While the past week has been dedicated to Easter camp and
sandy egg hunts (more on that later), this week off from school has given me a
chance to reflect on my first week of Belizean teaching. I was prepared for a
certain level of organized chaos and a shrunken pile of resources, but what I
was unprepared for was the immediacy with which I would be left in charge of
the classroom.
On day one, Ms. Yvette informed me I would be on my own with
the students every afternoon that week, as she was in charge of Miss Isla
Bonita (the school’s pageant and life blood). As Ms. Yvettte directed dances and
put an embargo on slumped backs, I nervously stood in the front of a classroom trying
to come up with a productive way to fill the next two hours.
It was definitely an exercise in quick thinking; Yvette had
given me free reign to “review anything” with the class, and I had to use the
students as resources in order to figure out what to actually teach during that
first afternoon. I learned that eight-year-olds are not necessarily the most
informative age group, and had to question them for a solid ten minutes in
order to get any semblance of a foundation to work off of. We ended up playing
a game to review the Spanish words for furniture, which was most likely more informative
for me than it was for the students; the words “rug=alfombra” are permanently
tattooed in my brain. This is sure to come in handy some day when I’m in Central
America shopping for floor coverings.
As I biked back to Pedro’s Inn after the first day of school,
I felt both accomplished and a little confused. It had certainly been a day of
new experiences and overactive heart beating. However, as the week went on, I
began to feel more and more comfortable being the leader of this new group of
mini humans. I was able to bounce ideas off of Yvette and the other UNCW
students, helping me come up with new plans and get excited about resuming my
charge of the children.
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