Finito

Wow, I cant believe I am done with my volunteering. Reality time check!

On Sunday my boss sat me and the other girls down at lunch and told us how happy she was to have us there. She said that she and the other people who work at the museum really appreciated all of our work. She said some really nice things and made us feel so sad to leave. She even gave us presents! (traditional Jewish cook books to remember israel when we go home :))

That afternoon we got the opportunity to make presents for our volunteer placements so I worked hard with Alyssa to make a really good present for them.

Monday was my last day of work and it was SO fun. I was very carefree and I did all of my work, but I also joked around a lot. I made funny faces at my co-worker, Nir, as I passed him in the hallway and Alyssa and I started doing the Horah when we didnt have anything to do. I wish I was so easy going every day at work. However, then I wouldn't be acting professional at work and I want to be taken seriously and I want my co-workers to know that I work hard. So I think I did well with balancing jokes and serious work.

I dont think I will miss my job, but I am happy I had a job that I enjoyed.

Last Week…ish

Unfortunately, this as my last real week of work (even though I had only two days of it due to Lag B'Omer).  I had a really successful day of work on Sunday, where I worked with Gilad (a boy with Cerebral Palsy).  We were in a tandem kayak whereas the rest of the class (save 3 kids…one of them was paired with Harold) were in single kayaks.  During the class, we had a few competitions, which I naturally won (with Gilad).  He was really excited by these and victories and kept calling me, "Chamud."  After our race, we had a competition where we had to do 360°s, it was incredibly difficult and taxing on me, but I managed to pull out the victory (Gilad's paddling was very poor, and he splashing me more than he helped out…not his fault though and I am not angry or frustrated by any means).  After the competitions, I helped him change his clothes.  we joked around a bit and just talked.  It was a very nice experience (except for the fact that I had to put on his underpants and he was right next to my face, but I guess that this is part of the job description).

On Monday, I helped out with the boogie-boarding group for the first activity. The idea behind the activity was to teach surfing fundamentals.  I really enjoyed this, even though I was too big for te board and spent the majority of the time corralling and schmoozing with the kids.  After this class, I helped out with the windsurfing group by acting as a role model and showing kids how to do whatever they were having trouble with.  However, the best part of the day was by far lunch.  On every Monday, the madrichim try to have a little lunch meeting where someone goes to the local hummus place and buys some moosabecha for everyone to eat and relax around.  It is a really nice thing to just sit around, drink coffee/tea, eat a little hummus and pita, and kibbutz (not the socialist group, but the talking verb)

Ben Gurion Elementary School Week 9

This is my last blog entry and Im feeling really sad. I just finished my essay and Im starting to realize that year course is one week away from ending. Im truly going to miss Ben Gurion Elementary School and all of the students there. I was in Tsfat since Wednesday so I didnt have volunteering this week. But today, I went to the school to say good bye and It was really nice to see that people actually cared about me. All the kids wanted my phone number and were asking me to hang out with them after school. My volunteering supervisor gave me a school tshirt and some cookies. They truly appreciated me and I feel the same way about them. I feel that this service learning class was very important, and it helped me with my volunteering as well. In this class, I learned about teaching strategies to teach English as a second language, and it really changed my volunteering experience. I think that future volunteers should learn this before they start volunteering so they can really make an impact on the students instead of just pretending to do something. I have to admit this is one of the only classes Ive ever enjoyed, and I would recommend it to future year course participants.

Ending days.

This week was very short because I went to Tsfat for a Shevet Shabbat B'yahad. I only had volunteering on sunday and monday. I knew it was one of my last few days, so I spent my time speaking to the people their and listening to their stories. Many of them are survivors of the Shoah, so I listened to the stories they were willing to tell me. This was very important to me because I understand that within a few years there will be no one left who survived the concentration camps. I feel obligated to listen to all of the people I can.

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The last day of volunteering was nice. All of the volunteers wrote a card to Ayelet, the director of the old age home. And we had a few nice parting words. I really enjoyed volunteering there. Befriending all of the people there was a enjoyable experience, the coffee breaks were just an added bonus.

Attention

Dear Mr. Markose,
I need the outline I handed in after my presentation to help me with my final paper. I would really appreciate it if you brought it into class on Monday. Thank you so much.
- David Aboutboul

the time is a comin'

This week at work I had another day at work alone. It felt great. There were jobs for me to do and I knew how to do them. Although I didn't have my english speaking friends to make fun of the kids with, i joked around with Michal, one of the staff members. We talked about how wild one group was and how cute one of the chubby kids was. Michal has the best english out of every one who works there, so I feel more comfortable when I work with her. However, then I don't get to use my hebrew as much. I think Michal makes a point to use just English, where as the other staff members use both english and hebrew. 

I love the art museum. I think it is a very cute facility and it forces kids to use their imaginations and be creative. My only concern is wastefulness. Like all art projects, the ones we do create waste and i dont know what to do about it. I always cringe at the sight of paper going in the trash. I really want to say something, but I feel like it's not my place. they have been running this program for a while and know what works.

But you know what? I think I will make a recycling bin. yeah. and i will be in charge of taking it out to the recycling dumpster so they dont even have to worry. I think that will be my goal of this coming week.

Ben Gurion Elementary School Week 8

This week, things went back to normal. I tried to continue applying some of the teaching strategies I talked about in my presentation. For example, I continued using culture strategies. One way I would use it is by having them tell stories that involve their culture. Then I tell them stories about my culture this way we are educating eachother through stories, and it helps the students enjoy themselves. I also tried experimenting with a new strategy. It is called Total Physical Respnose. This technique is about giving students a more hands on learning experience. For example, Ill go off topic from the workbook alittle bit and teach them actions in English. Then I have them physcally act it out. So I tried this out in some of my lessons, but I didnt feel like it was helping so much. The kids didnt really want to act it out, instead, they would just lose interest in what I was trying to teach.
From the beginning until the end of the year, I havnt noticed a change behavior of the students throughout the school. Its sad because I havent seen anyone try and change the way the school is run in order to improve the students' behavior. Instead, the staff allows things to continue the way they are, even though it is clearly not working. Ive thought about talking to the principle and even teachers, but I never end up doing it. After thinking about it, Ive realized that there are 2 reasons. Reason One: they would never listen to me because I am just a part time volunteer. Reason Two: I am afraid of rejection. Most people wont admitt it, but that is a big part of it.

Class May 19 at 5:00 p.m.

Dear Class - My sincerist apologies for last week's non-meeting. The traffic was just so bad that I just couldn't get there (I am sure that Nina told you of our contact with one another). This week our class will begin at 17:00. I plan to pick up the Holon students at ulpan at 16:45 and bring them over to the Ulpan in Bat Yam so we can begin at 17:00. The class will end at 20:00.
Please plan on a longer class than usual and bring food to eat during the break that we will have in the middle.
There will be presentations and in depth discussion about your placements. I will also be happy to answer questions that you may have about the final paper. See you there!
Howard

My New project

On Sunday, I worked with the class that was learning how to windsurf; however, instead of me teaching me teaching the kids how to surf, one of the kids from the first class taught me.  I understand that this kid has been windsurfing for a while…he was  lot better than me.  It was a great thing for this kid (Oz) to teach me because it got him into a different mindset than he normally would have been in during the class. I think he really enjoyed the lesson, which is great, because I learned a lot from him.  Because I learned so much from him, I was able to work 1 on 1 with a kid in the second class, and eventually, the kid could stand up and turn the board; he was ecstatic.  I felt that this was a very successful day for both me and the kids.

Monday wasn't anything special…a lot of kids, they enjoyed themselves, and I didn't really do any teaching or interaction with them.  By no means was this a bad day, it just wasn't as fulfilling as sunday,  However, on wednesday, I began to work on my new project…Rami (a municipality worker who is in charge of maintenance and general logistics at my volunteer place).  After I arrive at work on wednesdays and thursdays, I don't usually begin working for another 30 minutes.  The reason for this is (based on my experience), Israelis love to shmooze and relax before working.  Wednesday began as usual: sit, drink, relax; however, as I started to talk to Rami about how life is and stuff like that, and I realized that I was teaching him a lot of English words (he likes to practice English with me because of his South African girlfriend).  But, I didn't get my realization until after I started painting.  My realization was that I should make it a point to teach Rami English.  But the question was: how?

*Note: I am currently reading a book called, "The Book Thief," which is an incredible book, and in it, a girl learns to read and write by painting on the walls of her basement with her adopted father.

Seeing as all I do on wednesdays and thursdays, I came to the conclusion that this would be a great way to teach Rami English.  So for the rest of the day wednesday and most of the day thursday, I taught him English by finding all of the words in our conversations that he did not understand and painting them on the walls.  This was very effective and he seemed really into it, he even mentioned something about how he wants to take an English ulpan.  This made me feel very proud of myself and I hope to carry on our lessons in the coming two weeks.

Learning how to black sheshpesh.

I always looked at the people sheshpesh and not understanding it to the slightest degree. Earlier this week, I sat down with and had a few people explain to me how to play the game. From setting up the board, to rolling to dice, to moving the pieces, and finally how to win. I sat and played for about an hour. I even won a few times.

Now when I see people playing this game, I will be able to sit down and play with them.

a whole new world

I have tried to compare elementry kid students in Israel to elementry students in America. First off, students in Israel have more surrounding conflicts to distract them/or effect their life style. In Israel children are all affected by the Arab/Israeli conflict, directly in regards to family oriented, and also socially and culturally. Moreover, in most schools here another language, like English is intertwined into the school curriculum while as in America is it purely an option for a child to take another language that young. Overall, the contrasting life styles are interesting to think about, each child is still 9 years old, but in Israel he has to worry about joining the army in 9 more years or if his older sibling is going to come home, while I feel in America a 9 year old boy is surrounded my video games and wonders if his 18 year old brother will babysit for him this weekend or go out and party. They are two different life styles and two different worlds to grow up in.