After several classroom visits and observations in the US I could pick out those who exceed, those who are on par, and those whose grades suffer because they don’t complete their assignments. The learning curve here in Belize seems to be very similar. Most of the students failing here don’t complete their homework, don’t study, and flat out don’t participate. This is quite a shame because they are paying for their education.
Another similarity I have witnessed, at least with my partnership teacher here, is that he reaches many learning styles. We read in our physics class! Students read, the teacher reads, students write summaries on their own, and the teacher provides a summary. They make up sayings or chants to remember equations. They perform laboratory exercises in order to “do” physics. Students are actively engaged in their learning just like I learned they should while studying at UNCW in my methods courses.
There are lots of chatty teens at San Pedro High which is exactly like every high school I’ve seen. My teacher seems to know how to scold the students without being overly loud or disrupting the flow of the lesson. Some call him “Padre” because he was training to be a priest for six years and I think many of them fear him although, he laughs and jokes with them often.
One more similarity is sports in the high school but more to come with that later.
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| All of the science equipment. Student purchase the rest. |
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A different similarity is the lack of money. We are lacking money in the US for education as many of us spend hours with endless conversations on how to deal with the budget. The lack of money here is different because they hardly have anything. When I say this, I mean there is barely enough money to ration copies to teachers just for tests. Before making a test, the teacher must get the test approved by the department chair and then the chair makes copies. The rest of the books and resources are minimal which is why we brought as many materials as we could for the schools and for us to use while teaching.
The scheduling is also quite different. After second form (sophomore year) students enter a business or academic track. The business track prepares for the working world and has more students than the academic track which prepares students for college and university. I work in the academic side with juniors and seniors teaching physics and maybe a little chemistry if I am lucky. My students also take math, biology, English, information technology, and Spanish. They stress physics here and students take the sciences both 3rd and 4th form (junior and senior year).
The student stay in the same class all day (8 periods) unless the have class in the computer or science labs. Teachers rotate and visit the different classes they teacher. No teachers have their own classroom except the computer teachers. All other teachers share a large room and this is where they have their desks and do their planning. My Mondays are busy but the rest of the week I have many breaks (planning and resting periods) throughout the day. Each day of the week has its own schedule. I don’t know if I will be here long enough to adjust to that.
Grading is also different. They work on a pass-fail system. Below 70 is failing which is like our system. The rest of the grading just determines the class rank. Whoever has the highest overall average in every class is valedictorian. They use a mark (point) system. Each assignment is out of a teacher-determined amount of points. Students receive points throughout each of the three terms. The points are added and divided by the total amount for all three terms. The final average must be over 70 to be considered passing. If you do not pass, you have an opportunity in summer to make up but if you do not, you must repeat the entire form over.
This was a very long post and I had to shorten it as to not bore all the readers. Hope you enjoy and more to come soon.
