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Wendy's Letter (Feb 2004)
This message sent to the Bz-Culture
Mailing List from "islandgirl@btl.net" <islandgirl@btl.net>:
My kids were in elementary school
when I first moved to the U.S. and just
to share a few of my experiences and
the differences between the U.S. and
Belizean schools:
First of all, despite the
shortcomings of the facilities in Belizean
schools, I have to say that the
Belizean education system produces very
notable, wll-rounded, high quality
graduates.
Just to touch on a few of the issues
that P has raised:
"no (formal U.S. style - <my
words>) athletic programs"
While this may be true, I challenge
an kid in the U.S. school system to a
competition with any of my four kids
on any of the following:
1. How to climb a coconut tree
2. How to dive 30 feet down into the
sea without breathing apparatus
3. How to swim to the reef and back
without help or equipment
4. How to paddle a dorey in rough
weather
5. How to play "Cantaro"
6. How to make and fly your own kite
7. How to back (carry) a 5-gal
pigtail bucket of water from the faucet to
the home
8. How to swim across a swiftly
moving river and end up alive on the other
side
9. How to climb the granite rocks at
the Rio-On Pools on Mountain Pine
Ridge.
10. How to climb down the sinkhole at
Caves Branch
11. How to maneuver yourself at Shark
/ Ray Alley so as not to get stung by
a stingray or bitten by a shark
My children play volleyball, football
(soccer), cantaro, basketball. They
rollerblade, ride bicycles. They
scuba dive, snorkel, swim. They
hydroslide, water ski, ride horses.
You get the picture? The eldest just
turned 13.
dance?
1. I challenge any U.S. kid (and even
P) to dance the "punta" or "soca" or
"brukdown"
2. How to dance a waltz at a
quinceanos?
music program?
1. I challenge any U.S. kid to play
the marimba, or the garifuna drums,
the steel drums, or even the spoon
and grater.
art?
1. Do your kids know how to make a
kite from scratch and fly it?
2. Or carve a dorey from a simple
fallen log?
3. Or make and play a
caparucho?
4. Or even ride a horse?
5. Or even seen a pasture with a
grazing herd of animals?
6. Or ever watched a sapodilla tree
grow from the seed he/she planted?
Education?
Famous words from billboard
chart-topping U.S. singer, Jessica Simpson
(hero to many U.S. teenaged children)
- "What are we eating? Is this
chicken, or fish? I thought it was
tuna, but the can says "Chicken of the
Sea!"
My words - "Huh?"
On Caye Caulker, there is no movie
theater, rec centers or amusement parks
for entertainment, but I have NEVER
heard any of my children complain that
they are bored. EVER. Their daytime
activities involve an incredible
amount of carefree swimming in the
sea, socializing with their family and
friends of the same age group, going
out to the reef exploring either by
canoe, motorboat or sailboat,
swimming with the sharks and rays at Shark /
Ray Village, being pulled on a
hydroslide behind a friend's boat, kite
flying (right now), night time
crocodile hunting (near the airstrip area),
bicycle riding, people watching, and
an incredible amount of socializing
with their peers and friends
unimaginable in U.S. households. On many
occasions, my children's entrepreneurial
spirit come to the forefront and
they would set up streetside stands
hawking anything from hand-made
jewelry (hand-made by them),
sparkling pink conch shells (gathered by
them), hand-painted t-shirts
(hand-painted by them), hand-painted shells
(hand-painted by them), slices of
cheese cake (instructions on the box for
making same followed by them) etc. -
babysitting, mowing lawn, or summer
job not necessary.
All my children are honor students,
have always all been honor students,
and continue to be honor students,
and there is no doubt in my mind that
all four children will grow up to
graduate from either a British-based,
Caribbean-based, or U.S.-based Law
School. This is an agreement we have in
place among us.
In Belize, the educational system is
excellent when it comes to interaction
between school principal, school
teacher. A parent's interaction with the
school system can be as frequent and
involved as a parent wishes it to be.
Having been accustomed to stopping by
my child's Belizean classroom at any
given moment, unannounced, to verify
how my child was performing, or what
projects / lessons they are currently
working on, never once can I recall
not being attended to or being
encouraged for wanting to participate in my
child's formal educational process.
The Belizean educational system allows
me to evaluate every single what my
child learned that day, and what they
would be learning the following day.
This way, I am better able to help my
child at home.
When I first enrolled my young
children into the U.S. school system, they
did not perform as well as they did
back in Belize at the outset. Most of
the "themes" in the
classroom setting in the U.S. School revolved around
U.S. History (Martin Luther King,
George Washington, Washington D.C., etc.)
unfamiliar history to my children
more familiar with George Price, Webster
Proposals, etc. This prompted me to
want to visit the classroom of my
children more frequently to ascertain
from their schoolteachers HOW I could
help in preparing them nightly for
the next day's class, only to be met
with resistance from school teachers
(and principals) regarding school
"rules and policy" which
required that I place a written request with the
school's front desk whenever I wished
to speak with my child's teacher.
When this was approved (took days),
only then was I allowed dialogue with
my child's teachers. My middle
child's teacher happened to be of West
Indian Caribbean descent and she
better understood the ways of the
Caribbean and she was the only one
helpful in allowing me access to my
child's grades, homework assignments,
etc. daily. That particular child
(Zoe) went on to have a 4.0 average
that school year and was on the
Principal's Honor Roll. The other two
children, although still on the
honor roll (3.5 GPA and above) never
made the 4.0 GPA like Zoe did. They
were honor students in the U.S.
school system from the get go - from the
very same semester / year as being
transplanted from Phyllis' "back-a-bush"
Belize school system even beating out
cousins that had attended the very
same school all their school lives.
Today, my eldest child, Giselle, is in
her first year of high school while
her first cousin who was a grade higher
than her in that particular U.S.
school is just getting ready to start high
school NEXT year.
Another child's teacher kept
referring to Giselle's country of origin as
"Brazil." Even though I
corrected her several times, she never strayed
from calling Belize
"Brazil." I eventually was forced to assume that she
was not aware that there is a country
in this world called Belize, or that
maybe she thought that since we were
(uneducated) U.S. immigrants, that we
maybe we were mistakenly butchering
the name of the country "Brazil"
wanting to call it
"Belize."
...you get the picture?
I could go on and on, but why bother?
Inability to change one's mindset
and adapt to a different culture will
be one's only deterrent in being
successful anywhere.
I have no more than an associate's
degree education (which is apparent in
my writings) but it has not stopped
me from being successful (according to
my standards) beyond goals I had set
for myself, and I am still climbing up
the success ladder financially,
emotionally, physically and parentwise :-)
Cheers,
Wendy
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