Day Thirteen: April 2, 2012

Luis is the sweetest child ever!

This the first day of our service project week.  The library is having a three day Easter "Camp" where kids can go for four hours a day and do different Easter activities.  I worked the morning shift with Parker, Jessica, Kristen, and Elizabeth.  It was so much fun! There was 20 kids and they are between the ages of 7 and 10.  I felt out of my element at the beginning because we dont do these kind of activities at the high school level! I was really grateful for my elementary education majors today.  We started the day with reading the Easter Story.  The kids really love story time.  We then moved on to making "stained glass" crosses out of construction paper.  That took the most amount of time, and then it was snack time.  The librarian brought sandwiches and juice boxes for the students.  We ate outside and then had an egg race.  That was really funny to watch because the kids were running all over the place.  Then it was time to go back inside and we made Easter egg baskets out of paper plates.  After we finished up with the baskets it was time for us to leave.  

It was great to spend the morning with some local children, outside of the school environment.  These kids are at such a great age.  It was awesome to get hugs and to read books like "The Monster ABC's". 

 

What were you unprepared to handle in your assigned classroom and how did you respond? What strategies did you use to figure out what you needed to do?

The main thing that I was unprepared for was the amount of noise that was in the classroom.  The students are constantly talking, and that is not something that I am used to back home in the States.  Whats crazy about that is that the students and the teachers are able to still be productive in that environment.  At first I felt very anxious about how was I going to be able to teach if the students were not paying attention, but what I soon realized was that just because the noise level is high, that doesnt mean the students arent paying attention.  Once I realized that, my anxiety level dropped and I knew that I could use that to my advantage.  My main strategy for responding to this action is do lots of group activities to give the students things to talk about.  When I taught last week, there was group work during each part of the lesson. In the beginning of the lesson the students had to work out problems in pairs and then switch with another group and check each others work, during the lesson I was constantly asking question in a call and response form to let the students answer and feel like they are part of the class.  As a wrap up activity, I had a chart that had a bunch of blanks that the students had to fill out, and they could talk to each other and fill out the whole chart.  I think that is going to be the outline for most of my classes, have group work in the beginning and end, and have lots of call and response during the notes/lecture time so that way the students will talk like they usually do, but keep them focused on the math at the same time.

 

Day Eleven: March 31, 2012

Excursion One: Snorkeling at Hol Chan and Shark & Ray Alley.

Thanks Dr. C for your great underwater camera!

Today was AMAZING!! We got at a catamaran named "SEAduced" and rode about 35 minutes out to Hol Chan.  The boat was really fun, they had bean bags, fresh fruit and drink for us.  Once we arrived to Hol Chan, we put our snorkel gear on and jumped in! Hol Chan is the break in the reef where boats can go in and out.  There was so many fish and SEA TURTLES! We had a guide that would swim deep down and grab different animals and fish to show us.  One time he went down and grabbed a green eel but it slithered away.  He pointed out a lot of plants and the coolest one was coral that was purple or brown depending on if it was sleeping or was awake and eating.  I tried to swim deep down but after four feet you and to be able to pop your ears underwater and mine were not cooperating.  It was the coolest thing to be so close to the reef and all types of sea life.  

After Hol Chan we went to Shark and Ray Alley.  We got back in the water and they threw lots of dead sardines in the water to attract the rays and the sharks.  I was kind of scarey but then they told us that they were nurse sharks and they didnt bite.  I was still nervous about the sting rays because I didnt know if you get hurt if you get hit by the tail or if they have to decide to sting you.  Our guide held a shark upside down to put him to sleep so we could pet him, and then he got a sting ray for us to pet.  The shark felt different that I expected, I was expecting it to be smooth but it felt more like a finger nail file.  The sting ray was smooth and kind of slimy.  It was really cool to swim with the sharks and sting rays.

After we were done snorkeling we sailed to Caye Caulker which is just a little island with a few restaurants and shops.  I bought a couple of prints that I cant wait to frame and put up and the wall back home. 

We finally got back to San Pedro around 5 pm.  We hurried upstairs and changed for the Miss. Isla Bonita beauty pageant.  This is a  beauty pageant/talent show where students of Isla Bonita Primary school can participate in the show and if they win, they get a scholarship for the following school year.  This show lasted from 8:30 (it was suppose to start at 6:30 haha) until around 11:30/11:45.  These little girls dance, sing, do fashion shows, question and answer sessions, and there is even a bathing suit session.  I didnt stay the whole time, but it was very very interesting.

After that we came home and passed out.  Today was slam packed but a lot of fun!

Day Ten: March 30, 2011

Lazy day :) We dont have school today so we are just hanging by the pool.  It is a really hot day so I have spent my afternoon in and out of the pool and playing spades.

Jessica and I are on a mission to find a coconut that we can drink out of, and we found it! It was not as good as I wanted it to be.  The coconut water was not very sweet and was kind of tart.  The meat of coconut was pretty bland too, but it was still fun to finally find a place to drink out of one. 

Tonight we are having dinner at Pedro's, they cooked spaghetti and lasagna for everyone.  It was sooo yummy!  After we ate the group of us got together and did a little team bonding by sharing our most embarrassing stories, and naturally Colin and I had the most stories to tell.  We asked Walter to share his story, and lets just say it is not blog friendly haha. We spent a little more time just hanging out together and slowly everyone headed to bed but Jessica, Parker and myself.  

We are the lucky few that got a photo shoot with Walter.  He likes to share his dreads and make it look like you also have dreads. 

Day Nine: March 29, 2012

Today was CRAZY!!! It was the last day before the two week Easter Break.  There was hardly any students in school today because there are now two field trips going on, and because a lot of students wanted to start their break a day early.  Today was also casual day if the students paid a dollar, and that just put fuel on the fire.  But, out of all this craziness it was an awesome day.  I was able to talk to a lot of the students more than I would have normally.  We played pictonary and charades in one of the classes and that was a lot of fun.  I got to pick what the students had to act out and draw.  As part of charades I said they had to be their teacher, Mrs. Arcs, and that was the funniest thing I have ever seen.  They were up at the board being goofy and putting their hands under their shirts to give themselves a belly. 

Pencil toppers my teacher made for her
students.

I also got to spend a lot of time talking with my teacher, Mrs. Iris.  She is great! She likes to have my opinion on things and likes for us to think of new ideas together.  She asked me to grade the test from 1E, and we made the key together and decided on the point distribution.  She has been teaching for 15 years, but still likes to have suggestions and fresh ideas.  

We ended school early to have an assembly to wish the track team luck on their meet this coming up weekend.  They called the members of the track team one by one to the stage and the whole school cheered, these students are very supportive of each other.

Tonight was a great time!  We ate dinner at Caroline's Cookin' and I had the Seafood Ceviche.  That was my first time with ceviche, and it was delicious.  It was full of conch, shrimp, fish and fresh chopped veggies including tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots. We then went to Thursday night trivia at the Road Kill Bar.  It was such a good time!  Our team didn't win, but we only lost to the professors team by a half a point.  Its always a good time when all twelve of us get together.

Day Eight: March 28, 2012

Second day in the schools, and this was a little smoother.  I knew more of what to expect, and I think the students are already getting used to me being around.  I taught my first lesson today and I think it went pretty well.  I taught the 1E math class.  What that means is that the students are in Form 1 (freshman) and they are group 5.  Each class is separated by Form, and by a letter so that there are more than four classes.   I taught students how to change percentages into fractions, and then we reviewed going back and forth from fractions, percents and decimals.  I found that the students seem to be comfortable with new material, but then when it is time for them to combine topics they get confused.  It was really exciting to be in this class because when I asked a question to the class I had almost all 16 shouting out answers, both right and wrong.  The students wanted to come to the board and show their work and they wanted to help their classmates.  I wish I could bottle up all the enthusiasm in these classrooms and bring it back to the States.  If we could mix the focus of the students in the States with the enthusiasm of the students here in San Pedro the educational system would be unstoppable. 

 I also was able to obverse Mrs. Iris in a Form 2 class.  They were reviewing for a geometry test for tomorrow.  She did an awesome activity where she put diagrams up on the board and gave the students the matching vocabulary words but all cut into little pieces.  The students had to not only make the vocabulary words would the strips they were given, but they also had to match them with the corresponding diagrams.  She also made it a race to see which groups could do it the fastest.  I really liked this activity because it really made the students think about the meaning of the vocabulary words. 

I have only been in the classroom for two days and I have already realized that sometimes technology isn’t the best tool in the classroom.  I feel like I spent so much time using technology during my 10 weeks in the States, when I could have done it without the technology and the students might have done better.  Technology for the sake of technology is a complete and total waste.  These classrooms only have chalk and craft supplies, and that is literally the extent of their supplies, but their students are still getting an education.  It has really made me think about the role of a teacher in the classroom.  The teacher is the GPS but the students are the drivers, and it doesn’t matter how snazzy the tools you use to get to your destination, all that matters is that you get there.

**Random story of the day: So the 1E class is the prep class that didn’t score very high on their entrance exams and they have a lot of character and even more class clowns.  Today a boy in class looked and me and told me that he was probably going to behave badly.  I asked him if he was acting badly now or if he was just warning me that it was coming.  He told me that he was going to try really hard to behave but he could make any promises.  Well he did his work and participated in class and never acted out until I was trying to learn names.  He made sure that he told me all the wrong names haha.

Day Seven: March 27, 2012

Culture Shock! Today was my first day in the classroom and it was everything I expected it to be and everything I could even imagine! My partnership teacher is amazing! She has a tough exterior but once you talk to her she is the biggest sweetheart! I got to observe her freshman class and this particular class is an experimental class.  They gave the incoming freshman a placement exam for math and English and the students who didnt do that well went into this particular class.  This class is the only class who gets math twice a day, but they seem to be a great groups of kids, they just need more attention than others.  Something else that is interesting about this class is that she shares it with another teacher.  One will have the class the first session and introduce a topic and then the other will spend the 45 minutes practicing what the other teacher introduced. It takes co-teaching to a whole new level.  I am with another class and they are the juniors.  That class is HUGE! I didnt get to get to know this class very well because they are so big and 45 minutes isnt that much time.

I am teaching two classes tomorrow and I am very nervous! The classroom management is so different that I feel like I am going to spend the whole time trying to get the students to quiet down and pay attention instead of teaching.  The classrooms can best be described as controlled chaos.  The teacher does their thing and the students do their thing and somehow in the end it all works out.  I am also nervous because even though this is a English speaking country there is still a lot of Spanish on the island and the students speak Spanish to each other and the teachers and I am afraid that I will not know what is going on. Even with all these concerns I am still excited to get back tomorrow.

Side note: Some differences between US schools and San Pedro High

• the students stay in one classroom all day.  The teachers are the ones that change rooms, and there is one large staff room and that is where they keep their desks and all their materials.  The students are assigned a desk and that is their desk for the whole year and they are responsible for it so if they do group work they move their desks around they wont switch in fear that something will happen to their desk. 
• When the students have detention or have in-school-suspension they clean the school.  They will sweep and mop floors! I really like how that holds the students accountable for their school.