As part of my teaching internship here in Belize, I have been assigned to Isla Bonita Elementary School. The grades here are different then that of the States. Here the grade levels go from Infant 1, Infant 2, Standard 1, Standard 2, Standard 3, Standard 4, Standard 5 and Standard 6. Since my placement back in North Carolina 2nd grade, I was placed with the Standard 1 class. While it is compared to being more like 3rd grade, to me the ages as well as many aspects of the curriculum seems to reflect 2nd grade more.
During my time at Parkwood Elementary School, my class consisted of 23 students ranging in ages from 7-9. Here in San Pedro, I only have 8 students in my class all 7 years old. I have 4 boys and 4 girls making the class even. Of the 8, 7 are from some kind of Central American or Spanish decent and one of African decent. 5 of the students speak Spanish fairly fluently as well as the more local Creole. The other 3 have an understanding of the Spanish but mainly just an undestanding of it and do not speak it fluently. All of the students appear to be able to speak and understand the Creole, although I have notice that they rarely use it compared to many others.
I was surprised at how much of the curriculum here mirrors the curriculum used in the States. Students here are learning things such as matter, fractions, time, adjectives, syllables and more. In much of my planning for my student teaching in the States, I had taught each of these subjects as well as others. While the subjects are similar, how they are taught is can be different. Here the classroom is still more teacher directed and note driven. Students are often given the information on a board or a poster, and instructed to copy the notes word for word. Workbooks are also a large part of the everyday instruction. I do feel that my teacher is stepping away from this learning style and more towards a student driven instruction. She provides many hands on activities and chances for critical thinking.
I have noticed that subjects that are more fact based in nature such as Science and Math are enjoyed both by students and teachers while Language Arts is obviously disliked. From talking to various teachers at a few of the schools in the area, each teacher expresses concern and questions in teaching Language Arts. They want to make it more enjoyable for the kids, but lack the training and confidence in the subject area.
Regardless of the similarities and differences in the schools here in Belize and Back in the States, one thing is for certain, Kids with be Kids!
Thank you very interesting information.
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