After teaching in San Pedro I realized that when I was in the states I relied to much on technology to help make the lessons more engaging. I found that technology is not a necccessity to engaing the students and that you can be more creative when creating your lesson plan. Also I found that in San Pedro that everyone and the school is really laid back to that of my field experience in Wilmington. Here in San Pedro my teacher was very supportive and helped me prepare my lessons when needed. I felt that my experience in San Pedro was much more rewarding then that in Wilmington because it pushed me as a teacher to function with little resources.

Blog 3 San Pedro and San Ignacio

I love San Pedro the town is so friendly and I feel like I know everyone that lives their. The children their are very loving and everything is laid back. In San Ignacio I did not really see many of the children out like you would in San Pedro and everyone seemed to keep to themselves. Also San Ignacio seemed so small to San Pedro and everything closed early. When we first got to San Pedro it did not take long for the locals to start talking to us, they actually seemed interested in what we were doing there. Where as in San Ignacio we were there for five days and the locals did not seem to interested in what we were doing. I feel that I would like to teach more in San Pedro just because everyone is so friendly there and outgoing. I have learned that San Pedro is more laid back and compacted, like everyone lives very close to each other. And in San Ignacio everyone seems to keep to themselves and it is very rural.

blog 2 privilage

In America I never viewed flushing to toliet paper down as a privilage, or being able to go to the atm and it not being out of money. I have found that in Belize the things I take for granted like consistancy in running water, flushing toliet paper, money in the atm, and having power are actually privilages. You become so use to what you have that it is hard to image what it would be like when you do not have it. I feel that one of the hardest thing for me to over come, other then the water and power issue, had to have been the lack of money in the atm and that resturants did not stay open late and their is not fast food resturants on the island. It was so hard to get used to these concepts because when you live in America it is second nature to have these privilages but in Belize it is not.

Blog 1

I have found by observing the behavior and attitude of education by my students that some value education more than others. I have two students who are originally from Belize who have dreams and goals that they are working towards. However, those two students also slack off on turning in assignments and studying for test. Those students if you ask them what they want to do when they grow say a marine bioliogist and a fashion designer. One of the students parents owns a jewerly store and always provides money and a ride to school for this student. When talking to the teacher to find out how much family support he has, she said that the parents do care and they are aware of his grades. The only thing I could not figure out was why this student did not strive to do better on his assignments. On the other hand there is one student if you ask him what he wants to do when he grows up he could not tell you. But he does well on almost all of his assignments. This student gets into trouble a lot because of his background. When I had asked the teacher about him she said that his dad had left them and his mom was very tough on him. Far as the others I noticed that the ones who are originally from another country seemed to value their education a little differently. The student from England would never turn in any of his assignments and seemed to care very little if he got a good grade or not. Where as one of the students from Canada got upset if she did not do well on assignments, and strived to be number one in the class. After observing the class and learning more about the backgrounds of my students I realized that many of them did not care too much about their education because their parents gave them everything and they assumed they would take over the family business. This was interesting to me because back in the states I had graduated with quite a few people who had the same view as them on education. Overall I feel that education is only valued by those who do not want to inherit the family business and who have higher aspirations and goals outside business, finance, and tourism.
Far as how the childeren are veiwed I feel like it depends on which families you are talking about. If the family has money I feel that the children are viewed as children, they are given money to go out and play and buy items with. On the other hand if the family does not have money I feel that the children are viewed as family employees. I believe that the love for both types of families are still there but rather the role has changed.After talking and hanging out with one of the kids that sells jewerely I realized that is what makes up the latter part of the day. This kid goes to school then sells jewerly until about 11 at night. I asked him when he went out and played and he said when his mom or sister takes over for him. The child did not seem to mind selling jewelry but I believe that is because he knew he had to in order for his family to surive.

Day 23,24, and 25 Jungle days

Day 23 we just hung out in San Ignacio and did some shopping. San Ignacio is much smaller compared to that of San Pedro. Also not many restaurants were open after 9 P.M. We were able to travel to almost all of the tourist stores in about an hour. It was very interesting talking to the locals around San Ignacio, one guy asked if we were from Belize. I felt that we actually didn't stand out like tourist. The prices for food, gifts, and fruit was a little cheaper than San Pedro and the people here did not take advantage of us as much. Oh and there is one hill in San Ignacio that was killer to walk up especially during the day, unlike San Pedro, there was not breeze there. Over all San Ignacio was a pretty neat little town;however, it was much different from San Pedro.

Day 24 was the day we left San Ignacio to head to the jungle for two days. We were on our way to Caves Branch not knowing what to expect from the jungle. Ah haha boy was it interesting, beautiful by day and scary by night. The grasshoppers were humongous. That night I was attacked by one at dinner, which was not fun. So the first night we stayed in the jungle some us got the bunkhouse, needless to say with all the roaches crawling up our arms, beds, and luggage, the scorpion and other unknow specimans we doubled up and slept with the other girls in the bungalow.

Day 25 I did not feel so great that morning so I just hung out at Caves Branch and enjoyed the jungle. The staff was so nice and friendly, so it was very pleasent hanging out with them. Also that day I got upgraded to a suit so I invited a few of the girls to stay the night with me. It was great two showers and no bugs. However, you could hear the jaguars, other unknow animals, and howler monkeys outside our windows that night which was a little creepy. Overall the jungle experience was not too bad during the day but a little creepy at night.

Day 22

Wednesday inland we went on the ATM tour. Basically we went caving and learned more about the Mayan civilization. It started off with a 45 minute hike through the jungle which was not too hard. The jungle was very hot to hike through but gorgeous. Once we arrived at the clearing we put on our helmets, broke into groups and continued to hike to the cave.
Once arriving to the cave we had to jump in the icy cold water to begin our journey. Parts of the cave were dry, while other parts had different depths of water. There were many ancient artifacts from the Mayans, like bones, pottery, skulls, and more.

Day 21 Tikal

Today we traveled to Guatemala to tour one of the largest Mayan ruins. When we were picked up that morning we rode in this bus/truck thing that had airport seats drilled to a truck bed. That was an interesting experience. Once getting through the border and heading towards Tikal we were able to see the country side of Belize. There were so many cows and oxen things. Also there were a plethora of horses that meandered about the side of the road. I was really scared that we were going to hit one.
After about an hour/hour and a half ride we finally reached Tikal. The forest was magnificent and the wildlife was stunning. We hiked our way up a road to visit the first site. We learned about their ceremonial chambers, pyramids, and culture. The best part of the park was the huge pyramid that we were able to climb. I believe it was over two hundred feet tall. Overall it was a very interesting experience and trip.