This entry has been republished in the November OTZMA Newsletter
On November 2nd the six members of OTZMA’s Israel Teacher Corps started the second phase of our program. While two of us – Sarah Adler (Baltimore) and Rachel Baum (Metro West) will be staying in Ashkelon for the duration of the year, Shauna Gamsey (Miami) and Lauren Hyman (Atlanta) as well as Jason Winkler (New York) and myself, Arielle Waite (Southern New Jersey) all packed up to move down to the Negev.
Shauna and Lauren will be spending the year in Yerucham, working in both a secular high school and a religious girls’ school. Jason and I are now living in Arad – a small working class town one hour outside of Be’er Sheva. Jason spends four days a week in the high school and one day at the Chalamish elementary school. I split my time between the Chalamish elementary school and the Ye’elim-Ofarim elementary school.
During our first week in town our Jewish Agency representative helped us to set up our home for the next 8 months. She took us on walking tours of the town so that we would be able to find our way around, showed us the best places to buy our groceries and produce, and even introduced us to a delegation of 11th graders who will be heading to New Jersey at the beginning of December.
The next week began our placements in the schools. Jason is up in the high school working with the students so that they will be ready for their Oral Bagruit exam. The Bagruit is a national test a lot like the New York Regents. It is given to students at the end of their high school career, and since one of the sections is English, Jason has been enlisted full time to help the students get ready.
I found out that I will be working in Ye’elim-Ofarim 4 days a week with all of the 5th and 6th grade classes. While the teacher is working in the classroom with the students I take one or two out into the hallway to work on the lesson in a more personal manner. For some students this means speeding up the work so they will not be bored, for others it means teaching the material in a completely different way to accommodate different learning styles. I even have a few non-readers in my classes, so I break it down to the basics and help them learn how to read and write in English.
At Ye'elim-Ofarim the students who are advanced in English are lucky enough to have an extra period at the end of the day when they take an advanced course. The 6th graders in the advanced course are working on a computer presentation. This presentation is to be done completely in English, and when finished will be sent to their penpals in New Jersey. This has also become my special project because the English teacher does not feel comfortable with computers. Every Monday for an hour and a half after school I work with this class of 15 students, helping them do research, correct grammar mistakes, and fix small computer glitches.
On Thursdays I switch over to the Chalamish elementary school. Here I am working with students from the 3rd to 6th grades. While a lot of what I do is the same at Chalamish, such as starting off my day with a non-reader from the 4th grade class, there are some very big differences. Working with 3rd graders in their first year of English class is a very fun challenge. This is the only class of the week that I am in the classroom. The teacher is at the front of the class, teaching letters to the students, while I am in the back of the room working with the last 2 rows on the same lesson. Both of us weave through the rows helping the students write their letters and running activities to reinforce what we just taught them.
Chalamish does not have an afterschool option for the advanced students in their English classes. The students that are ahead of the class are given a more advanced book, and expected to work in it during the same class period that their peers are working in the regular book. The English teacher has turned the advanced students from both the 5th and 6th grade classes over to me. I take the group into a different classroom and teach them from their books, effectively running my own classroom of roughly 6-7 students during their normal English periods.
In the afternoons Jason and I have volunteering opportunities. Jason works with the Arad baseball team two times a week. He is a supplemental player and coach for the kids, and they love having him there! I spend 1 day a week at the Jewish Agency. For the month of November all of my time has been devoted to getting the 11th grade delegation we met with the first day ready to go to the states. They are working on speeches and presentations that they will give at a few different high schools in New Jersey during their weeklong visit. In the coming weeks Jason and I will start volunteering at 3 more places around the town.
Right now we are in the middle of the last week before the Hannukah break. The kids are very excited for a week off, and keeping them focused in school is proving a little challenging. We have parties and sing-alongs, eat Hannukah treats and have a lot of fun. As much as the kids are looking forward to the break, so are Jason and I. The rest of the Israel Teaching Corps will be staying with us here in Arad for a training session during the break, and we will even be celebrating a birthday for one of our own! If this first month is anything to go by, the next 7 months in Arad will be both challenging and fun, and will go by entirely too quickly.
