After a few days of getting acquainted with the island, it was time to start our internships. A few of us set out to catch a taxi for our first day at the Bay Islands International School.
The Bays Islands International School is one of the private schools on the island that focuses on teaching children English. It started out as a room in Miriam Hanson’s house for the children of ex-patriot families who wanted more English education for their children instead of the Spanish classes that were offered at the public schools on the island. In 2012, Mr. Paul, the director of the current school, bought the old building, revamped it, and reopened it in 2014 for students to begin attending again. Today, the school has around 120 students enrolled in Pre-K through 11th grade.
I was assigned to help in Ms. Eleanor’s 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade classroom where she assigned me to work with the 6th graders. This meant that I would be responsible for teaching them their science and grammar lessons every day which were based on the US Common Core Curriculum. I figured that would be simple enough, teaching concepts that I had learned in elementary school; however, I found myself teaching them grammar concepts like count and non-count nouns that I don’t ever remember learning.
The first day, I learned that the 6th graders normally worked in the back of the classroom on their separate lessons by themselves. They weren’t used to having instruction while doing their work, so they didn’t like when I asked them to have a discussion after their science lesson. Many students were also behind because they had missed school due to rainy days or just not coming to school.
I didn’t know what to expect when arriving at the school, but after a few weeks of working with the kids, I have learned how to change the initial plans I had for the work we were going to do each day and just had to go with the flow of how the kids were learning the best. By the end of our third week, most of the students I had were completing their work on time and beginning to see the big picture that pieces the individual concepts together.
The end of our three weeks at the school went by too quickly, and I found myself sad that I had to leave. I made so many great connections with the kids that I want to stay and continue to witness their growth.
Thank you for the great experience Bay Islands International School, Sandy Bay, Honduras.
An Iowa College in the Liberal Arts Tradition
Ocean View = Textbooks Too
Ms. Eleanor’s 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade classroom is where I spent my mornings at the Bay Island International School. The back half of the classroom is a shaded deck that overlooks the ocean. The internet would typically go out every couple of days, and when it would rain too much, they would call a rain day which is like a snow day in the U.S.
A boy’s dog followed him to school and laid beside him all day. Unlike in the United States, most of the students didn’t pay any attention to the dog and continued doing their schoolwork.