Last week was short because of Rosh Hashana - the jewish new years. I was in Asalam school only Sunday to Wednesday. Still it felt like a long week full of new experiences and reflections. Since the first week was mostly about getting to know the school, the organization and to get a perspective on what kind of work I will do there, the second one was more about trying to find ways to build an internship and how to grow in the role as a social worker.
I've tried to work on a theme about countries that the group of children seem to be interested in. I did this with two different groups. They were both into football and especially Real Madrid and Barcelona. Therefore I teach them about Spain. We looked at the map to see where those two cities are, and we listened to Spanish music. To follow up we played football together the next day. For some reason, and I don't know why this is where I felt that it was a big challenge to communicate. Much more difficult than in a classroom. Maybe because the situation was a bit different and confusing for everyone, and maybe my role as a teacher also was more diffuse. Anyhow, we manage to play a bit but there was lots of discussions between the children. Especially in the second group where two of the boys didn't let the two girls play. I was surprised at first and then I tried to figure out a way to solve it so everyone could play together. In the end the girls went aside to play. I felt like this class was a failure and that I will have to work on a way to communicate and work with this phenomena. I was also very upset personally since I thought that it was so unfair towards the girls. I didn't know how to react at all and especially since this probably is very cultural.
I've also been chocked how violent the kids are when they play. When I ask why they for example hit and push each other they don't see it as a problem at all. I spoke with one of the teachers about this, and she agreed with me and explained to me that it became so common to hit each other and to be violent. Because of this I decided to talk about friendship and different words for feeling in English by using youtube, the game pictionary with some basic words and by asking questions like "how are you today?" It was fun and a very good ending of the week in Asalam. Kasem, a teacher from the high school near Asalam, also came by the school to see how it works over there and to discuss a project about teaching English to adults in Rahat. Starting that kind of project, mostly by doing research is going to be very interesting for sure.
Except for being in the school I also went to a meeting with Jamal. Five other social workers, all involved in working with the Bedouin community discussed methods to get parents more involved in their children's educaion. It was all in Hebrew so there were lots of things that I didn't understand. It was still interesting to see how a project starts and how much work there is to even get started.
I've tried to work on a theme about countries that the group of children seem to be interested in. I did this with two different groups. They were both into football and especially Real Madrid and Barcelona. Therefore I teach them about Spain. We looked at the map to see where those two cities are, and we listened to Spanish music. To follow up we played football together the next day. For some reason, and I don't know why this is where I felt that it was a big challenge to communicate. Much more difficult than in a classroom. Maybe because the situation was a bit different and confusing for everyone, and maybe my role as a teacher also was more diffuse. Anyhow, we manage to play a bit but there was lots of discussions between the children. Especially in the second group where two of the boys didn't let the two girls play. I was surprised at first and then I tried to figure out a way to solve it so everyone could play together. In the end the girls went aside to play. I felt like this class was a failure and that I will have to work on a way to communicate and work with this phenomena. I was also very upset personally since I thought that it was so unfair towards the girls. I didn't know how to react at all and especially since this probably is very cultural.
I've also been chocked how violent the kids are when they play. When I ask why they for example hit and push each other they don't see it as a problem at all. I spoke with one of the teachers about this, and she agreed with me and explained to me that it became so common to hit each other and to be violent. Because of this I decided to talk about friendship and different words for feeling in English by using youtube, the game pictionary with some basic words and by asking questions like "how are you today?" It was fun and a very good ending of the week in Asalam. Kasem, a teacher from the high school near Asalam, also came by the school to see how it works over there and to discuss a project about teaching English to adults in Rahat. Starting that kind of project, mostly by doing research is going to be very interesting for sure.
Except for being in the school I also went to a meeting with Jamal. Five other social workers, all involved in working with the Bedouin community discussed methods to get parents more involved in their children's educaion. It was all in Hebrew so there were lots of things that I didn't understand. It was still interesting to see how a project starts and how much work there is to even get started.
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