Mother's Day!

Last Wednesday was Mother's Day here and it was quite the celebration! The day started, and continued, with flowers, flowers, flowers galore! All the students brought flowers for their favorite female teachers and throughout the day kids and teachers were constantly carrying flowers! Additionally people on the streets were carrying flowers home.

The school day began with the Kindergartners through the sixth grade all gathered in the church hall for the Mother's Day show! Every grade performed a song, skit or poem about how awesome Mom's are in English or in Arabic. It was very sweet! Weirdly, none of the children's parents were invited... I have no idea why. The performance took a particularly exciting turn when a pigeon revealed that it was in the church hall sitting on a very high window! Quite exciting!

It was an especially exciting morning for the Kindergartners because after their breakfast, we gathered them up in pairs and took them over to the main school building for yet more Mother's Day celebrations! The model company club at our school was selling its products for sale. There were Mother's Day candles, tee-shirts and embroidered goods. The teachers, staff and students alike flocked to the tables to purchase gifts for their loved ones.

It was fun for me to see which of the kindergartners have siblings in the older grades. Since the Kindergarten is beneath the church hall, it is actually completely removed from the rest of the school so I had not ever seen which of the students are siblings to kindergartners.

After the sale the teachers and staff had a special breakfast in honor of Mother's Day. Tasty flat bread with thyme and olive oil accompanied by lots of veggies and juice! All the female teachers, myself included, got a little sampler set of scents: vanilla, aloe vera and citrus. Quite nice!


Even my Arabic lesson was Mother's Day themed! I learned all about Eid ilom (Mother's Day)! I learned about the popular Mother's Day song, "sit ilhabiyeb ya habeeba".

You can watch it sung by Arab Idol contestants on this video.

The words of the first verse are:
"Sit ilhabiyeb ya habeeba
ya aghrla min rohe w damee
ya hanieena w kullik teeba
yarabe, haleekee ya ommee"

Which means:
"My dear Mother, you are the most beloved person in my life
You are more precious than my soul and my blood
You are loving and full of goodness
May God keep you my Mother"

Aww! Needless to say Mother's are very beloved here as well as back home! Happy (slightly belated) Palestinian Mother's Day to my Mom!!! I love you!

Father's Occupation

On Thursday I worked very closely with several students who are applying for scholarships to a special English language program. I looked over their applications to make sure they had filled out the forms correctly and it turned out it was a good thing I did because one student had written the following:

Father's Name: Ahmad
Mother's Name: Fatima
Father's Occupation: Israel

I suppose it makes sense that my student would know that definition of "occupation" better than the job one...

"Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young"

Happy International Women's Day! My school takes this day off to honor all women everywhere and while doing some research during my free time this afternoon I came across an article. You know how sometimes you read something in just the right place at just the right time? It seems like just what you needed to hear at that moment? Well, that is what happened to me with this article today. The article is a faux commencement speech written by Mary Schmich, a Chicago Tribune columnist on June 1st, 1997. It is titled, "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young". The text was also recorded in 1999 by Baz Luhrmann. I recommend listening to the youtube.com video while reading the text:

"Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out, some world-weary pundit eager to pontificate on life to young people who'd rather be Rollerblading. Most of us, alas, will never be invited to sow our words of wisdom among an audience of caps and gowns, but there's no reason we can't entertain ourselves by composing a Guide to Life for Graduates.

I encourage anyone over 26 to try this and thank you for indulging my attempt.
Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:


Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen."

Lessons from Fairy Tales

All my best nuggets of wisdom come from my parents. This morning my Mom shared a quotation with me that she came across: "Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten." -G. K. Chesterton


Sometimes, living here it is so easy to be pessimistic about the situation. Every side of this conflict is guilty of injustices toward the others and every side has totally legitimate claims against the others. The conflict is political with religion frequently pulled in to complicate the situation. A person can get really bogged down in the seeming inevitability of this conflict and its irresolution.

This quotation reminds me that I have to keep hope. The most impossible things are the ones we refuse to believe are possible and do nothing about. If ever there were a dragon, it is the conflict here and in other places all over the world. The worst thing we can do is refuse to believe that anything can be done about these problems.

Chesterton reminds me why I gave my blog this title. Even though things like a solution to the Isreali/Palestinian conflict seem as impossible as beating dragons, the important part is to hope that such a thing can happen. It is essential to always believe that a further shore is reachable from here. 


Whatever your dragons may be, I hope you always believe they can be beaten.

The View From The Judge's Table

Last Wednesday I had my first experience as a judge for the English Bowl! This was the first of the internal rounds for the speech competition. In May, each of the four schools will send two 8^th, 9^th and 10^th graders to the final speeches competition. Before then there is a great deal of preparation which must go into teaching the students how to give speeches and determining who will compete in the finals.

For the past few weeks the English teacher and I have been working with the students on how to write speeches using the classic five paragraph format. The first paragraph begins with a hook to get the listener interested, followed by a short introduction to the topic and a listing of the three main ideas about the topic. Each of the next three paragraphs then elaborates on one of the main points. Finally a concluding paragraph leaves the listener convinced (inshallah!) and sums up the speaker’s point. While this format is something I learned the very first time I started writing papers and speeches, many of my students have never been exposed to such a formulaic writing technique. Needless to say, some were more resistant toward it than others. We worked on practicing writing speeches with the students and with some of the students, it took several times of me explaining how important good structure is and helping them re-write their speech before they came anywhere near to the structure we wanted.

Jump forward to last Wednesday, the first day of judging. Every single student in these three grades gave a speech for their classmates and a panel of three judges, including yours truly! Some of the students clearly just wanted to get the exercise over with and had not prepared very well. Most were pretty good, having a good structure but definitely still learning proper speech techniques. Finally, there were a few in each grade who really shown brightly! I was so proud of them for learning this new speech writing technique and running with it. Some had even gone a bit beyond the formula to make a really interesting and engaging speech!

A 10th grader gives her speech to the class.

For me, the experience of being a judge was the most fascinating part. I have auditioned,  and interviewed for a lot of things so far in my life and I anticipate having even more in the future. But this was the first time I have ever been in the judge’s seat. 

It is a surprising amount of work to be a judge. We wanted to be kind but, of course, some students had clearly prepared better than others; I never realized how painfully obvious it is when someone does not put in the actual work. It was clear some students had printed their speeches off the internet. The ones that really broke my heart were the students who clearly wanted to do well, but just were not as good as some of their peers. I could tell that some had worked hard and practiced but just had not quite managed to master the art of giving a good, effective two minute speech yet. Thankfully we were allowed to give a few students in each class two extra points, so even though these students will not move on to the next round, they will get some extra credit for putting in good work!

The esteemed panel of judges. That's me in the middle!

Although being a judge is a lot of work, it was also really fun! Not gonna lie, it was awesome being the one all cool, calm and collected in the back, scratching notes and looking with a critical eye. It was such a change from being the one who has to gather their nerves and do their very best; hoping that these particular 2 minutes will show all the work that has gone into preparing for them. 

In some ways, the craziness of switching sides from the speech-giving side to the judging of the table has been a lot of what I have learned so far this year. I spent a solid 17 years of my life in formal education but always on the student side of the classroom. To be suddenly thrown to the teacher’s side has been more challenging than I expected. Likewise, going from being the one giving the speech in class to being the one judging it is such a change of pace from what I have been used to. It is refreshing, exciting and all kinds of challenging to take on a different role in the classroom and in the workforce at large here. I am as grateful for these workforce life lessons as  I am for all that I am learning about the context here.

The Cost of War

The Manneken Pis. The iconic symbol of Belgium.

As you know, my school had a two week break for Christmas and New Years, so I after spending Christmas in Bethlehem (!!!), I had the awesome opportunity to travel in Belgium. One of the other YAGM volunteers, Courtney, has family in Belgium so we stayed with them and traveled around Belgium. Courtney's relatives live in Iepers on the Northwest corner of Belgium. Before I started researching Belgium, I knew almost nothing about it. It's a quirky and amazing place. You know a country is great when 1. they go without a government for a year and a half and do just fine, 2. their iconic symbol is of a little boy urinating into a fountain (the Manneken Pis is in Brussels, the capital. It's literally a statue of a boy peeing. Weird.) and 3. they have an entire museum dedicated to chocolate (WIN!).

Our trip was full of adventures exploring castles, old churches and eating excellent cheese and chocolate. However, our trip was also full of visiting cemeteries. As I learned when I started reading up on Belgium, most of the trench warfare in WWI took place on a line going right through Belgium. Trench warfare is a nasty thing. Hundreds of soldiers die to move the line a few feet over. The very next day, even more die as it gets moved back. For four years the trenches barely moved as young men were slaughtered and the countryside razed to the ground. Iepers in particular was completely demolished by the fighting.

In this image you can see the City Hall before WWI (left) right after WWI (middle) and as it has been rebuilt today (right). The damage is astonishing.

Since all of the "old stuff" in Iepers was destroyed during WWI, tourism there now centers on cemetery tourism. Visitors pay homage to the many lost and look for the names of predecessors who died there. This can be quite the daunting task since literally thousands and thousands of men died there during those four years. The most heart-wrenching part of walking through all those cemeteries is reading how old the soldiers were. Most were 18, 19, 20 maybe 21 years old. Not infrequently, young men enlisted under a false name so that they could fight even younger than the legal age. The youngest known soldier who died was 14 years old. Literally an entire generation of young men lost and young women made widows. Heavy boots.

Why must youth fight and die when their (often much older and "wiser") leaders decide to go to war? I understand that our young men make good soldiers. They think they are immortal making them reckless in battle, they enjoy the adventure, they are strong and nimble. Perhaps most importantly, you can teach them to do whatever you tell them to and they will actually do it. But if you think about it, it is asking a lot of really young men and sometimes women.

In Israel there is compulsory military service for everyone. It consists of three years for men and just under two years for women, most often served right after they finish high school. Palestine likewise employs very young men in their forces. These facts mean that the vast majority of soldiers I see are even younger than me. (Think about that for a moment...) I deeply respect those who choose to join the military and the sacrifices they make, but I question the system itself, whereby the young implement, and pay for, the decisions of their elders.

In the book Mornings in Jenin, Susan Abulhawa writes about a young Israeli soldier from the viewpoint of an older Palestinian woman, "The power he holds over life is a staggering burden for so young a man...I feel sad for him. Sad for the boy bound to the killer. I am sad for the youth betrayed by their leaders for symbols and flags and war and power" (305-306). Making a decision about the life, health and/or death of another human being is a staggering burden for anyone, but especially someone who is still developing mentally, socially and emotionally.

The scars that remain from military service are not always physical ones. One need only consider the instances of PTSD, depression and anxiety amongst military veterans to suspect that humans are perhaps not well-suited to the destruction of modern military. Even if they survive combat, soldiers are likely to be wounded by their experiences.

Unfortunately I do not know how to make this system better since it is the way it is for a lot of complicated reasons. I do hope that our leaders really and truly consider the costs paid by our youth when implementing any sort of military presence. The real cost of war may not always be monetary.

School Update

Phew! I apologize that it has been so long since I last posted! I can’t believe it’s already been two months since my last update. After spending a lovely week visiting another YAGM’s family in Belgium and exploring Belgium, I have returned to work at Hope School. This semester is looking to be even busier than last semester at school. Here are some highlights from the past 5 weeks at school.

On May 5^th, each of the four ELCJHL schools will send 8^th, 9^th and 10^th grade representatives of their schools to compete in the English Bowl! The bowl consists a spelling bee and two-minute speeches. In preparation for the event and in order to determine which students will represent their school, each school is having its own two-part bowl. Winning the bowl is a matter of pride and each school really wants to win. Therefore we are feverishly preparing for the bowl! I didn’t realize how big of a deal it was until we started preparing for it. I will be acting as one of the “Native-English speaking judges” at my school and I’m pumped!

The Tawjeehee students are SUPER stressed. They are the 12^th graders and they are in the midst of  preparing for the enormous tawjeehee exam they take at the end of the year which determines whether they get a degree or not, college entrance, etc. The tawjeehee students can be recognized at breaks by the textbooks permanently poised 8 inches from their faces, the sweat beads forming on their brow and the silently-moving lips as they try to memorize everything. They are also hilarious. On Tuesday they rolled out their class sweatshirts which are white with bright blue trim and say, “No, the world is not ending. We are just taking it over” in English on the front. I love it. I also kind of want one… 

The kindergartners are as cute as ever. The younger ones are really starting to grow into their own. They’re called “bustan” because they aren’t actually 5 years old yet so for them it is more like daycare as opposed to the five year olds who are in “rowda”, which is kindergarten as we know it in the US. The bustan kids spent most of first semester being absolutely terrified. It was a couple months into fall before we had a day free from anyone crying for “Mama” or “Baba”. Now they are beginning to flourish. One little bustan guy, I call him little buddy, is small for his age and used to be totally overwhelmed at recess. I don’t blame him; the rowda kids are rather terrifying, especially when equipped with rubber balls. In any case, little buddy is a little shy and had trouble making friends so the first few months he used to hang out with me at recess. He’d stand by me, we’d admire planes on the infrequent times they went overhead, sometimes we pretended to be planes, but mostly we just hung out. I would chat with him, in English he surely couldn’t understand, about my concerns, “You know little buddy, it’s hard that there are so many kids and so few rubber balls and no one seems willing to share. I should really learn the word for ‘share’ in Arabic”. He would nod knowingly. Later he would tell me something in Arabic and I would say, “ah” sympathetically without really being sure what he said. 

However, recently little buddy has started feeling more comfortable at recess, has made some friends and therefore no longer needs to hang out by me. For a while he fell in with a bad crowd, the boys who try to sneak back into the building during recess or who kick the rubber balls away from the other kids. But now he’s made friends with Little Red’s Bro (Little Red is a bustan girl with red hair. Her brother actually has red hair too, but the fairy tale is about a girl so in my head she is Little Red and he is Little Red’s Bro. I promise I don’t actually call the children these names…) Little Buddy and Little Red’s Bro get along swimmingly. I’m really proud of Little Buddy for making friends and growing into his own, but I do sometimes miss his companionship on the playground. I suppose that’s how parents feel all the time, eh? Glad your kids are developing well but a little sad for the good parts of the phases gone by.

On a side note, I met Little Buddy’s Baba when we came to pick him up one day after school, and he is enormous! Probably 6 foot 4 or 5, which is especially tall for a Palestinian. This makes me realize that if I come back in ten to fifteen years, Little Buddy will likely be taller than me… weird.

The eleventh graders just started reading Animal Farm by George Orwell and I get to lead these classes! The first day I was very excited, had created all these discussion questions and plans for how the 40-minute class would go. Then I got to class and quickly realized that 1. Three quarters of the class had not even opened the book to do the reading they were assigned and 2. This is a foreign language book for them, so the questions I had written about the themes and symbolism were a bit far reaching when what they really needed was questions about basic reading comprehension. Sigh. The teacher and I talked after class and we’re likely going to have to read each chapter in class since the students won’t read outside of class. This plan makes me sad; not only is it incredibly boring for the students and myself, but also because it is accommodating bad habits. Shouldn’t we encourage everyone up to the level of the hard-working students rather than bringing everyone down? 

I actually think I would love teaching students who actually want to be there, are interested in the topic and did the reading. If the kids aren’t already interested and intrinsically motivated to learn (not just to get good grades, but to actually learn) I honestly don’t understand how we’re supposed to reach them. Please don’t misunderstand me; a lot of these students are hard working and motivated, but mostly in math and science classes. They see those as the route to good jobs and successful futures. How can I teach them what I have seen? That, for lots of complicated reasons, English is a language of considerable power. That if they want to publish academic articles some day or go to a prestigious graduate school, they are going to need good English language skills. I’m not saying that it is morally right that English is so favored in the global economy, but it is the reality right now. I have come to realize over and over again how powerful a native knowledge of English is right now. It is for this very reason that so many spoiled Americans find it unnecessary to learn any other language. Our language is on top, so everyone else should have to learn it. Again, I don’t think this attitude is morally right, but I totally understand where it comes from.

Last week the student counsel planned and threw a big party for the older grades. It was all the buzz! Unfortunately I did not get to chaperone so I am still in the dark as to what a Palestinian high school party actually looks like... When I've asked, everyone just says it was a party. Duh. Hopefully they'll throw another one so I can find out more!

In Peace