A Week in the Life of a PCV: Preschool Literacy

As you know, I am a health sector volunteer.  That means there is a specific health-related project framework that outlines the type of work that I should be carrying out in my community.  For us in Belize, it’s projects related to maternal/infant health as well as prevention and control of non-communicable diseases.  In another country, it could be HIV/AIDS prevention or environmental health; the parameters are country-specific.  Anyways, we spend weeks in training becoming familiar with the information we are expected to impart in our community.  We have fancy “tools” and “indicators” that we use for data collection to see exactly how many people our projects are reaching and how many people are actually learning new information.  

The work of a PCV does not stop there, though.  In our sites, we are asked to implement “secondary projects”, or community service activities, that may not have to do directly with the main theme of our assignment.  The process for starting the project is similar, though: seeing a need within the community, coming up with a plan, and identifying a counterpart to help you carry out the scheme.  For me, a secondary project could be an activity related to the environment or education.  So, when the preschool teacher from the Presbyterian school approached me with an idea, I ran with it.

Basically, I now spend Monday mornings hanging out with four-year-olds.  Let me just say up front that I have a new-found appreciation for early-childhood and elementary educators—it is no easy task to keep those kids happy and focused!  The preschool teacher really wanted to try a new format in her classroom where we do breakout groups targeting students that are at accelerated or remedial reading levels.  A note about Belizean classrooms, there is a pretty high student-to-teacher ratio.  For example, this particular teacher has 19 students for the full day, and she works without a helper.  Some teachers at the elementary level have multi-grade classrooms to themselves (upwards of 35 students between multiple grade levels).  

I enjoy this Monday-morning activity, though.  The kids are super-cute, and the teacher loves that they get to practice English.  Another note about Belizean education, it is English-only.  Even though, up here, a few miles from the Mexican border, more than 95% of students live in Spanish-only homes.  It creates an issue, especially in the younger grades, where teachers have to give some instructions in Spanish so that the kids understand, but then the students become so reliant on the Spanish pointers that they have a difficult time with word recognition and reading comprehension.  

In a nutshell, that’s what the new preschool literacy program aims to improve.  If the students can get more individualized attention, they will be less likely to slip through the cracks during large-group activities.  We can identify kids that are struggling with the basics, and we can challenge students that are progressing rapidly.  So far, I’m only working in one classroom, one day per week, but if we have success with this, hopefully, it can be replicated with other teachers.

Love always,

Jess