Home!

I can’t believe it is Friday already! This week went so fast. I’m excited to get home to Bodie and Wilmington, but there is so much I’m going to miss here.  I’m definitely going to miss my students and the weather.  And of course, the whole fresh pineapples, cut up right in front of you for $3.00…yum. Tomorrow is an all day travel day, so I’m going to try to get some shut eye. Goodbye San Pedro, see you soon Wilmington!

Prompt 5

How have your perceptions of disability and inclusion changed since completing the independent study on inclusive education and the field experience in Belize?

                After this course and the field experience here in Belize, my perceptions of disability and inclusion in the classroom have changed. I can admit that before this course I was very ignorant of how to include students with disabilities in the classroom. After attending the course meetings, watching eye opening videos like “Willowbrook”, and taking part in the gathering place event, I felt more knowledgeable about what inclusion looked like.  Being able to come to Belize and then apply everything that I had learned to a classroom setting was even more beneficial for me.  At first, it was definitely a challenge and took a bit of adjusting, especially because I did not have every resource I was used to having in the U.S.  But once I observed my classroom and realized that the smallest modification could really improve a student’s experience, I was very pleased. Something as small as using a calculator to complete the multiplication step of a math concept can really make a difference.  Even assigning the job of holding the poster while their group presents or giving the student a class job, can make a difference and make the student feel like they are part of the class. The change in my perception will be able to be carried back to the U.S. In my future classroom I feel much more confident that I will be able to provide all of my students with the education they deserve.

From the Cave !

  Mrs.Cumbee-Moore's class, 

                              Thank you all for the beautiful cards and letters ! You all asked so many good questions and I can't wait to see you all again and answer them ! This is me in the cave with my headlamp/helmet, some of the skull and skeleton pictures, pottery from the cave and the waterfall ! See you soon !

                                                Miss Bilotti

Week 4

Another week has come and gone! It was good to get back in the classroom. I started the week with most of my lessons planned out for each day..you’ll see what little good that did me after I explain. I’m so used to planning my lessons for the day according to a schedule that everyone agrees upon and then carrying out my plans. Apparently, the schedules are a bit more flexible here. Like I said, I arrived Monday morning with my lessons all prepared, only to find that we don’t follow the class schedule that is posted on the wall and my teacher wants me to teach something different than what her unit plans originally said. I tried to go with the flow for the rest of the day as best I could and I realized that it’s better to plan one day at a time here. By Wednesday I was teaching every lesson, because all of the teachers were taking part in staff development. This was a time that my “just in case” planning paid off. I had no idea what the day would entail or what lessons I would be teaching, so I just planned something for every class. I was glad I did when I came in on Wednesday and found out I would be teaching every lesson that day.  By Friday I feel that I had a good routine going and the students were used to my routine also.  My teacher, from the beginning, has given me a lot of freedom to come in and teach and it really felt good to set up my rules and expectations and follow through with them. BTW- our P.E. class was walking/jogging on the beach of the Caribbean Sea ! Awesome! I can’t believe we’ve been in Belize for a month and we only have one week left !

Prompt 4

What strategies have you used to support children with special needs in your classroom?

                I have one little girl in my class who, my teacher informed me, has Autism. She is mostly non-verbal, but as she is getting more comfortable with me, has started to mouth and even say some words.  I can tell this week that she has opened up to me a lot.  She went from not responding to me at all to wanting to hold onto my arm during our entire walk on the beach for P.E. : ). During math, I encourage her to use the calculator and multiplication chart that Kristen gave her. Before she had these, she was having a lot of difficulty understanding concepts, such as area, because she couldn’t perform the multiplication step. Now, she can learn the concepts more easily because she isn’t getting stuck at not being able to multiply. During the math test, I circled the problems I wanted her to complete, and with the use of her calculator and some verbal redirection, she did very well.  During writing activities, such as journals, I gave her markers and let her draw her thoughts, which seemed to work well.  I also shortened her spelling words from 25 words to 10 and paired her up with a class buddy for a homonym game we played in language arts.

Prompt 3

After this past week in San Ignacio and through the different excursions, I feel I have a deeper understanding of the cultural heritage of the Belizean people. It is somewhat hard to understand that a group’s culture can date back as far as the people here, since America is such a comparatively young nation. I also saw, through our guides and the other people I met, how the people here have a great sense of pride in their culture and history.  As we begin back in the schools tomorrow, the information I learned will play a direct role for me in the classroom. I am supposed to be teaching about the different ethnic groups that are represented in Belize and since I had little to no previous knowledge about the different groups, the excursions about Mayan beliefs will definitely help me.  The excursions and the inland trip also helped me to realize that there are many different types of cultures here in Belize and as I begin working with the children and families, I need to be aware and mindful of the different beliefs and cultures.  

Adventures

    The past two days have, by far, been the most adventurous days of my life. It started Tuesday morning with our trip Caracol to see Mayan ruins. I don't think I could begin to explain how beautiful and amazing the ruins were- so you'll have to wait and see for yourselves when I post pictures ! But we climbed to the top of a HUGE Mayan building and the view was awesome! I also saw and jumped into my first waterfall..again, wait until you see these pictures!
     But today was even more incredible than yesterday. Today we went to Actun Tunichil Muknal (a.k.a ATM). Atm is a cave where the ancient Mayans went to perform ceremonies, offerings and other rituals. They viewed the caves as a very sacred place because they were the underworld in their culture.  We began our journey with a hike through the jungle, wading across water in several locations. When we got to the bottom, we saw the entrance to the cave and it was breathtaking. I couldn't believe we were about to go in there, but our guide jumped right in the water and began swimming into this huge cave. In some places inside the cave it was so deep that we had to swim across to get to the next rock landing. In other areas, the rocks were so close together and tight you had to move sideways and maneuver your body through the tunnel. We were climbing rocks, swimming and scootching along in the cave like pros before long..I couldn't believe how amazing it was. When we got further back into the cave we saw Mayan artifacts such as pottery that they had sacrificed to the Gods.  We also saw several human skeletons which may have been sacrificed- either voluntarily, as an honor, or because they were prisoners. I was pretty impressed with myself !haha - we're off to explore San Ignacio some more !

Pictures!

San Ignacio

Hello Everyone ! I was a little sad to leave our cozy room at Pedro's Inn this morning, but an hour and a half boat ride, taxi ride and a 2 hour bus trip later, we made it to San Ignacio! And I'm not talking a coach bus with plush seats and air conditioning- think packed like sardines into an elementary school bus.No air conditioning. 95 degrees. Long day. We'll be staying at Rosa's Hotel until Friday and tomorrow is our first excursion to a Mayan ruin..exciting ! San Ignacio seems like a cool place with lots of little shops and restaurants and i'm excited to see it running in full speed tomorrow.

week 2

Today marks two weeks in San Pedro!  Sorry about the lack of pictures thus far, but the intermittent internet paired with an old laptop makes for frustrating picture uploading.  This week, while school is out for Easter break, we have been working on our service project hours.  I began accumulating hours at the Miss Isla Bonita pageant last Friday. It was the first time I had ever attended a pageant and it was a VERY interesting experience. Each contestant spent the weeks leading up to the pageant fundraising for the school. Each girl also had a booth set up, selling food and drinks to earn votes.  I worked at a booth selling rice and beans, ceviche, sodas and beers. At the end of the night, the girl who raised the most money for the school was crowned Miss Isla Bonita. Very adorable and they raised a TON of money for the school.

This week we also took part in an Easter camp for children at the local library. I had no idea there were so many possibilities for Easter crafts using only construction paper and paper plates! We played games, read stories and concluded the camp with an Easter egg hunt on the beach.  One of my favorite campers was a puppy named lucky who was recovering from getting hit by a car. AW!

Prompt 2

On the first day of Easter camp, I arrived a half hour early to prepare what we needed for the crafts and get organized. However, the library was locked until about 5 minutes until 2:00. I was a little frustrated that I didn’t have time to set up and get myself sufficiently prepared.  I was a little flustered at first, because I’m so used to preparing ahead of time, but I had to think on my feet and we just prepped the craft as we went along.  It was a little more hectic than I would have liked for a room full of kids, but it worked out fine and the kids had a blast making paper bead cross necklaces.  This reinforced the “go with the flow” environment that we were told to be prepared for. I tried to mentally prepare to be unprepared, but I don’t think there was any way for me to be broken of my chronic list making/organizing habits, other than to be thrown into it.  This experience will be helpful for me as I return to the classroom in a few weeks. I need to be able to be more flexible and more able to go with the flow in order to adjust to the cultural difference here in Belize.

Prompt #1

I have only had one class that specifically addressed teaching student with different special needs. I feel very unprepared to teach a child in my class who is severely disabled.  I know that I have several resources that I can take advantage of in order to include this child in our classroom and help her advance academically.  Kristen and Ms. Curry will be of great help to me, as they specialize in special education and I’m sure they have many tips for inclusion.  I also found out that the more comfortable this student got with me, the more she would open up and respond to me. I was having trouble assessing her academic level, but spending more time with her and gaining her trust allowed me to get more responses from her and I now have a better idea of what she is capable of.  With only 5 students in my class, I feel that I will be able to assist this student with special needs with help from my peers and teachers.

I can’t believe our first week at school is almost over ! It’s the last week before school lets out for Easter break, so our schedules were a little off. This is also the last week of preparation for the Miss Isla Bonita pageant, so many of our students were out of class for the afternoon to practice their dancing and modeling. I’ve become so accustomed to following a schedule and carrying out the plans I’ve made a head of time, so it felt very strange to be trying to come up with things to do off the top of my head on a moment’s notice.  I think this is going to be good for me, though.  Not that I won’t plan in my own classroom, but during hectic days or weeks, it becomes necessary to think on your feet and change the schedule around. The “go with the flow” atmosphere I’ve experienced this week has definitely challenged me and will continue to challenge me when we get back to school, but I’m going to try to plan what I can ahead of time the best I can. 

                I took over our math class on Tuesday, so that is one thing I have been able to plan for ! I’m not sure that it was ever stated that I would teach tomorrow, but the math teacher gave me the direction for the next few lessons and I took that as, okay I’m going to go home and plan just in case.

                Yesterday afternoon we celebrated one of my student’s birthdays by going on her grandpa’s boat (another advantage of going to school right on the Caribbean Sea).  First, we went to Shark Ray Alley and swam with huge fish, sting rays and nurse sharks. The kids all thought it was hilarious how scared I was! Then we took a ride to Hol Chan.  I learned that Hol Chan is a Mayan word meaning “little channel”. We were lead over the reef and saw SO many cool things.  The coral was gorgeous and we saw clown fish, sting rays, grouper, an eel and a barracuda !  I was pretty much in shock the whole time, it was unlike anything I have ever seen.  For my 11^th birthday we went bowling or to the movies. This definitely beats whatever it was we did at any of my birthday parties…maybe next year…

We're Here !

Hey everyone ! We’ve arrived in San Pedro and have been busy getting to know our new home.  It is amazing here ! The weather has been beautiful, which made for a great day by the pool at Pedro’s Inn and swimming off the pier at Ramon’s. We’ve been trying all of the different places to eat, but I think my favorite place so far is the fruit stand.  For 1$, we each got a quarter of the freshest watermelon I’ve ever tasted. We attended the “Chicken Drop” on Thursday night, which if you have no idea what that is, it may come as a shock.  They have a big dance floor looking area, with a low fence and numbered squares from 1-100. They put a, slightly dizzy, chicken in the pen and people make bets on what number the chicken will poop on. It sounds crazy, but it was actually a lot of fun, and the live reggae band was excellent !

Friday morning we visited the schools we would all be working in.  We first went to San Pedro High School and it happened to be “share day”.  The students had put together different science, math, language and history presentations to share with their peers, younger students, and parents. They were all so excited to share their projects and it was easy to see that they LOVED school ! Next, we went to Isla Bonita Elementary school (did I mention that we walked on the beach the whole way to school?). I was placed with a Standard 5 class, around the age of fifth graders in the United States. Teacher Sharon is the teacher I will be working under and we have only 5 students in our class ! I’m so excited to start and to see how the teaching styles compare to the ones we use back home.

This morning we woke up and walked down the block to The Yoga Room where we did an ocean front yoga class. I can definitely see this becoming part of my weekend routine ! Afterwards we went to George’s Kitchen for one of the most delicious breakfasts I’ve ever had. Later, we took a bike ride to the northern part of the island. We had a lazy afternoon on the pier and took some cool pictures…More to come !

Can't wait !

3 Days to Go !!

       Hello everyone ! I just finished my internship in Mrs. Cumbee-Moore's 4th grade class at Eaton Elementary. What a great experience! Her students are great and Mrs. Cumbee-Moore is such a passionate teacher; both were an incredible source of inspiration for me.
      In three days I will be driving to Washington, D.C. to catch my flight to Belize City! I don't think it has fully hit me yet, but I'm starting to get really excited ! I have never left the country, so I'm a little unsure of what to expect, but I can't wait to embark on this new adventure.
      That's all for now..I guess I should probably start packing !!