Armadillo Tacos

It's hard to believe tomorrow will be my last day teaching at San Pedro High School. I've had a great time with the students. Yesterday was no exception.

I taught a lesson on Isaac Newton's first two laws of motion to the 2G Integrated Science class. During the lesson I had the students help demonstrate Inertia and Momentum. To show how mass affects momentum, I had one small and large student stand at one end of the room, while I stood at the other end. I told the students they were the objects in motion and I was the force that was going to bring them to rest. The students looked at me a little confused, so I told them to try to run through me. The smaller kid I was able to stop, no problem. The larger student, however, would be an amazing tackle on any high school football team. As the student prepared his assault, the rest of the class began laughing nervously. Admittedly, I was a little frightened; for good reason too. When I tried to stop the student, I literally bounced off him like I was being double-bounced on a trampoline. I flew off him right into the chalkboard and onto the ground. The students were dying with laughter. My placement teacher, Mr. Che, was clutching his stomach, doubled over laughing. When I brought the students back to attention, and still clutching my shoulder in pain, I asked the students how mass affects momentum. They immediately responded that the greater the mass the greater the momentum. It's all about finding ways to get the concepts across to the students, even if it puts my physical well-being in jeopardy.

The last class I teach every Wednesday is Earth Science. This Wednesday happened to be Earth Day, so I took the class on a beach clean. It's incredible having the beach literally yards away from the high school. The beach has been a great resource for my lessons. So, I go into the class and the exchange goes like this:
Me: "You know day it is today?"
Students: Silence.
Me: "It's Earth Day"
Students: Erupt in cheers, screams, and applause.
Me: "And you know what we're going to do?" Thinking they are not going to applaud when they hear that we're going to clean the beach.
Students: Silence
Me: "We're going to do a beach clean."
Students: Erupt in cheers, screams, and applause.

The students were all about doing a beach clean. It was hilarious. I had the students record each trash item and the material it was made from so we could make a graph later and talk about recycling. Half the class went south down the beach with me, while the other half went with Mr. Che north up the beach. My group was so excited about each piece of trash they found. They were acting as if each piece of trash was a hidden treasure.

As we made our way down the beach, news reporters from Ambergris Today stopped me to ask what we were doing. When I told them, they asked if they could take our picture. The students were so excited about the possibility of getting their photo in the paper. Some students held the garbage bag in the air and one pretended to drop garbage in as the rest of the students smiled around them when the photographer snapped the photo. When we got back to class, the students were bragging to the other group that they were going to be in the paper.

The groups did a great job. Both thirty gallon bags were nearly full. The students couldn’t believe how much garbage was on the beach. When we make the graph of all the garbage we collected, the students will be able to see the most common garbage items and material types. Also, the students will be able to see that the majority of the items can be recycled.

At the end of the day, my fellow teacher interns and I started working on one of our service projects as required by the internship. We are painting the San Pedro High School’s basketball court. This project has become quite the process. Kristen Trotter is heading up the project and has been doing a great job. I just go out there and she tells me what to do. I was painting and laying down tape for hours yesterday. Today, I’m sure I’ll be doing more of the same. The students are really excited about having a freshly painted court. Some have even lent their help to the project.

Satisfying the service project requirements has actually been a good time. The second week I was here, I helped build the cantina chef's new food shop, which is an extension off her house. I addition to painting the basketball court, we are adding to the school’s website and shooting a documentary about the high school. This week, we have been pretty busy with those three projects.

I have to go now to the elementary school where Kristen Brenton teaches infant 2, which is the equivalent of Kindergarten back in the States. I lost a bet to Kristen over the NCAA tournament, and now I have to teach a lesson to her students. I’ve never been so intimidated by six-year-olds before.

Just a quick side note: I ate armadillo tacos for lunch on Monday…absolutely delicious.