Submitted by Kayla Angeline on the 2018 winter session program in Dominica sponsored by the Department of Geography and Department of Applied Economics and Statistics…
Tuesday, January 16th, was a very early morning for some of us! It was one of my favorite days this week. We left the hotel at 7:30 am to head to the Alpha School to work with children who have disabilities. We began our morning by going to an assembly which consisted of introducing ourselves, meeting the teachers and students. After introductions, we sang a few songs with the students to get everyone excited to learn! After the assembly, we divided up into groups of 2-3 to interact with the students in their classrooms. The students were all different ages and were placed into class rooms depending on their level of skill. Michaela, Malcolm and I were with five students who ranged from ages 6-11 years old. The teacher always begins the day by reviewing the days of the week and months. They also used the different noises they could hear outside as a learning opportunity and discovered a concrete truck outside that was mixing concrete to repave the road where it had been damaged from Hurricane Maria. After reviewing numbers 1-20, I got to read a story called Shy Charles to the class and we talked about how people express different emotions, focusing on ‘shy’. We then hung out for a little while and played indoor tennis with the students and gave them a little goodie bag that had candy in it for snack time. Everyone was very welcoming and happy to have us! It was interesting to see how education differs from what we do in the United States. Hurricane Maria did a lot of damage and they are working with what they have. One of the teachers I was talking to was telling me that they have school in the evening hours since some of the buildings were badly damaged and they don’t have space to hold all of the students in the morning hours. After returning back to the hotel, we attended our classes in the afternoon and had a quiet evening. My roommate and I tried the pizza place a few blocks away from the hotel. It was reasonably priced and they had a large variety!
