Day 9

Today was the day our group showcased our knowledge of speech language pathology and shared what we know with the wonderful teachers of Stella Maris. Stella Maris is a nonsectarian school for the special education population in Belize City. Most of the schools in Belize are run by churches, but this one is not. Our group created presentations pertaining to several components of literacy. These literacy presentations were presented to the educators of Stella Maris and we encouraged them to incorporate the information into their classrooms with their students. The literacy components discussed during our presentation were phonemic awareness, phonology, story retelling, alliteration, rhyming, and training the educators how to construct their own busy bags. The busy bags were filled with numerous opportunities for the students for speech production and language development. This will assist the teachers with their lessons in literacy throughout the years to come.

                This week the speech graduate and undergraduate clinicians have been tasked to plan lessons and interact with the teachers and students at the Stella Maris school. Using a naturalistic approach, we will assimilate into the classroom culture and gravitate towards students that are observed to need supplemental assistance from speech services. The children that were at the school appeared to be in cheerful moods and looked excited to see us. When my co-clinician and I were assigned our classroom for the week we walked down the breezeway of the second floor of the Stella Maris campus. The second to the last door was our classroom. We walked into a dark classroom that was illuminated by the sunlight that came in through the window. A young lady sat behind the teacher’s desk and ate her lunch of stewed chicken, rice and beans and cole slaw and picked her head up periodically to glance at my co-clinician and I as we wandered around the classroom creating mental lesson plans. I walked up to the young lady and asked her name. She said her name was Empress. She explained she was watching over the classroom while her Mom was in a meeting. As we waited for the students to come back inside, I took the opportunity to chat with Empress. I asked her how old she was and what grade she was in. She said she was 12 years old, almost 13 and she was in grade 8 in Belize. She said she also played the violin in the national youth orchestra. She appeared very proud of herself when she stated that because at that moment a huge smile stretched across her pretty face. I gave her some background information on why we were in her country and why we were inside of her Mom’s classroom and she appeared happy to know we would be around to help her Mom with the students. We spoke for a little longer and we learned that Empress would like to be a toxicologist when she grows up. She was a lovely young lady, and in that short amount of time speaking to her she sounded like she had a good head on her shoulders. I enjoy meeting the people from Belize, they all have such wonderful things to say and they are all very proud of the country that they live in. The Monday morning looked like Monday’s in the States because the streets were packed with cars and people walking to their place of employment.

                Having a full work week ahead of us to teach the children and integrate into their classroom naturalistically is going to make a big difference not only for the children but an impact on our lives. This opportunity to travel to Belize City and provide clinical speech therapy services to children who are under served is beyond humbling and I know we will never forget these experiences. I look forward to working with them this week and learning from them. I believe they will be able to teach us more than we could ever teach them. They are so appreciative of everything we have provided for them in the past, and welcomed us with open arms today to the school.