A Return to High Stakes Teaching... and Blogging

This summer, I’ll be teaching English in the periphery of Israel. “Periphery” is used here the same way “underprivileged” is used in the US, since in Israel, anybody who doesn’t live in the center near Tel Aviv or Jerusalem has less access to, well, all the good stuff that masses of humanity can provide when they cram into urban centers. I am ecstatic to return to periphery teaching in a new place, to learn a new culture, different from the Tel Avivi mentality I've come to love. 

The program I’m working with is called TALMA, a summer English program connected with CHOTAM, the Israeli equivalent of Teach for America or Teach First. I like the CHOTAM model a million multiplication tables more than I liked TFA. Firstly, they’re educating teachers to be teachers, and they’re actually hoping that their members will stay teachers. Secondly, it's such a small country that there's less danger of a savior complex, less a sense of outsiders butting in, and because they’re laidback blunt Israelis, there’s no quid pro quo vulnerability or emotional abuse. 

This summer, I’ll be sent with two other Israeli mentor teachers and 33 international teachers (from the US, Canada, Ghana, Australia, etc.) to co-teach a population that I don’t generally see in EMIS, my current school. I’ll be co-teaching with one of the internationals in the mornings, and mentoring a group of them in the afternoons. The populations we'll work with have no access to native speaker English teachers, so this is an attempt to close an opportunity gap through summer programs.

I’m going to be down south in Ashkelon. I’ll likely be teaching in Kiryat Malachi (a development town with a large percentage of Ethiopian and Russian immigrants, carrying the baggage of Palestinian dispossession, maabarot, and current-day racism). Ashkelon is on the beach (woohoo!), 13 kilometers from Gaza (um…). I have lots of imposter syndrome about being one of the Israeli mentors, and lots of excitement about teaching new populations, and working with international teachers who can bring me up to date on teaching in the international scene, and the combination of the two has moved me to return to blogging.

The Israeli staff spent this past Shabbat in a hotel in Netanya, getting to know each other (there needs to be a word for “גיבוש’ in English). The teachers seem like incredible people, and I’m only sad that I won’t get to work with them all.

One of the undercurrents of the weekend was a really interesting relationship between the staff (mostly secular) and religion (four or five of us are shomeret Shabbat). I’m used to being the only Jewish person in a room full of respectful non-Jews; being religious in a room full of secular Jews, a couple of whom feel free to make disparaging comments about religion, is going to be more interesting. I was shocked when, during the group interview, teachers who were asked whether there was any population they didn’t want to work with answered, “charedim.” When I raised a point about the first mentor meeting plan (that every American coming from TFA has seen Adichie’s “Single Story” video at every MTLD meeting ever), another teacher responded, “yeah, but you read the same parshah every single year, over and over.” I was surprised by the degree of antagonism she expressed to a stranger. To be fair, I don’t think she understands the depth of difference between Americanah (which I do reread every year, along with HAYS—shout out to HL) and a Ted Talk. Anyhow, it will be an interesting dynamic, and one that I’m becoming more and more accustomed to in the past year as I continuously enter liberal spaces with my mitpachat stamping a label on me before I open my mouth.

At graduation with EMIS alumni;
I'm a little confused about how to selfie,
but my kids get it.

Last night, my EMIS alumni visiting for graduation made bug eyes at me when I told them I’d be teaching in Kiryat Malachi. A nice preview of how hard it will be. It reminded me that I need to gear up with memories of Harding… riding the bronco of classroom management while smiling the entire time to keep the kids feeling safe and happy. I’m excited to get into the game again, in an Israeli classroom—always my dream. Teaching starts at the end of June—we’ll see how it goes!