Relevant Parties to Revamping of Belizean Studies Curriculum Recognized
This morning, teachers, subject specialists, and agencies that have been involved in the development of the current Belizean Studies curriculum were recognized during a ceremony at the House of Culture in Belize City. The Ministry of Education introduced the syllabus to high schools in 2018, and those who spearheaded the project say that it has been well-received among their students, presumably because it is far more engaging with the use of internet-based technology. News Five’s Marion Ali stopped by the ceremony. Here’s that report.
Marion Ali, Reporting
It has been five years since the Belizean Studies curriculum was revamped to be more engaging and more technology and internet-based. Now it has been seen to improve the interaction and learning process of high school students who take the course, and that has been attributed to the teachers’ pedagogical abilities.
Dian Maheia
Dian Maheia, C.E.O, Ministry of Education
“The teachers of Belizean Studies understand what competency based education is, and so it hasn’t been such a huge transition or a huge change for them. They understand that when you’re teaching, it’s not just about teaching what are, you know, words on the paper, that you’re able to work with the students in different ways, taking them places, showing them different things, getting students to engage with the actual subject matter so that the learning comes to life.”
Yasser Musa, a lecturer at Saint John’s College, started his own pilot on Belizean Studies long before the national curriculum one introduced.
Yasser Musa
Yasser Musa, Teacher, St. John’s College
“In 2013 I was part of a, small team at St. John’s College, led by our headmaster at the time, Yolanda Gongora, and young teachers, Delmer Tzib and Carlos Quiroz, where we started to write our own curriculum in a very experimental, almost like a jazz improvisational way, uh, with the focus on the teaching of African and Maya history as the foundation, the root lines of what we wanted to achieve. And it is still at the beginning because we come from a long history, a long background that I call – that we have to decolonize in our way of teaching in our school system. There is a huge change happening to the world right now in terms of how we access information with artificial intelligence. It is a situation, you might say, well, what does that have to do with decolonization? It has a lot to do with it because each country, uh, is struggling with how it teaches its citizens, especially its young citizens, who they are, what they are about, where they came from.”
Musa and Cindy Vargas, his counterpart from Corozal, agree that incorporating more technology into the curriculum has yielded more interesting classes for their students.
Cindy Vargas
Cindy Vargas, Teacher, Corozal Community College
“We do incorporate a lot of technology and different techniques into the subject already.”
Marion Ali
“How have they received it?”
Cindy Vargas
“Well, I can talk about my students. My students do enjoy my sessions. I know at our institution, our students look forward to Belizean Studies because it is such a fun and, you know, student-centered subject because they do a lot in Belizean Studies. It is geared towards them doing more than, you know, we just talking a lot. We engage them a lot in Belizean Studies.”
Even though the efforts since 2018 have been successful in moving students from one platform of learning to another, Chief Executive Officer at the Ministry of Education, Dian Maheia says there is a continuous effort to tweak it so that Belizean Studies remains relevant in the classroom.
Dian Maheia
“As we move into a world where technology, artificial intelligence, become more and more a part of what we do, if we’re not going to be left behind, we have to continue to write our story. We have to make sure that the story that is written is accurate, that it’s relevant that it’s something that students have access to and that’s the sort of work that keeps us going with Belizean studies, right?”
Marion Ali for News Five.
