to know about what I did on my free time, if I actually chose to teach at San Pedro, and why I wanted to teach. They were very curious and interested in American culture; this made me very excited.

All-in-all, students are very similar here as those in the states. Students have their own styles, cliques, and would rather talk then listen to the teacher. Students are working on their dreaded five paragraph essay, reading Wuthering Heights and learning grammar and how to interact politely in society: not so different than the Standard Course of Study in North Carolina.

Something that makes for an interesting divide in the culture are the three languages spoken: Spanish, Creole, and English. Spanish and English are pretty standard languages, but the Creole is fascinating. The only way I can describe it is jumbled up language that sounds a lot like the Jamaican characters in "Cool Runnings." Miss Usher and almost all of the students speak it and when she yells at child she says, "whatchaboy!" which translates loosely to "What are you doing boy?" You'd think I might be able to deduce what they're saying, but for whatever reason, I can't get a hold of it, and students know this. I totally heard them speak in Spanish or Creole and giggle when I was in the front of the class, in which case I just smile and laugh with them. I can only imagine the horrible things they're saying about me.

This was a tiring day, but I am excited. I will be working with five different teachers, helping to teach different elements of Language Arts, so I have my work cut out for me this weekend. I will be prepping to teach "The Lottery," Wuthering Heights, thesis and planning for essay writing, The Mystic Masseur, and listening comprehension: that's just Monday thru Wednesday. I will be busy grading papers from Miss Usher's Form 1 as well this weekend. I'm going to be busy, but in the end, that's why I'm here. I'm terribly excited and fascinated about this opportunity and can't wait to dive into the school and the culture.

Until the next blog,

Will

First Days in La Isla Bonita

2009-03-19T16:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, I suppose the best thing for me to do is first set-up this blog. The idea behind this weblog is to share with those interested in reading my experiences while I am here in Belize. For those of you who don't quite understand what I am doing, I'll fill you in. In January, I began the final step of receiving my teaching license by teaching some fantastic students at E.A. Laney High School in Wilmington, NC. I taught there for ten weeks and absolutely loved it. I learned so much about teaching, about students, and myself. After this wonderful experience, UNCW gave me permission to finish my internship in Belize. I will be here for five weeks indulging in the culture, the sun and beach, and education. So thats where I am today.

Yesterday was absolutely crazy. The morning began in Charlotte where we were staying at a Best Western. Our flight was at 6:00 am, so we decided to get up and moving around 3:00 am. This was a God awful time to wake up and as a result, I wasn't really with it. Subsequently, I got into a shuttle for the airplane and proceeded to lose it in the van. After calling the Best Western and searching for it, nobody seemed to find it, so I was really starting off on the right foot (I'm gonna need a job when I get back because I don't think I can afford to live without my iPhone!) I decided not to harp on this issue and just let it go; I wasn't going to let a small issue such as that to bother me.

Once at the airport, we boarded a plane to Miami, went from Miami to Belize City, and then took a puddle jumper from Belize City to the island in which we are staying: San Pedro (aka La Isla Bonita). By the time we reached our destination, Pedro's Backpacker Inn, I was ready for a nap. However, soon thereafter we had to visit the elementary school to meet with the principal and staff for those who would be working there. I was excited because the school was very cool and the principal, Addy (a Hoggard High School grad...weird) was excited for us to start; but, I got the feeling that the teachers were a little less enthused. This took some wind out of my sails about the experience because it seemed like they really didn't want us there. After leaving the school, we returned to Pedro's.

Pedro's is a little hostel. We happened to get the four "deluxe" rooms, which means we have air conditioning and a TV, living large. I'm not complaining, it has everything we need. We live 10 feet from a pool and 20 feet from a bar and pizzeria. It has everything we could want,

especially since we plan on being out living it up in San Pedro, rather than in our room. Last night Peter, the owner of Pedro's, treated us to pizza and we were happy to eat it. It was actually good, and I tend to be an elitist when it comes to my pizza. We all had a good time, but none of us lasted past midnight, especially with the two-hour time differential here.

Today, we woke up at around 10 am and got some grub from the locals. We thought we would be able to get breakfast from a local "deli," but surprisingly their breakfast hours are much like that of McDonalds. Subsequently, we ate some local lunch at 10 am. We had beans and rice (not to be confused with rice and beans, which allegedly is a different meal altogether) with curry chicken and plantane. To wash down our meal we had some watermelon juice, which was very refreshing.

After breakfast, we spent some time taking it easy by the pool and watching the first round of March madness (I was soooo happy we get all of the American TV stations, so we won't miss any of the games). I was anxious today because we were meeting with the principal of the high school and the staff. This was an interesting experience.

When we got to the school, we were introduced to Emile, the principal of San Pedro High School. As soon as we got here, he took us to the auditorium (an outdoor basketball court with wooden canopy) and he told us he was going to hold an assembly to introduce us to the WHOLE SCHOOL. This was actually very fun. The crowd was roughly 350 students dressed in their all-white uniforms. After our trip advisor, Dr. Kubasko, spoke a little about why we were here, they let us all introduce ourselves. I was stunned at all the cat-calling these students did for the young ladies teaching science. I was a bit flustered when I introduced myself and I got a loud standing ovation, mostly from young Belizean girls; rarely have I ever seen such enthusiasm for language arts! We taped our introductions, and this is the warm welcome we received.

After the assembly, we met the staff. This was so wonderful. We met as a big group and discussed what our goals were for this experience, and then broke into our two respective groups. I'm the only English teacher on this trip, so I will be responsible for cycling around and working with five different teachers over the next five weeks. One of the most exciting parts about this afternoon was how receptive the English department was of me. Two of the teachers have bachelors degrees in teaching and the rest have high school degrees. They are very much willing to learn what we teach and one teacher has already asked me for a good alternative to the five paragraph essay (honestly, that is still something we struggle with in America, so I look forward to tackling this issue with someone else over the next few weeks).

Miss Estelle, the head of the department then took me aside and showed me the school. She explained to me that instead of grades, they have "forms" and there are four "periods" in the day: A, C, E, and G. It seems as if I will be working during all four periods. She also explained to me some other important details. For instance, Miss Estelle has received permission from parents to hit them any way she sees fit. I don't expect to hit any students, but she told me she does it to teach them respect and how to behave so they will be success as they enter the second, third, and fourth forms.

Miss Estelle also expressed that race is a touchy subject. Students have some resentment about their skin color, particularly black students. They don't like to be separated by color (as anybody wouldn't), but apparently school does not provide a discourse for racial issues. This is a subject I won't touch with a ten foot pole. Tomorrow they have asked me to come to school that I can meet the students and teachers to be acclimated. Miss Estelle suggests I come early so I can talk to students about their personal lives in the morning. She is under the impression that they young men will be more willing to open up to another male, especially if I take a vested interested in their lives early. This is something I will try to do.

This blog is running quite long, so I'm going to stop here for today. We are about to go to dinner. I will be writing in the next few days to let you know what I'll be doing. I can't wait to fill everyone in with this excitement. It is truly a feeling I have never experienced. I send my best to everyone and hope that all is well.

Will