S.J.C. hosts open-day for Bz. City students

During the academic year, schools across Belize host an open day. It’s an event designed to highlight not only the scholastic achievements of the students but to hopefully recruit students for the next school year. This morning, Saint John’s College held an open day for their Belize City peers. News 5’s Jacqueline Woods was among the invited guests.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting

Today, students from primary and secondary institutions were invited to Saint John’s College to view a number of displays that the young men did to promote their work and school.

There was much to view as the open day highlighted the creative talent that exists within S.J.C.

Denroy Tillett, Teacher

“Well as you can see, there’s a video taking place inside from the book “Shane” that the students read. We have others like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Tow Sawyer” and the students dramatise it to show their understanding of the novel and them we play it here in the video room. It’s just one of the things that they do to express themselves in understanding the novel and how they feel what the characters are feeling, and express the way the characters want to express and they just do it in a shorter version.”

There were surprises as well for the students. The Literature Game was a challenge for most of the younger guests, but whether they had a right answer or not, there were treats for everyone.

In the Language Arts room, the young ladies especially had the opportunity of choosing a poem they liked and having it read to them by the mystery poet.

Ivory Kelly

“We have poetry, we have short stories, we have essays, and this corner right over here is specially designed for the ladies. Our young men in first form, as well as third and forth form wrote some poems. Some of them are especially for the ladies.”

One of the most powerful displays was an account of what took place during the days of slavery.

Tina Byrd, Teacher

“After the raid what happens when the slaves are being taken down, the caravan of slaves taken down to the coast. But because of the distance, sometimes as much as three hundred miles, you may have interior slave markets at the halfway point, where these slaves were sold to somebody else. And then we have middlemen, who would come and buy. On the other hand, sometimes slaves were transported by river to avoid confrontation with other tribes that did not support slavery. When the slaves were brought down, they were brought to the west African fort, also known as the “Point of No Return”, because once the slaves arrived there, there is very little of no chance of escape. And once the ship captains came, bought the slaves and branded them, then they took them aboard the ship.”

“The ship that we’re trying to portray is a tight-packer. There were two different types of slave ships, loose packers and tight packers. In tight packers, they tried to pack as many slaves as possible and because of the harsh conditions, half of that amount would die, but they would still end up making a profit.”

It is not certain just how many of the young men that visited the college will be attending S.J.C. following their graduation from primary school, but the students did seem to be interested in what they saw today. Jacqueline Woods reporting for News 5.

In more open-day news, E.P. Yorke has planned a similar event for next Friday.