Two months ago I left my school in Charlotte, NC. Three days
ago I began teaching at a school in Israel. There has been so much cultural
shock, so many epiphanies, and so few opportunities to sit back and reflect,
that I’ve decided to make a venn diagram in the manner of both my past and
current students: that is, take issue with the format Ms. W proposes and make a
list instead.
The similarities:
The students: Because high schoolers will always be high
schoolers. There’s the one who never shuts up, the one who seems wise beyond
her years, the one who immediately trusts, the one sitting in the back of the
room, reading a Hebrew book in his English class during the break (Note: I am very conflicted about stopping this).
The schism: So it’s not West Blvd—South Blvd anymore, but
the Israeli-Palestinian divide is rather more enduring. So far only the second
year students are here, and they definitely do group along national boundaries,
but they also work together and speak pretty comfortably to each other. More on this later.
The questions: Do we really
have to follow that rule? What will we be tested on? Are you as nice as you
seem, or is it an act? Anything that I tell you in confidence, will I get in
trouble for?
The stakes: My students are all here on scholarships from
countries around the world, and for many of them, this is their shot at a
decent education and university. The fact that it’s my first year teaching IB
English Literature & Language won’t matter a bit to them. I don’t get to
practice—I need to know it all off the bat, and I can tell you, I’m feeling the
pressure.
So, now for the
differences:
The campus: our youth village is owned by flocks of birds,
which grudgingly make space for humans. Roosters strut the paths and peacocks
fluff up reproachfully when passed. Students are responsible for cleaning the
pathways and in the distance, a broad strip of Mediterranean blue forms a
living horizon. It could not be more different from the littered, smelly,
broken campus I came from. The students clearly love it here, too.
The schedule: School begins Sunday and ends Thursday. This
is nice, but weird. I constantly tell students that we’ll finish something
Friday, at which they stare at me with as much disbelief as if I told Americans
we’d have a test Saturday.
The commitment: My students don’t have to be convinced of
the importance of their studies. One emailed me two weeks before school began
with questions on his extended essay. Others have asked to be allowed to extend
their library access past 11 pm and to start at 5 am. One wrote, for his hobby,
“To get 7’s.” That’s the top IB grade. Last year, most of my IB students responded to
any effort to get them to work with outrage, and many wanted to drop out of
the program to become hair stylists.
The staff: They are all Israeli or Palestinian, and as loopy
and chilled-out and family-like as those cultures stereotype. The welcome was
incredible. Watching the old staff joke and hug and kibbitz is heartwarming,
and we newbies have already acquired nicknames, parts in the upcoming Christmas
shtick, and been treated to multiple lunches at the village’s kosher dining
hall. Another thing that breeds friendliness—I can actually eat with my
colleagues! Although I miss the feeling of being in the trenches
together that Title I work breeds, I’m amazed at the warmth and functionality of
our staff. I didn't know it could be this good.
The reason we’re in the news: Channel 2 came by this morning
and filmed us in a problem-solving exercise out in the garden. Rather different
from videos of fights uploaded to the Charlotte Observer.
The initiative: I entered my classroom for the first time to
see the students rearranging the desks for a better learning atmosphere. A
student has already emailed me with five topics he wants to cover in our
biweekly meetings, and another to set up the debate club. These students are so
eager to take charge of their own educations, that they could probably stock and
set up this school on their own.
The classroom management issues: Today it was hard to get
anything done, in an exhausting yet encouraging way. I’d intended to set up
student notebooks and give a diagnostic, but it turns out that something as
basic as a notebook page exemplar robs them of free will and is too structured
for the German student, too visual for the Israeli student, and too much in-class
work for the Brazilian student. It’s the complete opposite of my old
school—instead of struggling to get students invested, they’re too invested, to
the point where they want to own every step of their education and need to be
convinced of everything. However, we won’t have time to discuss every single
decision that needs to be made, and so I’m going to have to build trust with
them until they and I feel comfortable with my making some executive decisions.
The start of school: We actually had an assembly to clue the
students in and welcome them. They sat on benches and mats behind the main
school building, and after the leaders of the school had spoke, the Glee Club
sang, and then I was asked to read something by the principal. So I read, to applause
that startled me, a paragraph that I think always fits new beginnings:
“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming."
