Teaching Challenges in Belize vs. the US

Week one of teaching is over. Many challenges have been faced and some are on their way to being overcome. Others we are still working on. Firstly, I started off the week in Standard Six to find out they are reviewing for an exam all week so there is not a lot for me to do. I ended up in Standard 5, which has been an adventure to say the least.

The biggest challenge I have faced so far is reconciling my expectations for students with those of the teachers I am working with. Teachers here are a lot more direct with students whereas in the United States we are encouraged not to be. During my internship was that students in general education classes face challenges as general education students even if those challenges are not formally identified, and therefore they are not going to behave perfectly all the time. During my US internship one challenge I overcame was increasing my tolerance (greatly!) for noise and activity in the classroom. 30, or even 16 (the case in Belize) students are rarely going to be completely quiet in a classroom, and I have learned to allow a certain amount of "general" noise. The teachers I work with have much higher expectations of their students. I think we are working on meeting somewhere in the middle - they are learning to relax certain expectations they had, and I am learning to raise some of my expectations for behavior, which is not a bad thing at all.

Outside the classroom, life is really good here. I love riding bikes to school every day, and jumping into the pool to cool off in the afternoon. We've found some really great places for dinner, and school gives us lunch which is really nice. The best lunch was "Make your own taco" day where we got amazing fresh salsa and really spicy pulled pork and freshly homemade tortillas.