Today is Day 5 of teaching in Belize! I am learning more everyday about how schools in Belize operate. The classroom teachers I have worked with at the schools in Independence and Belize have been great. The teachers organize effective and engaging lessons with very little resources.
In Belize, I am reminded daily of how blessed we are in America. On my first day at the school in Red Bank, I was looking around and thinking that it was much more rustic and in a much poorer environment than the school at Independence. That morning, I was talking to the teacher at Red Bank and he said, "I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. We have so much here." I smiled, speechless and humbled by his statement.
That same day, in the afternoon, I wandered to the classroom next door and found they were playing a singing game in the minutes before dismissal. The class was seated with their desks in a circle and the students were passing around a ball that looked like it was made of masking tape. When the teacher said "stop," the student with the ball choose a song and started the class singing. The songs the students choose to sing included My God is So Big, Were You There When They Crucified My Lord, and Deep and Wide. As they sang This Little Light of Mine, all three different verses, it was all I could do to hold back tears. My mind went back to my high school yearbook, my senior quote was "This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine." As I sang along with the Belizian children, in their open-air, cement floor classroom, I knew that this would be a moment I would never forget. This entire trip has been an amazing and eye-opening learning experience. Thanks for following along!
Becky Owens
No comments:
Post a Comment