The Lowdown on Teaching

So, a good friend and loyal blog-reader recently asked me to explain what it's like teaching here in Beit She'an.

I've been purposely scant on the details of my teaching situation and tried to give more highlights and anecdotes, rather than delve into the meaty particulars of my teaching placement in Beit She'an. 

I'm hesitant to really get into the finer aspects of my daily teaching experience since I haven't wanted to address point blank what is developing into an increasingly negative situation. Once I call it such, it's harder to cope with having nine more months to get through.  Plus, I wanted to take the high road and not descend to fingerpointing and announcing incompetentence. I've been trying my best to stay positive and focus on giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, as well as the opportunity to turn things around - which still could happen. However, in the meantime, my time spent here in the pursuit of teaching has been frustrating, to say the least. 

First, some background: I was assigned to a school whose English teacher is currently a long term substitute teacher, that is just as new to the school as I am. She has big shoes to fill - last year's English teacher was much loved, very respected and competent at what she did. She was able to hold order in the classroom, connect with the students and teach them English well. 

This is no easy task to accomplish when it comes to the Israeli school kids at my school. The politically correct way to phrase it is to call them "energetic", but that's a positive spin on their rippling energy that's tinged with bouts of violence, aggression, unwillingness to compromise and a general desire to just be wild and untamable. 

Maybe it has something to do with knowing that when they turn 18 they will head into the Israel Defense Force. There's an Israeli saying - "you can get your education back, but not your childhood"; so in the pursuit of fulfillment of their child-like wonder, the kids go balls to walls, full throttle crazy on a regular basis. This makes it very difficult for their teachers to achieve anything, least of all, educating them. Actually, come to think of it, I'm not actually sure that they even accomplish that. 

From what I've observed - and seems to be specific to my school - the teachers are typically women, who dress in the latest fashions and trends, wear high heels and nice makeup. In a county where you'd find yourself overdressed if you stepped outside of the dresscode of flip-flops and jeans, I'm not sure how school teachers became the epitome of the country's fashion palates. Maybe it developed as a survival response to the craziness that regularly surrounds them, by thinking that "if they're all crazy and don't give a shit, I might as well wear my 5 inch heels to school, since everything is going to hell anyways!" But this is my pure speculation. 

Anyways, from what I've observed, on a regular basis, some teacher is always screaming, some student is always talking back, both boys and girls punch each other, troubled students act up for attention, teachers struggle to maintain authority and dole out discipline or extreme measures, which entail a teacher pulling out her cell phone and calling the parents in the middle of class if a really bad student won't "Shek-et va shev!" (Be quiet and sit down!!!)

There's been only one time in a classroom where I've wondered if I am safe: from the moment I walked into the class, one little boy was highly volatile, capricious and could go off at the drop of a pin. He would instigate the other students and get them riled up, then play the victim with the teacher. It doesn't help that his mother is a teacher at the school, so he obviously knows that he can get away with whatever he wants with no real repercussions. He's clearly very troubled and can successfully manipulate himself away from any real consequences. In response to his behavior, the English teacher had moved him to sit next to me, but this did not reign him in and he really did not give any fucks. All of a sudden, another boy said something that sent the troubled boy leaping over the table to punch him in the head! The teacher had to haul him out of the classroom and he did not return back to the class. It was hard to watch and I'm not sure how I feel about the stopgap measures used to control this kid, while there's clearly a bigger problem that's being avoided here. 

Plus, having to adjust to this climate as well as seeing boys punch girls is hard to get used to. The girls can really hold their own and hit right back, but there's an American part of my mind that just feels that this crosses a line. However, I am not in the classroom to dole out discipline, nor be the moral compass, so all I can do is merely observe these interactions. 

So these are the conditions I face when I go to school every day. It's not exactly the cheery, welcoming environment that you'd find in America, to say the least. This makes me wonder if the students look forward to coming to school, or find it to be a rewarding experience. It troubles me that some kids who are really smart and clever are getting pushed down into the system and receiving very little recognition for how outstanding they are. 

Again, specific to my school, the level of English proficiency is very low. I can probably count on one hand the students that I could have a short conversation with in English. Most students are still struggling with letters, sounds and their understanding. The teachers are at a similar level of English, but ashamed to show this, so they don't converse with me much. This makes talking about even the most simple topics a challenge, resulting in making me feel isolated and unable to interact or convey anything. One day last week, someone locked me in the bathroom from outside and it was almost a relief to be stuck somewhere quiet and with the perfect out from awkward and strained interactions. I stayed there for a few minutes until another teacher chanced to unlock the door and force me back out into the outside. 

Obviously navigating this brand new world of Israeli school is not something I'm naturally succeeding at, so it would be wonderful to have an adept guide! In that respect, I'm left hanging, since the teacher who is assigned to host me has no idea what she is doing and astounds me daily at her level of ineptitude at teaching. In the first days, I was really open minded to her teaching ability and thought that she had been given a tough break - she seemingly has the know-how, experience and knowledge to teach English to children. But after her soaring rendition of Goldicock and the Three Bears (which I barely made it through without laughing) to a class of Special Education children, I've begun to think that she really has no idea what she is doing.

I think it's a two pronged problem: she's overwhelmed and struggling to adapt to a new school setting, as well as still getting a grasp on English. On top of that, I've been thrown into the mix and she has no idea how to utilize me and use the volunteer resource that I present. My first couple of weeks have been spent shadowing her through the four to six classes that she teaches a day, occasionally correcting her spelling and supplying a legitimating factor as she attempts to be an authoratative figure. She does this by asking me in front of her classes if she is teaching the English right  and obviously since she is trying to hold control of the class, it's difficult to call her out and say "snake isn't spelled s-a-n-k-e" or  "there's no such word as pophotoes" or "the plural of woman is not womans" because I don't feel comfortable calling her competency into doubt in front of the kids she's trying to teach. But this is tough when I see the students copying down her mistakes in their English notebooks. I suspect that the students are picking up on her lack of ineptness and that's one reason why they act up so much. Her response is a lot of yelling and a disporportionate amount of time and effort goes into maintaining order, rather than productive learning. What lessons she does manage are typically unimaginative and lack any energy. It's funny since when we do have a brief discussion on lessons afterwards she'll express that she really believes in games, music and a number of different approaches in learning, however, I have yet to see that in action. I'm beginning to see that she's much more talk than action and really lacks on any follow through. 

In terms of interactions and expectations with me, she's given me very little to go from. I told her from the get-go, that I was here to make her life easier in whatever form that might take. But she had no suggestions on what that might look like, or what form it would take. In fact, I would have no idea that my experience was so lackluster if it wasn't for meeting the fantastic English teacher from the previous year. She had a plethora of teaching experience with ITF fellows and upon meeting her, she asked if I had introduced myself and been able to begin interacting with the kids, which is how it was done in previous years. My first days were the exact opposite: the English teacher proceeded as business as usual and tried to ignore and tone down the fact that I was in her class. She made no introductions about me, even though every student was curious about my name, where I was from, age and why I was there. A month later, there are still students asking me these things. I also received no tour of orientation of the school and till this day, I'm still finding out where certain rooms are, or have no idea which class is where. 

This has all come to a point where the substitute teacher's struggles and inconsistencies are being noticed by more than just me. The principal asked the veteran English teacher to come in and provide some support and guidance. This Monday, she joined us in the classroom and singlehandedly spearheaded dividing up the class into different groups for each of us to work with. So today for the first time, I got to take a group of students work with me on their English! It was a lot of fun to finally interact with them, see their English level, play some games and learn some Hebrew from them! 

But this also really revealed to me how there is a real lack of expectation and execution, as well as a frustrating amount of miscommunication taking place. The substitute English teacher does not follow through on any preparation and clear lesson plans and does not take responsibility for it. 

As you read this and have your own thoughts, I don't want you to think that this is the norm. Not all schools, teachers or students in Beit She'an are like this. The other ITF teachers at other schools all work with very capable and intelligent English teachers, who are excellent and really great at what they do. They have great students and are being utilized and working hard. 

Also my issue is being addressed and should not be allowed to continue this way. My coordinator has gotten involved and is aware of the situation and I believe it will not be continuing in this vein. The concept is that I'm here to provide a supportive English teaching resource and if it isn't used in this location, it will be elsewhere.

When I go into school bright and early tomorrow morning, I'm optimistic that the situation will be different. Between my coordinator and the veteran English teacher, expectations have been laid out and I hope a new leaf will be turned over! Hopefully it's not too late to hit the restart button! 

Postcards I Forgot to Send

You may have noticed from my lack of presence on this blog, or from the photos I put up on Facebook that the end of September was spent traveling around Israel! 

This began with an epic running start when my co-fellow and friend Jessica and I suddenly decided to hit the road from Beit She'an and we had less than three hours to pack a bag and catch the one bus out of town!

When you live in a rural and religious town like Beit She'an, all transportation out of town shuts down over the holidays and your plans can get waylaid for a couple of days until the holidays pass and things resume as business as usual. In terms of Sukkot, this meant that we needed to make a quick exit from town in order to maximize the time we had to travel.  

The first destination was a bus station in Afula, where we were picked up by one of Jess's friends from her birthright trip and drove us the rest of the way to Tel Aviv for an epic and late night out in the city. It was really a shock to finally be out of Beit She'an and in the middle of a modern and vibrant city. Tel Aviv does not stop for Shabbat or the holidays, all types of bars and restaurants were open and everyone was out. People looked nicer, shops had more expensive merchandise and I discovered Israeli "toast", which is a bagel that's been panini pressed after you filled it with your choice of cheeses, veggies and sauces. It's amazing, revolutionary and exactly what you need if you're up and drinking till 4 am. 

Jess's birthright friend Keren lived back in Nazareth, so she drove us almost two hours back to her house, where we all fell into bed at 6 am and slept till noon. When we woke up, we piled back into the car, picked up Keren's younger sister Sharon and headed to the beach in Haifa to relax in the late day sun and surf. The beach was beautiful and once we had had enough, we put the blankets back in the car and then walked to a restaurant on the beach to enjoy some hummus, salad and eggplant as the sun set. 

We were still recovering from our late night in Tel Aviv, so we took it easy that night and stayed in, watched a movie and checked out the blood moon on the horizon over Nazareth. 

The next day, Jess, Sharon, Keren and I all got into the car and headed southwest to Caesarea (pronounced Quesariya) the ruins of a seaside town built by Herod the Great around 25-13 BCE. It's very well preserved and you can see huge mosaic floors, great examples of columns, a hippodrome, restored amphitheater and great seaside views. We took full advantage of the great location and goofed around and took many pictures. 

The next day in Nazareth, I woke up and felt restless. Jess and I were supposed to  head to Haifa and then spend the night with another friend of hers from birthright. However, I spontaneously decided that I wanted to mix it up and spend the day as planned in Haifa, but go south that night to Netanya. Netanya is the location of another ITF program, which is a lot larger and enjoys the perks of living in the vicinity of the Tel Aviv bubble as well as along the glorious coast of the Meditterean Sea. It was quick and easy to let some of my friends in that program know I'd be heading their way and find a room to stay in, since many people were away traveling around Israel as well. Two friends from Netanya even decided to head to Haifa that night and meet me before returning to Netanya! So with plans in place, I spent the day in Haifa exploring the beautifully symmetric Baha'i Gardens, eating sushi and traversing the third largest city in Israel. 

I'm kind of in love with Israeli sushi; it's no culinary achievement, but they get the general concept of it and just really go for making the rolls very large and filled with all things tasty. When it comes to vegetarian rolls, they don't have any idea what that actually means, so they just cram all the vegetables that are available into a sushi roll. This means I can have a tofu-sweet potato-carrot-cucumber roll, which is delicious dipped in fish sauce! 

Later that night, Jess and I happily reunited with two of our fellow Beit She'an roommates, Jake and Joe, who had successfully made it out of the town and over to Haifa for their own vacation! You have to understand that at this time, none of us have Israeli SIM cards in our phones, so unless there's wifi, it's a Sukkot miracle that in the third biggest city in Israel, we could find each other!  It was a Tuesday, so it was not exactly an exciting night with lots happening, but we managed to grab some Gold Star beers, hear an outdoor concert and then found our Netanya friends to join our retinue! All of us trooped through Haifa and looked for something that was open and could fit our American-speaking entourage. The only thing with room was an apparently Arab run, open air hookah bar, that looked like a former car wash with the decor of a quinceanera. So of course we alighted upon this place and filled the up the night with laughter, American humor and tales of our first month in Israel. 

By this point, a good amount of the night had gone by, and my friends and I needed to return to Netanya, which is a couple of hours south. At 2:00am there are very few options for transport and the plan that we began to pull together was that we needed to take a 2 hour nighttrain to Tel Aviv, and then catch a shirut taxi back to Netanya, hopefully arriving before 6:00am. But how often does one find themselves trooping through the velvety night from city to city in Israel with only a backpack?! The Haifa to Tel Aviv Nighttrain certainly had an air of mystery about it since I'm not sure what brings most people to be riding a train at 3:00am, but my friends and I treated it as a grand adventure, which had the happy resolution of us finding out that it did actually make a stop in Netanya, saving us around two hours off our commute! So at 4 am, my friend Stephanie sleepily welcomed me into her room in Netanya and I found my way to a pleasingly comfortable bed and fell asleep.

When I awoke, my fellow Nighttrain veteran friend Drew took me around Netanya and showed me the sites: I saw the shuk, the local market brimming with fresh vegetables, spices and goods; the shops, restaurants, juice stalls and most importantly, the local hummus guru. He made one hell of a hummus and put on quite a show as he mixed together chickpeas, tahini and olive oil. 

Later that day we gathered up a couple more friends, Julian and Stephanie and headed down to the main event in Netanya: the beach! 

Over the next couple of days, I really relaxed and enjoyed Netanya. Right next door to the apartment building the Netanya Teaching Fellows were housed was an organic food market. Have you ever had tears spring to your eyes when you lock onto some agave nectar? Until then, I had never experienced this emotion! I stocked up on chia seed, quinoa cereal, almond milk and edamame pasta. I know how ridiculous this all sounds, but homesickness can come in many forms and mine apparently takes the form of organic foods! 

I also had the chance in Netanya to try something new and a goal of mine: surfing! My friend Drew and I got up early one morning, rented a surfboard and headed out to the surf! Neither of us had any idea how to surf or where to begin our endeavor, but we were certainly determined. Drew graciously suggested that I be the sacrificial lamb and start with the board, and in an out of character move, I hopped right onto the board and paddled out through the waves and right up to a guy on a surfboard with that really cool Israeli surfer dude vibe and said: "Hey! I've never surfed before! How do I start?" He looked at me as if I was crazy, which I can't blame him for and said, "Well, don't start with these waves and hang your feet off the board more!" So with these wise words, Drew and I moved closer to where the waves broke and began a 5 hour adventure of teaching ourselves how to surf. The surfer dude I asked for help, turned out to be named Asaf, and he ran the local youth surfing center and was apparently impressed by our newfound cavalier surfer take on life, so he invited us both over for coffee. We went over to check it out and met Asaf's lovely wife and they invited us to come visit them for dinner on the kibbutz. This is just how it goes in Israel, complete strangers easily share their lives with you and selflessly invite you to their homes and to share a meal with them just from a brief encounter. 

By the end of our day with the board, we had learned that your eyes can burn from the salty water; you can actually begin to bleed from the scratchy texture of the surfboard and rough sand on your skin; I had learned that a flimsy bikini is not proper attire to surf in and as a result most of Netanya had seen most of me; you'll be covered with bangs, scrapes and bruises; and forgetting to put on sunscreen will haunt you for weeks afterwards - but both of us could stand up on the surfboard and carve a little on waves. It was worth every burn, bump, bang and nip slip. We returned the rented surfboard and walked back to the apartments very tired and very proud of ourselves. 

I spent the next couple of days in Netanya and found myself slipping into a relaxed and comfortable lifestyle that was almost a beach-y version of my life at home. I could drink juice, visit Tel Aviv and go to bars, restaurants and comedy shows, I had more delicious foods, went shopping and found a great running route. 

Jessica came and joined us and along with Drew, Julian and I we decide to do the weirdest thing we could think of and go to a rave in the middle of the day. None of us would say that electronic music is our thing, but this event sounded too bizarre to miss, so we showed up to check it out. It was a weird and wild experience and the most entertaining were the younger guys who were so tapped into the the best of the music that they just needed to have cathartic dance offs as they whipped their shirts around their heads. Many a time, we had to dodge a spinning Israeli guy who was just so enraptured by the beats and intent on dancing that he had lost sight of his surroundings! 

The trouble with vacation is that it ends and eventually I had to pack up my things and try to cram the new clothes, organic food and all of my original belongings back into my bag and catch a bus back to Beit She'an. I was very sad to say goodbye to the beach, awesome and welcoming friends, comfortable beds and showers with heads attached to the walls!  Returning to Beit She'an was a bittersweet feeling, since it does feel like home and it was good to return to a base, but a certain je ne sais quoi disquiet had sunk in about returning to living on the periphery. The desire to be near the bright lights and big city part of the rest of Israel had hit and I've had trouble shaking it ever since. My next vacation isn't until Chanukah in December and I feel like I'm already chomping at the bit to get back in it.  

Over my travels, there were many moments that I wished to send postcards, or correspondence to friends and family back in the states. Israel is a lot of things, however sentimental is not one of them. It's surprisingly difficult to find good postcards or cards of any kind in this country! I apologize that I have not yet found a remedy to this, but you are all in my thoughts and I miss you a lot. 

Currently, my computer is not holding up, so I'm using my iPhone to fulfill all my blog writing needs. So if anything is misspelled, or formatting is weird, blame the iPhone!:) And any time that you'd like to get in touch, ask questions or just say hi and tell me how much you miss me, feel free to comment, or send a FB message! 

Lots of love, 

Hannah