December 2011
Participating in
all activities that our District Education Centre Office supports is one way to
integrate into my community and help out my colleagues in the education
field. On the second of December I
participated in a parade here in Dangriga to commemorate National Disabilities
Awareness Day, sponsored by NaRCIE, the National Resource Center for Inclusiveness
Education. The parade through the
streets of Dangriga was the culmination of week-long activities designed to sensitize
parents, teachers and students to the existence and needs of students with
physical and developmental disabilities.
I helped carry the NaRCIE banner, walking behind a Dangriga fire engine
blaring its siren. Behind us were
students from many schools in Dangriga, including several Special Education
students from the one school in the area where there is a center devoted to
working with children with either physical or learning disabilities. Most children in Belize who might qualify for
special education services are not able to receive assistance from a specially
trained teacher, but the Ministry provides a trained special education coordinator
for the entire Stann Creek District who travels to all 38 schools to support teachers in
their efforts to include students in regular classrooms. Here in Belize “inclusion education” is the
norm.
The beginning of
December marked our ninth month since arriving in Belize, but only the sixth
month of our service as sworn-in Peace Corps Volunteers working in our
permanent sites. At this juncture, the
Peace Corps brought all 36 of us together for a “Reconnect” and “In-service
Training”. The first day of our week
together we traveled to Belmopan with our Belizean work partners for a workshop
on developing our work plans based on a participatory analysis of our Belizean
partners’ needs and goals. The following
two days were spent with our fellow Peace Corps Volunteers in workshops ranging
from “Stress Reduction” to “Budgeting”.
We received even more training in “Safety and Security,” a major concern
for Peace Corps worldwide. We reread and
recommitted to our original goals and expectations, and generally commiserated
with one another by sharing our successes and challenges. On the last day several Peace Corps
Volunteers stayed in Belmopan for optional language training. The original teacher who had worked with the
intermediate and advanced Spanish learners during our three months of training
was not available, so Peace Corps asked me to step in. I was thrilled! I was given the enviable task of designing
and teaching a 4-hour immersion class in Spanish to ten of the most motivated
students I have been given the privilege to work with. Imagine ten confident, eager, driven,
animated adults who are clamoring to learn to speak Spanish in order to work
with students, parents, hopeful entrepreneurs or villagers. It was a Spanish-teacher’s dream class. We reviewed practical uses of grammatical
constructions and applied them to communicative situations Peace Corps
Volunteers might encounter in their sites.
We read Pablo Neruda’s poetry and an article in the Spanish version of
Cosmopolitan magazine. We listened to
music, and learned lyrics to children’s songs.
Our 4-hour class culminated in a spontaneously-acted telenovela (Spanish
soap opera), based on the descriptions of a tangled web of characters devised
by this diabolical instructor. I had a
blast! Feedback from my fellow PCVs
showed a desire to receive continuing instruction of this kind in the
future. All will depend on our ability
to come together in a central location for such an endeavor. I hope Peace Corps will grant us that
opportunity again.
In my primary
project with the schools I continue to work with small groups of students who
are struggling with reading. I also
conduct workshops for teachers and instruct them in ways to differentiate their
classrooms to include the students who are not on grade level in reading. One of my most enjoyable experiences in the
school of Nuestra Señora de Bella Vista has been helping to conduct the
bi-monthly Family Literacy Workshops.
Mrs. Juanita Batun, the Literacy Coach from the Ministry of Education in
Belize City, had asked me to work with her to develop workshops for the parents
of students in the village of Bella Vista, so we began in early November to
conduct these workshops with 60 parents, mostly mothers. The majority of the participants are recent
immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, speak only Spanish, and
many have not learned to read in either English or Spanish. Mrs. Batun was able to secure a grant in
order to provide materials for the parents, and she asked me to be her translator. We have conducted five workshops so far,
teaching the parents the alphabet in English, instructing them in the
importance of working with their children at home, and providing materials that
they have constructed with glue, scissors, paper and fabric in order to work with
their children at home. We have been
pleased with the enthusiastic attendance and the teachers remark that many
parents are beginning to feel more comfortable visiting their children’s
classroom. Our goal is to encourage the
parents to be as involved as possible in their children’s education. It’s quite a challenge in this little
village, with no library, no bookstore, and few opportunities for the families
to enrich their children’s education.
Most of the parents are either employed in small cottage industries, or
work in the banana farms. They are some
of the warmest, more welcoming people I’ve met here in Belize.
I'm helping out by holding the baby while the mothers sew "reading mats"
Every Wednesday
when I travel to Bella Vista I travel on the teachers’ bus at 6:00 am, travel
and hour and a half to get there, and leave at 4:00 pm to arrive home
at 5:30. This past Wednesday, however, I remained at the school in the evening to help out with the Christmas Pageant. All schools in Belize are expected to raise most
of their own funds, by charging a small fee at the beginning of the school
year, and by conducting many fund-raising activities throughout the year. The Ministry of Education only funds the
salaries of the teachers and distributes textbooks; the individual schools must
raise all other funds. The Christmas
Pageant was one such fund-raising endeavor.
I helped to sell snacks and drinks while watching the children perform
songs, dances, poems and skits. Here are
some photos:
Bella Vista Christmas Pageant
And here's my favorite little "host brother", Shemar:
