The All Age School Experience (1/17/14)

This morning, we went to the All Age School. We arrived and were immediately viewed as if we were zebras in a crowd of a horses.  The children were reluctant at first to approach us, especially since most of them were much younger than us, spanning from about ages 6-14. Our guide, KeVaughn Harding, told us about the history of the school and about how the younger children's part of the school (like our elementary school) used to be army barracks, which were built sometime in the early 19th century. About 50 feet away from the lower school was a concrete building, which we learned was a storage facility for the guns, ammunition, and explosives. The walls were about 3 feet thick to prevent damage if any of the contents were to detonate. The upper school (like our middle school) was set next to the lower school in a separate building, built in the late 1960s. All of this is was built on a sandy ground, overlooking ocean as far as the eye could see. 

We were split up into three groups, one going to the first grade classroom, another going to the sixth grade classroom, and the last going to the ninth grade classroom. I went into the sixth grade classroom and interacted with the 12 year old students. In the morning, we sat in on their class and helped them with their work. They were learning sentence structure as well as multiplication. In the afternoon, we returned and played games with them, as their WHOLE afternoons are "game time". *cough cough* feel free to follow their lead Mr. Moudry... Anyways, we played dominos and cards, while they were fascinated with playing games on our iPhones. It was an interesting trade of technology, as American teens are stereotyped as being so attached to their technology. It was a lot of fun to get to know the kids and compare our lives to theirs and see how they were so different. The students seemed to be really excited to be able to spend time with us.