Teaching #3

I feel that as a blogger, I’m not very good at keeping this updated. We are now in the 6^th week of our semester, and I have not talked once about how school is going. I have to preface this one because it became more of a therapeutic rant about the troubles of teaching. So sorry...

To be quite honest, the past few weeks have been rough as far as school is concerned. I had really high hopes for this semester. I thought that teaching would be a breeze. I knew my students, they knew me, I knew what I wanted to teach, and I had a grasp on how things were run at the school. Boy was I wrong.

There are three problems that have run rampant in my classes. Laziness, attitude, and apathy. These have made my class and life full of frustrations. Allow me to elaborate.

Laziness is one of the most trying things for any teacher to deal with, but especially myself (I was a super overachiever in my youth.) There were 24 students in my English class and 28 in my Religion class, all with unique hopes and dreams, as well as unique personal struggles. In a country like Belize, it isn’t n any way required to attend high school, yet it is a huge opportunity if you want to more in your life than just drive a taxi or sell tacos on the side of the road. And I know that most of my girls want much more for their lives than just selling tacos. But they refuse to do the work. I will assign a simple assignment: Read two chapters of the book Matilda, and the next day I will come in and quiz them on those 15 pages, and it turns out none of them have read it—well, a majority have not. And to them its not much to fail. A 0% on a quiz is not of much consequence. Another example of this laziness is the quiz I warned them about for a week and spent the whole day before reviewing for it. The next morning I walk into class.

“Class, find your seats and clear your desk, its time for our quiz.”

“We have a quiz today? On what?”

“I told you this, capitalization and punctuation; we reviewed yesterday”

“Hay, miss, but I didn’t study!”

I wish I could say that was only one student. But it was several. And they just don’t care about homework, about any work, and about success in general. How do you teach a student to want to work, to want to succeed? The mindset here is to just pass. A 72% is good. But in my youth, there was nothing good under an 85%. These are the people to settle for just enough.

I pause to wonder why that is. I’m so used to America, where every person dreams of the “American Dream” and try to follow in the footsteps of Abe Lincoln and the hero of “The Pursuit of Happyness” and, who made themselves great from nothing. The people of Belize do not live under such delusion and with no such inspiration. I haven’t been in this country for too long, but it seems that the kids grow up with the impression that what their parents have will inevitably become their inheritance, no matter how much or how little. There is no climbing up the ladder of betterment and fulfillment; at least not to their knowledge. The boys will inherit their fathers’ taxis and the girls will become mothers and sell tortillas out of their houses.

It’s difficult for a person coming from a very goal-oriented environment, where one is always working towards the achievement of their dreams to have to fight just to get people to want something, anything for their selves. I want so much for my girls. I want them to graduate, I want them to become biochemists and teachers and fashion designers—anything they could ever dream of, and I just don’t know how to make them want it enough to try. It’s terribly frustrating.

My second struggle is with attitude. It seems with the three-week break my darling, sweet, innocent girls forgot how to be darling, sweet, and innocent. There are countless times that my girls have had to be corrected for talking back and giving ‘lip.’ At the moment it’s difficult to recount a specific attitude episode, but they have been trying as ever. Oh the joys of teenage girls. One minute they want to be your best friend, the next day they are cursing your name in Spanish under their breath.

Apathy. One of the most frustrating of all the diseases of this world, and this one runs rampant in Belize. Perhaps it is the lack or news infiltrating Benque streets, or that there is just too much to worry about in their own lives that its difficult to think of anyone else, but its here to stay, and I’ve now become determined to fix it. One of the examples I have to share is the showing of the movie “The Human Experience” It’s a documentary about 3 men who went out into the world and tried to discover what it means to be human and how we can make the world a smaller place. I was so excited to show this to my students and see how excited they could become about gong out into the world and make a difference. Boy was I disappointed. They were distracted, were more concerned with trying to sneak food and not get caught, and could have cared less that there were people in the world who suffered much more that they. (This is especially difficult considering that these kids have really rough lives themselves. I often wonder if its too much to ask them to be more worldly minded, when they have experiences in their lives that I have never had to have or ever want to have…) And when the class was over, and I asked “Doesn’t this make you want to go out and do something with your lives that’s so cool and so beneficial?” They just shrugged their shoulders.

For these issues I don’t know how to fix them. Is it just enough to show my passion, and hope that they can catch a little fire? Or can I simply accept that some people aren’t meant to feel passion, ambition, and a burning desire to make their lives great and worthwhile—at least not in high school?

Such is my teaching struggles. Not every student is lazy, and not every student spends all of their efforts to make my life more difficult than it needs to be. But, like in every situation, the whispers are drowned out by the shouts, and their voices get lost and forgotten….

Fear

One of the day trips we have taken this new semester was taking Elvira and little Joanna to the Belize Zoo. When we first walk into the zoo, the first animal we see is a rather large Boa Constrictor, just sunbathing on a tree trunk out in the open. There was nothing separating us. One of the zoo keepers came and picked up the snake like he was merely a rubber toy, and offered me the chance to hold it. Without really thinking about what I was doing, I readily accepted and before I knew it, a full-sized boa constrictor was sitting around my neck. I sat there, triumphant. Then, I felt the muscles of the snake tense up and felt that potentially harmful power around my neck. I suddenly realized that, well, I was kinda afraid of snakes.

“Katie, you’re shaking!” my friends proclaimed.

And sure enough, I was. Visibly trembling. And my heart was pounding out of my chest. I quickly returned the snake to his zookeeper with a nervous smile of gratitude and quickly made my way to the back of the group, far away from the snake. There’s a picture of me holding the snake, with a very nervous smile on my face, but it’s still proof that I held a giant snake.

This seems to be a pattern for me. In the moment I forget my fears, and then they come streaming back into my subconscious, paralyzing me. The first time I really experienced this was when I was rock-climbing in Colorado. I was so excited to climb up the mesa, that I scurried up the rock-face. About 40 feet up, I looked out into the great expanse. It was an amazing view, but so far down. I froze. I was 10 feet from the top and I couldn’t go any further. My hands were shaking, my legs were shaking, and the horrible reality of my fear of heights came streaming back to my mind. Looking back I wish I could have just finished the climb.

There are a lot of things that I am afraid of. I fear heights, snakes, spiders, and public speaking. But most of all I have a huge fear of failure. The first of these are easy to conquer, especially when I live in a tropical country where tarantulas run free, you can hold Boas at the zoo, and my present occupation is speaking in front of people everyday. But failure is one that sometimes can’t be avoided. No matter how much you want something, or work towards it, it might just never happen. And just thinking about that right now makes me worry.

One of the things I worry about failing at is teaching. There are so many things I want for my girls. I want them to be able to read and write as well as anyone. I want my religion students to learn to love their faith. But above all, I want them to want success. I want them to dream of a great life for themselves, and to want to work hard to make that happen.

I only have 3 months left with these girls, and I’m not sure if I’m going to succeed in my mission. It’s terrifying, but I know for this experience, I can’t just stop 10 feet from the top and leave always wishing I had just conquered the climb. The only difference is, teaching is a two way street, and there is only so much I can do. We shall see!

The River

As a girl from Louisville, KY, having a river in winding beside my town has never been anything special. I grew up assuming that rivers were a part of every major city. I have never lived far from one, and Belize is no exception. One of the first memories of Belize was seeing the Mopan River for the first time, and being told that we were ‘almost home.’

While in Louisville the river is a source of entertainment and is a pretty sight, the river in Benque holds a much greater significance in the life of the town. It is a rare day that I do not see river speckled with people on its banks. Laundry is dipped in and rubbed clean on the rocks by the mothers, while the children splash around close by. Men are bathing themselves or their taxis or their horses or dogs; rowdy young boys are swinging from limbs or braving the rapids. The river is the ultimate source of life and fun for these people, and we as short-time inhabitants have yet to fully engage in the river’s potential.

The river, besides being a source of cleansing and fun, plays another important role for this town. Since there is a significant lack of seasons here, the river is the only way to tell what time of year it is. When I first arrived in Benque, it was the rainy season. The rains had come and with them washed the muck from Guatemala, turning the river brown and raising it much higher than what is considered safe. It acted more as a barrier and an enemy, and at one point separated families from each other for weeks at a time.

But the rains settled, and with them the river. The color faded from brown to its natural green and it settled in temperament. It no longer separated, but invited people to enjoy it and cross it without fear. As the temperature increases, so does our affinity for the river and its comforts. Already we have come to the river to enjoy its cleansing power (after the hurricanes left us with no other bathing options), but now it is a source of entertainment. Just a few tubes, some rocks to sunbathe on, and plenty of sunshine is a source of entertainment and comfort for hours. Give us a canoe and some paddles and the river can be the source of one of the greatest adventures yet.

The Rutamaya is a 4 day canoe race spanning the whole of Belize by river. Since my first days here people have been talking about this event and their yearnings to be a part of it. I too wish to take part, but do not think that I will do so in the back of a canoe. Each team requires support, and while pitching tents for 4 days does not seem like it would be so much an adventure, sleeping in a different part of the country each night, meeting people from all over the world who come to take part in this race, and discovering the country by way of river does seem like the opportunity of a lifetime. Hopefully someone will let me be on their support team. That will be another story.

In the book Huck Finn, the river is the source of tranquility and escape from society and reality. I think that rivers will always hold that romantic notion. You could just get in and allow it to take you away from everything you know and lead you without you having any say. In Benque the river serves not as an escape, but rather lives in harmony with society. It is a part of the people and the people are a part of it. There could be no real existence without it, and I will never think of Benque without seeing the river in the back of my mind. It was my first greeting and will be my final farewell when I take my leave. It will wind through my mind as the backbone of my memories of Belize. And, years later, I hope it will still be here to greet me when I will inevitably make my return to this place.

“I am she who is the deep and the shallows

A thundering waterfall and a quiet tongue

In every drop of milk and blood and tear

You will find me in every thorn and flower, seed and fruit

There is no life without me

I am libation and baptismal pool

I am your sprinkle of holy water

I am older than man and light

I am of god, not god

But like god, I am also inside of every man….

~The River Speaks Frank X Walker