Teachers will be teachers!

January 9th: Today was a day we have been anticipating for so long...we got to meet our cooperating teachers today and interact with them during continuing education workshops that Professor Crouso, Metcalfe, and Taylor put on. None of us really knew what to expect when meeting the teachers we would be spending the next two weeks with. We have found one thing to be true, no matter what our cultural differences are, teachers will be teachers. As we got to know each other and talk about struggles with students and classroom management we realized that we all have the same struggles and frustrations. This brought us such a feeling of unity, we are both working to bring Christ's love to broken and wounded children. We are so encouraged now that we have met our teachers, this is truly turning into a life changing experience. Tomorrow will be another 6 hours of workshops with our cooperating teachers, the Belizeans are such relational people that it is very easy to get to know them.
The Belizeans have different certifications required to be teachers than we do in the states and it was interesting talking to them about the limited education that they received before being able to teach. A lot of the Belizean teachers were hanging onto our every word about literacy and classroom management. Being an intervention specialist major I was deeply impacted to hear that there is no real developed special education in Belize. Students with exceptional learning needs are put in classrooms with the "normal" students and are just held back if they don't reach the standards. I hope to work a lot with the students struggling in my classroom.
One interesting cultural difference is the judgment of distances. Not many Belizeans have private vehicles so they walk everywhere they need to go. I asked my cooperating teacher of she loved very far from the school she replied," Oh no no no, I live 1 1/2 miles away!!" I lived a 7 minute drove from my high school and I thought was was close. It can take my cooperating teacher over 40 minutes to walk to work. Belize is roughly the size of Massachusettes, which seems so small to me, but because of their lack of transportation loving on the other side of the country is so far away.
Thank you for all of the prayers, they are really being answered. :) We all send our love home!! Feel free to leave comments, I will be reading them to the girls at our nightly meetings.