So What's the Difference

While everyone else is comparing their teaching experience in Belize to that of Wilmington, I suppose I should compare my experience here in Jacksonville.

One thing I have always been fortunate of was having the opportunity of growing up in Jacksonville. Sure 'Action-Ville as falsely dubbed by many can be very un-actiony and many times I feel it is lacking in many areas, one thing I have always been proud of was our military. What many people don't understand about this city is that few people who live in Jacksonville are actually from here. I remember in my classes when we had to stand up and introduce ourselves (which by the way I hated) and had to say something interesting about yourself, their was always 1 person who said they were actually from here, while the other 30 or so of us had a military connection. The military brings people of all races, religions and traditions into one town. I have met people from all over the US and was fortunate enough to grow up in a fairly diverse community. We are truely a melting pot of different people and that has helped in preparing me to enter into the diverse classrooms that no book or class can effectively teach you.

I have met many people from small towns where they grew up with the same people their whole life. When they leave their home town, if they ever do, I feel they aren't as prepared to face a diverse society and interact with the different people of the world.

In the many classrooms I have taught in here in Jacksonville, my classes are generally very diverse in its students. Just as Jacksonville is diverse in its people, Belize is known for its diversity also. Not only are their people of different races and cultures, you have people from all over the WORLD living in Belize. It was interesting to see how accepting people are of others when they have been exposed to diversity their whole life.


An area I couldn't get over was that involving technology. Here in the US, teaching and education have been become over run with using technology in the classroom. In our elementary schools, gone are the foreign language classes and other electives and in its place we now have computers. In the method classes we took in preparation for teaching, not only do we take a class on how to use technlogy in the class, but in every other class we take use of technology is required. When creating lessons, we had to integrate technology as much as possible, and if you didn't you were asked why. For me, I often found it difficult to use technology all the time preferring to teach a little more old fashioned. Yet even though I believe my students showed positive results at the end of each lesson, I was often told by professors I needed to incorporate more technology. Even now in the new teaching standards there is an area you are graded based on how much technology you use in the classroom.

For me though, I was already considering how teaching in the Peace Corps or other 3rd world countries would be like without the aid of technology. We are prepared to teach and create lesson plans, but only with the use of technology. We use technology to find lesson ideas, printables, and more. When we teach, it is so easy to just hook up your computer and project what you need. As we begin having to teach fairly difficult concepts technology allows for lessons to be taught easier through the easily accessible information and the easy at which the information can be presented to the students. In Belize, technology was hard to come by. On any given day you were lucky to have electricity, let alone access to the internet. When lesson planning, I had to get really creative in not only planning what I was going to teach, but in finding a way to teach it. I had to really use my brain in order to create a lesson based on just my knowledge and the supplies I had available which often wasn't much. I developed a true admiration for the teachers of Belize and other parts of the world that are able to teach these creative and successful lessons without the aid of technology I believe we in the US take for granted.

America and Belize handle behavior management two totally different ways. In my classroom here, my kids all raised their hands, stayed in their seats and knew when to not interrupt an adult. Failure to abide by such social normals resulted in swift consequences. Yet in Belize the students would come right up to you and with a 'Mis, Mis' poke at you until you answered them. I often found this difficult to deal with especially if at the time I was working with another student. During my time in the classroom I did work with the students in raising their hands, not calling out or coming up to me, but I understood it was a part of the culture and wasn't to try to take over with my American mind set. I did find it interesting, that while not exactly smiled upon, one way teachers in Belize get a child to behave may be with a a physical consequence. While I never say or used it first hand, I heard many stories of teachers who would either threaten to get 'Hector' the male teacher or just reach over and smack a kid on the arm or so. In the States you have to have special permission to even grab a kid to stop him or her from hurting themselves or someone else. I can't imagine a parents reaction if I smacked a kids hand for something.

That is one major differences between Belize and America. In America I find we treat our child as fragile beings. We tell them not to do this or that in case they may be hurt. On the play ground kids are instructed to keep their hands to themselves not even encouraged to play games like tag. I often had to tell a student hands to themselves even if they were only playing in fear they would hurt themselves or someone else. On the playground, younger children were limited in what equipment and activities they could do such as not being able to play on the monkey bars which were deemed to high and other activities that were deemed to dangerous.

Yet in Belize, my kids would practically tackle one another and no one would say a word. They would leap onto walls and climb what one may consider dangerous equipment. I once say kids using a fallen basketball hoop as a jungle gym. I had to stop myself from telling a child to stop what they were doing in case they got hurt.

I think that in the years fear of consequences of a child being hurt in the US has caused adults to baby our children. We are afraid of law suits and threats to our jobs and lively hood that we restrict our kids from being kids. If a kid falls and breaks his arm, police reports are being filed and people are being questioned. I understand the need to protect of kids, but are we protecting them to much?

One last comparison is the instruction in the classroom. In the schools in the States we are pushing for child focused instruction. Let the students be creative, ask the questions and lead the instruction with a teacher a a facilitator. We focus on small group, creativity, hand on and critical thinking. Our classes are also dominated in teaching Language Arts. We devote more of our days to language arts related instruction with reading and writing being at the fore front.

In Belize, instruction is often led my the teacher through lector and notes. Workbooks a a HUGE part of instruction and I was amazed how much the kids actual wanted to work in them. When I tried to teach a lesson that focused more on creativity and thinking past exact answers the students would get fustrated and ask to just take their notes. Even when given the opportunity for creativity, they would say it was too hard and ask for the teacher to do it for them instead of expressing themselves. In the States my kids favorite time was when they got to be creative. Belizean students seem to focus more on 'the facts' preferring math and science where answers are either right or wrong. They didn't enjoy the idea of having to think about a subject for more then that right or wrong answer. I feel that a reason Language Arts isn't highly regarded is that even though English is used in the schools, it isn't most of the students of teachers native tongue. Many of the teachers dislikie reading and writing and are unsure how to teach it effectively. They are unsure how to make it fun for the kids so stick to basics that becomes boring for all involve. What I did like though was that the teachers know that language arts is their weak point yet they are interested in ideas on how to improve their instruction.

I found so many similarities and differences in my schools here in Jacksonville and in Belize. But in the end I realized that no matter what, kids are kids regardless of where you are.