Blog 3: Alpha Schools

The second week in Jamaica was dedicated primarily towards serving in the Alpha schools during the schooldays. I spent a majority of my time at Alpha Primary. I was placed with Mr. Thompson, the music teacher, and worked mostly with the competition audition choir that competes every year in the JCDC, a national music competition. Due to it being a testing week for the whole school, many of the classes he would normally have in the week did not take place, but I still had the opportunity to lead a couple lessons about what the students had been working on in music. Doin a clinical at an elementary school last term at Augie was really helpful in preparing me to get the most out of the experience teaching in Kingston. When I was not in the music room, I sat in on various other classrooms to see what those classes were like and to get to know the students. I spent time in two first grade classes, a second grade, and a fourth grade. It was interesting to see how different Jamaican classrooms were than those in America. It was more strict in some ways, with students responding in unison, addressing adults only as sir and miss, and on a couple occasions being yelled at or hit by the teacher. However, there was a lot less classroom management overall with there being large amounts of time where nothing was happening so the students were just talking or running around, as well as students talking during tests and during instruction. The teachers would also leave for large amounts of time in the middle of class for no apparent reason which was different - there were a couple times I was alone in a classroom for about an hour with no teacher. Getting to see so many different classrooms was really awesome to compare them to each other and get to know more of the students. On Thursday, I also had the opportunity to observe a rehearsal at the Boys school. They were preparing for JCDC too, and played their fifteen minute set that contained a lot of Don Drummond songs and other familiar tunes. It was really nice getting to see a rehearsal and meet the new director at the school, as well. Overall the week in the schools was phenomonal and I already miss all the kids so much!