Since Hillary and I are in the same classroom setting, and she has spoken about how the school environment is, I want to tell you guys about how life for students is here from what we have seen. There are 6 classes of first form students of about 20-30 students in each room, when you get to a higher level, like forth form (senior year) there are only 4 classes of students. This shows how high the dropout rate is at the high school. Most of the schools on the island are not free so the students parents have to pay tuition, which gets more difficult as the parents get older and have more and more children. The 6 or 7 primary schools in the area all converge into one at the high school so all types of education and levels of wealth are found in the same building. Once the students reach first form they are spread out but not by any sort of class level, so there are many different learning levels in one room with no sort of differentiation set in place for students who may need more help. What surprised us the most in the classrooms was that there would be students ranging from 12 years old up to 17 or 18. It is easier at the high school to keep students back for an entire year than to find out the best way to teach them because the teachers have so many students.
We found that usually once a child is held back so many times or they don’t make a connection with school or the work that is done there they drop out. The island of San Pedro is a tourist destination where the sad truth is that you make more money in the hospitality industry than if you were to stay in school and become a teacher. There is not much incentive for students here to get their high school diploma other than to fulfill wishes for their parents or if they plan to move onto college. The only colleges in Belize are on the mainland and offer no housing, so even if a student does graduate high school they must find a relative or friend to live with in the city while they attend University, which is easier said than done. Most of the teachers we met on San Pedro were amazing and truly want their students to succeed but with the very little resources they have it is difficult to make all your students interested in lets say 1oth grade social studies.
Many of the high school students have siblings at home, usually younger, that they have to take care of sometimes. Their parents are either working all day and night or there are just so many children in the household they just need the help. A lot of our students also help their parents with their work. We saw one girl many times out late at night helping her mother in the park selling food. We now understood why so many students don’t perform well at school because they are so tired. The island is also extremely small and mostly impoverished. The homes that we did get to see inside were very small inside with entire families living in them and sort of makeshift to whatever materials were available to build with at the time. Most people here don’t know any better that their situations are not ideal, and they feel very fortunate for what they have but it makes sense why so many children seek a life out of school for the appeal of quick and easy money. These children grow up around tourist spots and see people partying and drinking every weekend and that is more of a fun lifestyle than staying at school.
Though there are many obstacles facing these children beginning in primary and lasting all the way through high school, the teachers do their best. They offer night school for students who want their diploma but would like to work during the day and they also serve as counselors for students who have no one to talk about their issues with. We are very fortunate to have met the amazing staff and students at San Pedro High School and wish them absolutely nothing but the best, it was such an amazing experience. Hope to visit again soon!
xoxo
