The First Day of School

Hello!  I actually wrote this yesterday but wasn't able to post it until now.  Last night the power went out, which includes the wifi.  Jamaica often has these power outages and water shutoffs.  The company can turn the power or water off whenever they want, and it is sort of to conserve energy.  To be honest I am not really sure why they do it.  But, they give you no warning whatsoever.  The water can be off for days, luckily since I have been here it has only not been working for one day.  The power can be out for hours, it has been out twice since I have been here, but last night was the longest. Anyways....here is what happened yesterday :)

Just like at home, today was the first day back to school in Jamaica.  There were many more people out and about early in the morning.  Last week there were very little people on the streets and not many children at all.  This morning however, people were everywhere!  I rode downtown in a taxi filled with children, they all looked so nice in their uniforms!  Every school has a different uniform, and there were many different uniforms which can only mean that there are tons of schools.  I wasn't able to get a picture of a child in their uniform because everyone was much too busy, but maybe I will be able to get one later in the week.  Until then, here is an image that shows what the uniforms look like:

The girls wear a jumper, and the boys wear a tan collared shirt with tan pants.  The girls dress colors depend on the school that they attend.

The children at West Haven do not have uniforms, though they would look very nice in them!

I was able to make it up to West Haven with very little problems and when I arrived all the children could talk about was that they had school today.  I was so excited for them!  They talked about school the whole last week when they didn't have it and I was excited to see what was so great about this school :)

But first, the children ate breakfast and bathed just like before.  After feeding and bathing it was about 10am and the children began to head to the school building.

Let me begin by saying that the school was not at all like the schools we have back at home.  The building was one room and there were not even desks.  The children sat in folding chairs, however there weren't even enough of those.  Observing their "school" made me so disappointed and made me so sad that these children will never be able to reach their full potential.  

Because all of the children are in the same room, they are all learning the same thing.  Many are on the same level but the children who are shouting out the answer before the question is even asked are way ahead of the others and are not being challenged.  One of these children is Keno.  Keno is so incredibly smart and if challenged I can only imagine what he could do.  

Today the teachers (there is a man teacher and a woman) began the class by starting with a prayer and reciting Philippians 4:13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.   They then went on to read over some of the rules and their honesty pledge.  You may be able to read some of these in the picture below.

After going over their normal morning routine, the teachers went into reciting sight words.  They sang a song to the sight words, and I think that the children had just memorized the song not the actual word.  If you had showed them one of the sight words out of context I don't think that any of the children would be able to read it.  After the sight words the teacher went over some letters.

I am pretty sure that the children have been going over the same letters and sight words for quite some time now because the papers look old and the children had all of the answers memorized.

After their "Language Arts" time, the children then had music.  Music consisted of the children watching a sing-a-long video.  While they absolutely loved the video, I wish that there had been something more interactive for them to do.  Perhaps they could have made some instruments or something along those lines.

Overall, watching their school time made me sad for the children because they don't know how much they are missing out on.  But, I guess if they are happy and healthy that is all that matters :)

Here is there weekly schedule, it is outdated, but I think they still follow it up to a certain extent.  It shows that they go around to the different cottages but I didn't see that...I am hoping that today was just rough because it was the first day back.  Hoping that tomorrow will be better for the children!

On another note....tonight we ate in the dark because of the power outage.  We ate baked chicken, leftover mac and cheese, yams, and salad.