7 News Belize

The Science Of Studying Belize
posted (June 1, 2018)
History, geography, and social studies are a few of the many subjects high school students are required to take in order to learn about Belize's past. But, at times, the clumsy textbooks and dense information can overwhelming and tiresome to students. That's why a new subject called Belizean Studies is being developed into a curriculum. The subject will have a strong focus on Belizean history and will use an integrated approach present different topics. Today the Ministry of Education had their first presentation on this new syllabus item. We found out more:

John Newport, Ministry of Education Director of Quality Assurance Development Services
"What Belizean Studies is, is an attempt to make sure that all high school students leave high school with a deep understanding and appreciation for their country. We started off with an idea that it would only be History but we very quickly realized if you are going to appreciate your country you need to understand how lots of things fit together so you cannot really understand history without understanding geography and the environment. You can't understand politics without understanding economics. It is an integrated subject but it is based on 12 key questions that we hope the lessons will answer for students. One question related to the environment, one question related to society, one question related to severity and so on."

"What will happen is in September some schools will pilot the lessons in the first form and then assuming that it is successful will roll out the second form, third form, and fourth form after that and then it will go to all high schools nationwide for September 2019. Because this is very much a teacher-driven initiative what we are going to go into now is a session where everybody who is here will be able to say what they think the Belizean studies curriculum should include."

"There will not be a big Belizean Studies textbook that students have to carry around. They will get their materials first from the website and then in 2019 hopefully from a phone app. We will work with about how they are going to help students using phones. SJC has been doing this now for a couple of years and students honestly much prefer to get information from a website or an app than they do for a 500-page textbook."

You can see the Belizean Studies Website at www. BelizeanStudies.com.

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