The Students of San Pedro High

My first week at San Pedro has been somewhat chaotic. Belizean high schools are much different than the ones in America. Students have eight classes rather than our usual four. The classes last only 45 minutes a piece and rather than having the students change from class to class the teachers move around which means that students stay in the same room all day long. I believe that this stagnancy causes them to be fidgety, energetic, and extremely talkative. I am having a hard time getting used to the discipline here. The students shout things out and hardly ever raise their hands. They get up out of their seats frequently. They talk over each other all the time and are constantly talking while others are speaking. The fact that they are frequently speaking a language that I don’t understand doesn’t help the situation either. The discipline is much different in Belize also; rather than sending a student out of the class for being disruptive they are given demerits for bad behavior. Once a student receives 5 demerits they must serve a detention which consists of hard labor around the school grounds, such as picking up trash, moving desks, painting, or cleaning up. I believe that the behavior that these students possess is directly related to their value in society. I find that they are all crying out for attention and like most adolescents are simply dying to be heard. When they do the right thing they are not praised for it. They are only scolded for bad behavior. In our culture we are focused on positive reinforcement but that is not the case here. I have found that the parents are not very involved in their children’s education and they are extremely strict disciplinarians. For example, today I had a student who was crying when she came in to class late – come to find out she was upset because she had been beaten by her mother that morning. Another student has welts all over her arms from a beating she received. I am not sure what provokes these beatings but in my American mind I cannot fathom any sin so great to deserve such treatment. In some ways I see this culture as self destructive because they are not valuing their youth in the ways that they could be. When you demoralize the youth of a country how can you expected to grow and flourish? Some days the things that I observe and the stories that I hear break my heart.