In February 2010, BECA provided five teachers with the opportunity to attend the T3 (Teachers Teaching Teachers) Conference, held at the Escuela Internacional in San Pedro Sula. Brian Schmitt, who serves as the SJBS Middle School Math teacher, filed the following report:

I was a little disappointed when there was no free coffee and I lost my ticket for a snack, but overall the T3 (Teachers Teaching Teachers) Conference was an event worth attending and I encourage BECA teachers to attend in the years to come. As a new teacher attending my first legitimate teaching conference, I was excited and interested to be a part of something like this. La Escuela Internacional Sampedrana (EIS) was a beautiful place to host the conference. Its state of the art campus reminded me of how little SJBS has in comparison. At the same time I was reminded of the considerable progress we are making and how much we are able to do with what we have.

I chose to attend workshops about the importance of building prior knowledge and a scientific look at learning and memory. During these workshops I recognized that my lesson plans aren't always as well thought out as they needed to be in order for kids to make memories (which seem like the goal of most learning i.e. to actually remember what is learned). I was reminded and convinced that if I want my kids to remember what they learn than everything I do as a teacher needs to be very thoughtfully constructed and embedded in context. This is an ongoing struggle for me as a math teacher as I seek to find ways to relate what my students learn to the real world.

The keynote speaker spoke about the difference between learning and memory; learning being the initial neural connections made in the brain and memory being the remaking of those neural connections. He stressed how important it is for us to give kids ways to remember. He stressed first activating prior knowledge and then evoking emotions! Emotional experiences are the number one reason that children remember what they learn and emotions are evoked when prior knowledge is activated. This made sense. So many important things I have learned I can attach to some emotional experience I have had. I learned that making connections between what kids are learning and what they have learned in the past has been proven to be the most useful learning tool. As a math teacher, this was encouraging to hear because I already do that all the time! 'OK, guys remember how last week we did this to solve the equation...now we are going to take it just one step further...'

I went to another workshop, put on by one of the teachers in the High School at EIS, about a review game called Team-Game-Tournament or TGT. My 7th graders now refer to a revised version of this game as "Mr. Brain's Game"- a title I like much better than TGT. With a deck of cards, a question sheet and an answer sheet, students are each assigned a number and a color which correspond to their groups; one group arranged homogeneously and the other heterogeneously. Students study and practice in their heterogeneous groups so that they can learn from and help each other. They compete in their homogeneous groups so that they are competing against students of similar ability. Throw in a 'caught-ya' (little ticket that we use as a reward in the upper school) for the study group with the most total points and "let the games begin." The kids all love this game and it has made my life so much easier, giving me a fun, organized way to have study and review sessions in class.

After the conference, those of us who attended had a drink and appetizer in San Pedro and shared some ideas of what we had learned from all the different workshops and presentations we had attended. Our conversation reminded me of how important it is to share ideas with other teachers. Just as students learn best from their peers, I felt that I was truly able to improve my teaching just by bouncing ideas off of other teachers and participating in workshops.

2004-2005 "I just got re-married last year and my name changed to Jennifer Murcia. I also just recently moved back to Southern California (Orange County) and just got a job with a company called Solar City, which installs solar panels. Very cool. "

2005-2006 - Erika has been accepted into the International MBA program at Boston University's School of Management. This intense 12-month program begins in China and finishes in Boston. Erika plans to focus on Finance and Accounting.

2006-2007 - "I am enjoying my life in DC this winter! I am so excited to have fellow BECA alums in the city with me, Marilyn Markman and Sarah Shubitowski. Sarah and I just ran an 8K together! I am keeping busy these days- getting my masters in Special Education from Johns Hopkins and playing kickball on the Mall. Can't wait for spring!"

2007-2008 - "Much to the sadness of my father, I am leaving the consulting business I started with him last year and joining the Foreign Service at the end of March. I will be working in the field of Public Diplomacy which kind of deals with media relations, and educational and cultural affairs. I don't know where the State Dept. will send me yet..not until April. Hopefully somewhere warm and Spanish speaking. Hey, maybe I will end up in Honduras. Yay! City Mall! Baleadas! (that one was real excitement. Where can I get a darn baleada in the US??)"

With the grant support provided by a private foundation, BECA is well on our way to completing a complete curriculum overhaul - a long-envisioned initiative that will round out the supports BECA provides for our volunteers and that will allow BECA to confidently and competently expand our service reach beyond SJBS. BECA Director Laurence Birdsey remarks, "Our volunteers face many challenges, given that they teach disadvantaged students who are English language learners. In addition, many are first year teachers. We are committed to creating a curriculum that accounts for our teachers' daily classroom realities while being steeped in our commitment to cultural competence and community collaboration."

BECA's extraordinarily committed and competent curriculum developer, Katie Buttram, recently completed Phase 1 of our two-year curriculum redesign project, including significant research, information-gathering and stakeholder interviews. With the assistance of second-year teacher Jenna Foster, Katie conducted focus groups with SJBS parents, students, and teachers to collect information about their aspirations for the future, in order to ensure the essential components of the curriculum support their efforts to achieve their goals.

After submitting her thoughtful Phase 1 Report to the BECA Board of Directors, Katie and Jenna have launched Phase 2, which includes drafting English Language Arts curricula for grades 1 through 9. Katie and Jenna have chosen the Four Blocks Literacy Model as one element of their overall design, and each week they are producing curriculum documents for the various elements of the ELA curriculum. Second-year teacher Rebecca Bush has simultaneously been working with the team as well to develop standards, curricula, and assessment tools for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Katie, Jenna, and Rebecca aim to complete Phase 2 by the end of the academic school year in June, and we plan to pilot the ELA portion of the new curriculum in the coming academic year.

The BECA Recruitment Committee is excited about the teaching team that is taking shape for the 2010-2011 school year at SJBS. In total, we are recruiting for 15 positions - including our Program Administrator, two resource teacher positions, and twelve teacher positions ranging from preschool through our subject-based middle school teaching positions. Recruitment Chair Sallie Graves says "We're very happy with this year's applicant pool, which included some real diversity of experience and interests. It is always encouraging to find that so many bright young people recognize the value for others and for themselves in spending a year or two volunteering with us." The second-round deadline for BECA applications has passed, but BECA's online application will remain open for several more weeks as we fill our remaining vacancies.

BECA anticipates that as many as three 2009-2010 teachers will be returning for a second year of service. BECA Director Laurence Birdsey notes, "This year's teaching team has benefited tremendously from the three returning teachers' dedication and experience, and I'm happy to report that we will have the same dynamic with next year's team. As we grow as an organization, we aim to have all of our teachers stay for a two-year period, so we are delighted to see so many of our current teachers actively planning to stay on for a second year."

BECA's Recruitment Committee is still reviewing a number of applications, and we strongly encourage individuals who are interested in and/or experienced with teaching lower elementary kids (K - 3) to apply. If you know of any recent college graduates or career changers who are looking for a dynamic international and cultural experience, please point them to our website!

BECA's alumni presence in the DC area just keeps growing! In early May, BECA Board Members Marilyn Markman, Anna Hickman, Sarah Shubitowksi, Bridget Kelly, and others will host BECA's first Washington DC event since our early days in 2003!

Much like our very successful San Francisco event held last November, the DC event will be a low-key, fun, first-rate opportunity to network and socialize with like-minded individuals while supporting our great cause. As if a great party isn't enough reason to celebrate, the best part of it all is that all funds raised will be matched by an anonymous donor.

We promise that more information will be coming shortly. If you live in the DC area and would like to help with planning, please email Laurence Birdsey.

After serving for nearly two years as Treasurer, Erika Sturm will be stepping off the BECA Board as she begins an International MBA program with Boston University. We cannot adequately thank Erika for her tremendous service over the past two years. During her time as a Board Member, she was responsible for innovations including - but not limited to - professionalizing our bookkeeping, setting up our first payroll processes, and investigating banking options that would best maximize our finite resources and guarantee accountability to our donors. She did all of this while keeping us in a perpetual state of laughter.

Suresh Samuel, a BECA '08-'09 alumnus, will be joining the Board and stepping into Erika's position as Treasurer. Suresh is currently in his first year at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. He will be spending this summer working in Washington, DC for OPIC, the U.S. government agency that invests in and supports the flow of U.S. private capital to projects with a social and economic development aspect in developing countries. We are delighted to welcome someone with such a strong finance background and passionate commitment to international development. Welcome, Suresh!

Despite an epic snow storm the day before, which dumped record amounts of snow on much of the mid-Atlantic, BECA's annual gala event, Vino Y Chocolate, was a smashing success. The event, held at Jacques Lieberman's gallery in Soho, featured wine and chocolate pairings by MarieBelle and Wine & Spirits Magazine, as well as a silent auction and a fantastic spread of food provided by Grandaisy Bakery and Murray's Cheese Shop. Our 115 guests helped raise nearly $20,000 to support BECA's mission of providing affordable bilingual education to disadvantaged Hondurans.

"When you hold an event like this, you hope to raise money, but you also aim to raise awareness, steward donors, cultivate new supporters, and most importantly, have fun. I think Vino Y Chocolate accomplished all of the above and then some," said Board Member Erika Sturm. MarieBelle manager Rodolfo Espinal and Wine & Sprits Tasting Director Chris Hallowell provided some of that fun, leading a 20-minute class, which featured pairings such as saffron-infused chocolate with nebbiolo wine. Another favorite was the cardamom chocolate paired with Hennessy XO Cognac.

BECA Director Laurence Birdsey gave brief remarks about the evolution of BECA, and his words were accompanied by a video of SJBS '07 graduate Kervin Zamora who now attends St. Andrew's School. Zamora was slated to attend in person, but was waylaid by the snowfall in Delaware. BECA Founder and Chairperson Jaime Koppel says, "Despite Kervin's absence, I think we conveyed a very positive message about what BECA stands for, which can be difficult given the geographic gulf between our supporters and the students we serve." Koppel also marveled at how far the organization has come: "The tremendous showing of support for BECA's mission on nights like tonight really showcases to me just how much BECA has grown and evolved. And the exciting thing is that it will keep doing so because of the tremendous efforts of our leader Laurence Birdsey, the innovations of our team on the ground in Honduras, and the faithful work ethic of our board members and community partners!"

BECA is grateful for the tremendous support provided by lead sponsors, MarieBelle New York and Wine & Spirits Magazine, as well as our sponsors North American Coffee Partnership, Red Jacket Orchards, and Grandaisy Bakery. Special thanks to our effervescent hosts Maribel & Jacques Lieberman, to Dominique Ayuso for her fantastic pro-bono design services, to individual sponsors Ed Strong & Laurel Durst, and Fred & MC Butler for their generous support, and to all of the members of the evening's host committee. Exceptional music was provided by Avi Wisnia and Toru Takiguchi

Please click here to view photos from the evening's festivities (all photography by Eli Koppel).

They could have just headed to the closest beach for their Spring Break in early March, but instead 14 intrepid Davidson College students opted to visit BECA's site in Cofradia. Trip participants spent their week working at San Jeronimo Bilingual School (SJBS) where they split their time between assisting SJBS teachers in their classrooms and painting the computer lab and library. The Davidson students also made two day trips: one to visit Students Helping Honduras' (SHH) site in El Progreso and another to tour the Mayan ruins at Copan. As one student remarked, "I learned more in a week in Honduras than I could have learned in any semester-long college course."

The Davidson trip builds upon BECA's already successful social tourism model. Director Laurence Birdsey says "Our goal in hosting college trips is threefold: first, we want to live up to our mission of cultural exchange; second, we are confident that some trip participants will feel inspired by what they see and decide to apply to teach with us once they graduate; and third, the on-the-ground support provided by students helps us to accomplish school improvement projects at a very low cost and provide meaningful classroom support to our teachers and students."

Davidson students Claire Peterson and Anna Stringfield worked with Birdsey (Davidson '04) to coordinate the trip. Planning began last September, and Anna and Claire recruited a full roster of enthusiastic students by late October. In the following months, the team worked together to fundraise a portion of the trip cost, and other students applied for and received individual grants.

"After all the fundraising, we were thrilled to actually arrive in Cofradia and meet our host families" says Peterson. All 14 Davidson students were placed in homestays provided by SJBS families. While some participants were initially anxious about living with a family, everyone enjoyed their homestays and considered them an integral part of the experience. One participant said, "My homestay was AMAZING! [Since returning to the US] I've spoken to them on the phone. Great family, great food."

The day after arriving, the Davidson students were introduced to the SJBS campus where they played meaningful support roles in BECA teachers' classrooms. Since they were assigned to the same class for the entire week, there was an opportunity for cumulative learning for the students. As one participant noted, "I had a great time working in the classroom with my teacher, and feel like I learned so much after observing her only one week! My teacher allowed me to create my own lesson plans and gave me a lot of independence in the classroom. It was a great experience because I could really envision myself teaching in similar circumstances in the future." When they were not teaching, the visitors put their artistic skills to work painting the walls to the newly-refurbished computer lab and library.

The trip to SHH was also a resounding success. Met by SHH President Cosmo Fujiyama, the Davidson visitors were given a tour of Villa Soleada and then split into two groups. Part of the team helped lay concrete for Villa Soleada's new education and technology center while another group visited a nearby public school. Afterwards, the entire team travelled to a well-resourced, private school, the Escuela Internacional Sampedrana (EIS) to attend a SHH fundraiser that featured Honduran singer-songwriter Polache. Visiting both a public and private school gave the Davidson participants context for SJBS's existence. One remarked, "My favorite part of the day was getting to see [EIS] because it gave me a lot of insight into the different lifestyles of upper and lower class Hondurans. It made me realize what an important school BECA has helped create at SJBS."

BECA thanks the Davidson students for all their hard work during their trip!

by David Whitaker, lower elementary Resource Teacher at SJBS.

During the 2009 - 2010 school year, SJBS has seen considerable improvements in the management of its physical resources, particularly in the library and computer lab. The generosity of Rebecca Bush's father's law firm (Bush & Ramirez) as well as Jon-Bentley Wiggins and his wife Sherr Lo have combined successfully with the dedication and motivation of and Rebecca Bush and me to create visible and structural improvements in both areas. The library and computer lab are also now beautifully painted thanks to the Davidson college group who came for their alternative spring break trip at the beginning of March.

The Library:

Ongoing work in the SJBS library is now nearing completion and by the end of the summer will be concluded with the implementation of a computer cataloging system and library cards for teachers and students.

The organization, cleaning, and preservation of the incredible selection of donated books at SJBS has been a year-long project that began with the systemic reordering of the approximately 2,000 books that have been donated by volunteers and friends of the school in the past six years. Additionally, the library now proudly sports windows and screens (so that its books are no longer outside) and an air-conditioner (so that the students don't bake in the hot summer weather).

Newly organized and protected, the books at SJBS can happily and more efficiently serve the students at SJBS as they become better readers each day. The systems that are now in place and the electronic system that will be implemented in the coming months will also be used by teachers to successfully locate library resources that will improve their lessons each day.

Cool. Right? And we just received a huge donation of books from the EIS, a wealthy bilingual school in San Pedro.

Another really important part of this whole process is that Rebecca and I designed a number of new furniture items for the library in order to accommodate new books and care for our multimedia equipment. Drawings for these projects were put into the able hands of Miguel, the father of Maria in Prepa and a member of a becado family. Through paying Miguelito for library and other projects at SJBS, we have been able to support him and his family and hope to continue to do so.

The Computer Lab:

Wow! We have internet at SJBS! and not only that...it comes from the United States. While having dinner with BECA founder Jaime Koppel a few months ago, a friend of hers was shocked to learn that SJBS did not have internet. That evening he vowed to solve whatever problems stood between SJBS and internet connectivity. Little did we know he would move with the blazing speed of a high-speed wireless internet connection. Only a few months after that conversation, Jon-Bentley Wiggins, accompanied by his wife Sherr Lo, arrived at SJBS on February 22 to fulfill his promise by installing a dedicated high-speed satellite hub.

JB researched, funded, and installed satellite internet in the computer lab at SJBS with the support of his own network of friends and family. He brought eight working laptops and a computer projector from the U.S. and he even built an external hard drive out of a cigar box when the situation called for such ingenuity.

With 14 functioning computers that are now connected to the orld wide web, SJBS computer classes now have the resources they need to prepare our students for the technologically advanced world in which they are maturing. The computer lab is scheduled to open after Semana Santa. BECA and SJBS are splitting the monthly cost of the internet connection. Thank you, JB and Sherr!

Sustaining These Innovations:

This year we have been working hard and putting in extra hours so that the resources at SJBS meet the educational needs of an increasingly demanding and efficient bilingual school. We plan to continue doing so. Starting in April, BECA will be providing a small stipend to Oscar, a brother of several becado students in the school, for his work in the library. The intention behind hiring Oscar is that he will take responsibility for the organization and maintenance of the library so that it is maintained from year to year. If all goes well, Oscar will continue through the summer and begin to work more hours at the beginning of next year.

The work in the library and computer lab would not be possible without the incredible generosity of those who support BECA. We are truly doing wonderful work in Honduras and have created a sanctuary of learning that will have a lasting impression on more than just the lives of our students.

Thanks to the work of BECA Board Member Bridget Kelly, BECA has taken its first important step towards more formally assessing our students' individual and collective academic progress - an important means of ensuring that we hold ourselves accountable for supporting our teachers in providing excellent instruction and ensuring that our students achieve at high levels.. After reviewing a number of different assessments, we selected DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills), a periodic assessment that provides data on student's phonemic awareness, understanding of alphabetic principle and phonics, vocabulary, and reading comprehension.

Kelly received training in administering the assessment and then spent her graduate school spring break implementing DIBELS in grades K to 3. "DIBELS is a proven method of identifying whether students are on track to becoming fluent, comprehending readers," Kelly says. "It was really exciting to be a part of this effort, which will help our teachers better identify ways they can provide students with the support they need to become great readers."

Each student is assessed individually on a variety of measures that are predictive of reading acquisition and later reading achievement. The assessment only takes approximately 5 minutes per student, and provides teachers with an accurate indication of which skills students have mastered and which require further development. Returning BECA teachers will be trained in DIBELS so that implementation will continue in the 2010-11 school year.

DIBELS is only one of several tools that BECA is introducing in the coming months to better track student progress and outcomes. BECA Director Laurence Birdsey says, "Regular assessments are an important means of providing our teachers with detailed information on how students are performing, which will enable them to adjust instruction so that all students achieve at high levels."

BECA will also be administering other standardized tests this spring as well as some new qualitative assessments. This testing system is funded in part by BECA's Curriculum Development project, a multi-year effort begun in 2009 that will result in a custom curriculum for BECA and its network of schools for low-income students.

BECA thanks Bridget Kelly for her work in researching, planning, and executing the DIBELS project.