New Teacher in the Field

I want to share with you my first experience as a teacher in a classroom. 

As part of my technology class, I was asked to give a model lesson to twelfth graders. Needless to say, I was quite nervous since I have no previous experience and do not participate in immuney hora'a. The lesson took place at a school where the population is heterogeneous and some of the students present learning challenges. It was not meant to be an easy task. I had some concerns. First of all, this is a twelfth grade class and approaching them with no prior experience seemed to me like a complicated task. Secondly, I had heard that the learning environment was complex. thirdly, I had had no prior experience in standing before a classroom and here i was, asked to dive into the deep end of the pool. Despite all my concerns, the experience was strong and meaningful. I met some wonderful students who were curious and collaborative and even made me think about changing my final choice of school and age group that I would teach in the future. It made me rethink the problematics of pre-defining students. I believe that students evolve and develop depending on the teacher who stands before them. A teacher with no pre-concieved notions about his students, who creates a dialogue that respects and empowers the students will discover that his students are collaborative and motivated. Of course, this is a somewhat simplistic assessment based on a single lesson, but it certainly gave me motivation moving forward. 

A struggling Spanish Learner in Guatemala

            In  my last post I described my difficulties acquiring Spanish as a student at university. I would like to dedicate this post to my experience as a Spanish student in a Spanish school in Guatemala, where I started speaking the language for the first time.

I have always been fascinated with Central America and its culture. After graduating from university, I went backpacking on my own in Central America, Guatemala being my first destination.  A couple of days  after I had arrived in Guatemala, I realized that I had a problem, because I wasn't able to communicate with the locals in Spanish. Feeling extremely lost, I could neither utter a complete sentence in Spanish nor ask a simple question. Having realized that I must acquire basic Spanish in order to continue my trip, I decided to change my plans and go to study Spanish for several weeks.

 Guatemala is the cheapest country in the world to study Spanish and Quetzaltenango, or Xela as the locals call her, is the cheapest place in the country. With more than 40 Spanish schools, this city, which is not populated with gringos, expats and backpackers as Antigua, another popular destination to study Spanish, offers better opportunities to the Spanish learners to practice Spanish with the locals rather than speak English with travelers. As a result, people from all over the world come to Xela to learn Spanish and, or volunteer in different social projects.

After I arrived in Xela, I enrolled at a Spanish school.  Most schools have the same daily schedule: in the morning, a student can choose to learn four or five hours with a private Spanish teacher; in the afternoon, most schools offer different activities such as cooking classes, salsa classes, movies and different trips in the area, such as a trip to hot springs in Xela, Fuentas Georginas, which was definitely one of my favorites activities in Xela. In addition, many schools offer a homestay with a Guatemalan family in order to encourage complete immersion in the language, as the families do not speak English and the student must communicate in Spanish.  

My Spanish teacher, Norma who is a native Guatemalan, taught me five hours a day for three weeks. Although she had been teaching foreigners for more than 10 years, she could barely speak English. In her lessons, mainly putting emphasis on grammar, she first taught the new material and afterwards I had to do exercises. At first, I was quite skeptical about being able to enrich my vocabulary by studying mostly grammar; instead, I actually expanded my vocabulary through acquiring the words that were covered by the grammar topics. For example, when I learnt the present tense, I also had to learn the meaning of the irregular verbs. At the end of the school day, when I was too tired to study grammar, we used to read children's  stories together, which was a great way of reviewing grammar in a meaningful context. Significantly, Norma was a very strict teacher; not only did I have to take a test at the end of each week, but I also had to write an essay every day. She was so strict that even on the day before my last class; she refused to cut me some slack and made me write my last essay for the following day. L

 What I mostly learnt from this experience is that when you have to communicate with people whose language you don't speak, after a short while, you will start speaking their language. This is exactly what happened to me; once I was surrounded with people who could only speak Spanish, both at school and at the homestay, I had no other choice but to speak Spanish. I did whatever I could to be understood, from using the words I had picked up during my stay to miming.

I like calling this experience "the Spanish Brainwash Effect" because after two week I was able to acquire basic Spanish to chat freely with the locals. Only in Guatemala, after a short amount of time was I able to start speaking Spanish. Without a doubt, even if I studied Spanish for three years in University , I would not be able to achieve that level of proficiency.

If you ever have the time and the money, I recommend that you stay  for a while in a foreign country studying its language. I think that my experience as a language learner helped  me identify with my students' frustrations and difficulties, later on in my career as an English teacher in Israel. In my opinion, every teacher teaching a second language, especially if this teacher is a native speaker of that language, must undergo the process of learning a second language in order to understand his students and become a better teacher.

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Courage to Fight and see my Horizon

Courage to Fight and see my Horizon

For Your Attention:
                In this post, I'll address both genders,
so when I use pronouns in one gender, I am aiming  for the both genders.

As in every year, February arrives...yeah :-), and ends, even more yeah... :-) :-)
With the end of February begins the planning of next year's school schedule. yeah.......:-(
As teachers, we have to decide, where, what, and who are we going to teach next year.
For our managers, the school principles it is the same, just from the other side, they must plan a head the school's schedule for next year. In utopia, everything will go as planned and all of the teachers will have good salaries, rest hours between classes, and everything would go as it should.

We do not live in utopia. Building a schedule is tough, even more, when the variables of it change all the time. There is only one constant, which the principles can rely on, there will be pupils in the school boundaries between 8 AM to 16 PM. The principals do not  leave it for chance, and try to get as more quality teachers as they can .

But, in fact, in any teaching position, it is well known that there are flukes and mishaps. The latter usually occurs, when the teacher cannot take his or her place because he or his child are sick or something from this order.  Sickness in teachers appears usually from the stress he is in. For this matter at hand, and much more , the ministry of Education advised new reform in order to help teachers unwind, and relieve the work load that causes stress.

                Courage to Change and New Horizon (Oz La'Tmura and Ofek Hadassh) stands for the reform names, one at high schools and the other is for the elementary schools, respectively.  Those reforms aim to change the way teachers' positions are perceived in the general population of Israel, and reflect the change especially in pupil's private tutoring hours, i.e. the hours every pupil gets individually from his teacher.

                The reforms aim for the best, but in the mean time picks up on the way some bad habits. The goals of the reform are to make the teacher position a desirable one, by offering more money at the beginning. The teacher's role shifts around asking the teacher bend over backwards. While trying to achieve more hours for the pupils the teacher are obligated to sign in and sign out the attendance clock, and his home hours are not counted in for the for the salary.

I CALL ALL TEACHER  ALL OVER ISRAEL TO THINK BEFORE SIGNING FOR ANY SCHOOL THAT MAKES YOU SIGN THOSE REFORM 

                When a teacher decides to work in a school, he does not take in consideration that his environment must be free from stress related REFORMS. With those reforms, schools are being turned into factories, and we must stop it !!!

Waiting for you input

Yosef

Study Year and Summer Vacation

During  the year students are under a lot of stress; they have to learn, to take exams and most of them need to work. Don’t forget that after all these things the students have home duties and family issues.

Do students have enough time to enjoy and rest throughout the academic year? I don’t think so! that is the reason they have the summer vacation. As a student, I decided to interview my friends from college, and to find out what they thought about the academic year and their summer vacation. There was a variety of answers from the different students: first year and second year.

I started with first year students. When I asked them what they thought about the academic year and what they have been learning during it, most of them answered that the first year is challenging and is  developing their thinking skills; they think out of the box, and about how to be good teachers in the future.

"Since I began my first academic year at David Yellin College I have been taught new terms, met new friends and my passion for education has grown," said B.

When the students were asked what they thought about the coming summer vacation, all of them answered that they were looking forward to it, but when they were asked about their summer plans they answered differently. Some of them said that they are planning to travel and to visit another country such as Thailand, India or the U.S.A., and some of them said that they are planning to work very hard because they want to earn money.

"The year was very hard, and I think that I deserve to enjoy and to rest during my vacation," said A.

"During this year I didn’t work, so I can't afford to rest in the summer, I have to make money," said Y.  

  

When I finished interviewing the first year students I   continued to the second year. I started from the second question: what they think about the summer vacation. From my experience as a second year student, I knew that it will be better if I start interviewing them in the opposite way from the first year students. Most of them answered that they are planning to work a lot, and just a few of them are planning to travel somewhere.

"Last summer vacation I went to Paris, but  this summer I can't afford to travel, I have to work," said B .

When I asked about the academic year their  answers were all similar; the second academic year is definitely very hard, challenging and stressful.

"There is a big difference between the first year and the second year. In the second year there are many requirements, many study days and assignments, a lot more than the first year," said Y.

After finishing all the interviews, I concluded that although it is very hard to be a student, it is fulfilling. You have to learn during the whole year without rest. if you have luck, you will not have to work during the year, or in your summer vacation. 

On The Power to Exclude and The Power to Include

My son was not accepted to the school's orchestra. He had been explicitly warned by his teacher that this might happen but he had decided to give it a try and had seriously practiced for the audition. He was motivated, committed and optimistic, but he was not accepted on account of his performance in the audition. "We think he is not ready yet for the challenge" told me the headmaster, "and his teacher, who knows him well, is doubtful about his ability to keep up with the others". The verdict for my son was an exclusion from an opportunity. An opportunity to work with fellow musicians. 

This incident made me think about the way we, teachers, use power to include and to exclude. About the way these two differ in the role that they assign to the teacher and to the peer group. When we exclude, we decide who is going to be cast out, why and when. We make these decisions alone, expect students to accept our verdicts and to learn the lesson: Which behavior would be followed by exclusion and which would save them from it.

When a measure of exclusion is taken in class, most of the class is reduced to the role of the by-stander. Issues of disruptive behavior and under-achievement become the problem of specific individuals who are expected to deal with it alone.

Dealing with these issues by using the power of inclusion changes the whole picture! The teacher's role in this case is to remind the kids over and over again that belonging in our class is never questioned. That all kids equally belong and always belong. That it is in their hands,  to make our class a community that supports, encourages and tolerates each of its members.  

In this light, problems of disruptive behavior or poor achievements are a challenge for the whole community. And if we compare a community of peers to a single teacher it seems to me that the community is better equipped to deal with these problems. Let me single out just a few of its advantages: The mere process of communication and discussion may bring the group to a better understanding of the needs / expectations / wishes of its members. The variety within the group, may open venues to a wide range of possibilities / resources to help/ support/ encourage each of the community members. This collaborative effort is likely to give each member in the community a sense of worth and significance.  

The mission of the teachers who choose to use inclusive power is to make a community out of their class, to engage their students in a collaborative creation, to encourage them to participate in this unique creation, to nurture it and to enjoy it. 

The route to inclusion is literally a constructive one. One of building mutual respect, and understanding, one of building each member's confidence in herself and her classmates. Rather than "protecting" the class from "others" (kids who misbehave, underachievers), community building is about listening to, communicating with and depending on each other. 

When, we teachers, take a measure of exclusion we invariably leave at least one child lonely and insecure. We then expect the child to pull herself together and make her way back into the community all by herself. Wouldn't she be more likely to meet the challenge (behavioral or academic) with the company and support of her class mates?

Surrogacy

Many couples all over the world are trying to bring life into the world. They have a hard time doing so when one of them or even both of them have a medical problem. In that case, Surrogacy is the solution for them.

 Surrogacy is a long and expensive process in which the couple needs to find the right woman to serve as the surrogate; they can find her independently or use an agency service. Once they have found the right woman, they go through a long process. Most of the hard work is the surrogate's, while the couple has to come up with the money.  The surrogate needs to have medical and psychological examinations, she needs to meet with a lawyer to have the contract created, and she needs to meet with an insurance agent in order to cover cases of death – hers or the baby.

After they have the results and documents ready, the woman and the couple appear in front of a committee to have their case approved. Once approved, the woman and the couple begin the pregnancy process. The biological mother has her eggs drawn, the biological father provides his sperm, and the doctor fertilizes the egg and puts it straight into the surrogate mother's uterus.

If they are lucky, the surrogate will get pregnant on the first attempt. It is very important to remember that this is not a regular pregnancy. It requires pills, shots and more frequent visits to the doctor to make sure the baby is developing properly.

The opinions about surrogacy are divided. Those who are against surrogacy usually think that the surrogate mother has to have sex with the biological father which is far from the truth. I believe that it takes a lot of courage to become a surrogate due to the many health risks. It's true that the surrogate mother gets a lot of money, but what she is giving back is priceless.

What do you think, is it worth it?

Nutrition and School Children

 

 Good nutrition and learning ability are known to be closely connected. I myself observed this when I taught in an elementary school in Pisgat Ze’ev last year. While I was helping the first graders with their morning assignment, some of them asked me: when the break would begin? I am hungry. I asked them didn’t you eat breakfast and they always said no. I noticed that they couldn’t concentrate on the assignment.They were nervous and often disturbed the teacher. This situation is common in Israel where a survey found that less than 30% of our children eat breakfast. It’s a little surprising in the light of what we know about the Jewish mother. But, still, this is the situation.

The positive thing about this school, however, is that it promotes healthy eating.This means that every child brings from home healthy food in a plastic-covered tray.The pupils bring, for example: bread with cheese, cut vegetables, fruits and a bottle of water.  The children are not allowed to bring sweets and junk food to school. In addition, the principal and the teachers also arrange health days during the year. There are lessons about the subject and different activities. I remember that I taught a lesson on the food pyramid. I was very impressed with the pupils' knowledge about the subject. They said that it is important to eat 3 dairy foods a day because of the calcium. "It helps us to grow" they said. They also knew that it is healthier to eat whole grains and they understood the importance of vitamins in fruits and vegetables.

Anyway, I think that parents and educators should encourage eating breakfast before the school day. The desire to avoid being late to work and school causes many of us to give up on breakfast and thus the children come to school on an empty stomach at the beginning of the school day and can’t concentrate.  When the children are not hungry they can study better and therefore achieve better results and the atmosphere in the classroom is also much more pleasant!