An accredited course (SOC 110) studying the history, practice, and philosophy of volunteering - an exciting part of Young Judaea and FZY's Year Course.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
First Journal Entry
Reminder that today at 5 PM is the deadline to submit your first journal entry. Looking forward to seeing you on Monday night!
Mark, I tried to email you the Paper, but my yahoo account wont allow it emailed to a web site. Is there another way of emailing it to you? Alexandra_Warter@yahoo.com thanks, Alex
This week at my volunteer location, the distribution center, it started off slow. The first day we got there it was as if they weren’t expecting us and didn’t really have anything for us to do. Hoping that everyday wouldn’t be like that I folded cloths and did the things they asked of us. Before I left I reminded them that my friends and I would be coming back tomorrow which would hopefully encouraged them to plan something for us to do. The next day I got there and they had us sort through donated items and decide what was good enough to resell. That also wasn’t that entreating but it was something. After we were done sorting they opened the store, there wasn’t anything for us to do then and they let us sit around. As I was sitting I was watching the people shop and to tell you the truth I found some enjoyment out of that. I’m not sure if it was because I felt like I really did something or if it was the fact that I finally got a glimpse of whom I was there to help. Fast-forwarding to Wednesday when the food bank opens, that was there I found most of my volunteering and usefulness. Having nothing to do at the clothing store I asked if there was anything in the food bank that needed help. To my luck, that did! I was happy about that, I was hoping I would get a chance to work there and help them out. When we went over there we were introduced to the men that work there. They were all so nice. They showed us what they wanted and we did. We had to bag veggies, loafs of bread, and cookies. It was a very fun. Another thing that really made it enjoyable was that about 5 soldiers were there volunteering as well. It was fun conversing with them and explaining why we were there and what we are doing in Israel for a year. They talked to us and told us why they decided to come and help out today and what they did in the army. It was really great. Along with the soldiers, a class of school children also came to volunteer, they were kind of annoying but I could tell it was because they were all really eager to be there. Wednesday passes by super fast. I wished everyday was like that, and not because it passed by quickly but because it gave me the feeling of I really I’m making a difference. Thursday was crazy! I personally enjoyed the hell out of it but my other volunteers thought it was a little to intense. On Thursday the food bank opens up, the thrift store opens, there are people that cut hair. There were so many people there at really needed help. There was so much going on, it was amazing! It was great really cool to see how it all works and how much it helps people. I enjoy it a lot because I know that this is the kind of career I want. Hopefully one day I can open a facility that can help others so drastically.
Although after volunteering for two weeks I've seen seen several sides of the complex relationship that exists between a teacher and his or her students (for the rest of this article I'll use she/her, mainly because the teachers I've worked so far and observed this in are female), on my first day I was struck by how completely burnt out some of these teachers seem. I'm setting my imagination free to roam here a bit, but I can picture these teachers at the start of their careers excited to begin working with students, hoping to make a difference in their lives, and slowly losing their excitement largely through dealing with disruptive, disrespectiful children. A teacher, who likely once saw herself as an open-minded, caring mentor, has been reduced to a dictator caught in a power struggle, shouting in front of the classroom in an attempt to be heard, using the same tone to teach as to discipline.
Obviously, this is not the best classroom environment. A teacher's time is divided between discipline and the lesson, with a much larger proportion of the time devoted to discipline. It paints the teacher as a disliked dictator, which makes the students less likely to listen and care about what she has to say. Because so much time is spent yelling at children to be quiet, sit down, etc, etc, etc, the students who really want to learn are forced to sit through a tediously slow lesson. Lastly, and possibly most importantly, the teachers seem to lose imagination. Because giving a basic lesson is such a struggle, it is deemed too difficult to try any new style of class, such as work in small groups, discussions, games, etc. The class becomes rote for students, and because it is taught by a teacher talking at students, the children are not engaged, and have few opportunities to test knowledge. This is a particularly big issue in a language class, which requires that language to be spoken. Even in the better of the classes I've observed and helped in, the extent of a child's interaction with English was a brighter student calling out the translation of a word or phrase from English to Hebrew. There was no venue for the slower students to have their knowledge verified, or for any to really practice speaking English.
I was blessed to attend a high school (still public but optional, for juniors and seniors) at which students were there by choice. Even if they originally only wanted to leave their traditional large public high school, by the end of their two years, students truly care about what they are learning. Classes were organized in a way that made lessons plans extremely flexible, and field trips, discussions, lab work, and group activities very very frequent. This makes it almost painful for me to see classes so obviously frustrating for both students and teacher, but I also have a wealth of experience to draw from throughout my time here, and hopefully I can help teachers implement some ideas into these classrooms, if it might help. I can only imagine what a joy it must be to teach a class of children who want to learn, and I hope I can help the classrooms at the school I volunteer at become more joyous for both the teacher and the students.
I am an educator who has been living in Israel since 2001. Since 2005, I have been collaborating for the Lookstein Center for Jewish Education in the Diaspora
3 comments:
Mark,
I tried to email you the Paper, but my yahoo account wont allow it emailed to a web site.
Is there another way of emailing it to you?
Alexandra_Warter@yahoo.com
thanks,
Alex
This week at my volunteer location, the distribution center, it started off slow. The first day we got there it was as if they weren’t expecting us and didn’t really have anything for us to do. Hoping that everyday wouldn’t be like that I folded cloths and did the things they asked of us. Before I left I reminded them that my friends and I would be coming back tomorrow which would hopefully encouraged them to plan something for us to do. The next day I got there and they had us sort through donated items and decide what was good enough to resell. That also wasn’t that entreating but it was something. After we were done sorting they opened the store, there wasn’t anything for us to do then and they let us sit around. As I was sitting I was watching the people shop and to tell you the truth I found some enjoyment out of that. I’m not sure if it was because I felt like I really did something or if it was the fact that I finally got a glimpse of whom I was there to help. Fast-forwarding to Wednesday when the food bank opens, that was there I found most of my volunteering and usefulness. Having nothing to do at the clothing store I asked if there was anything in the food bank that needed help. To my luck, that did! I was happy about that, I was hoping I would get a chance to work there and help them out. When we went over there we were introduced to the men that work there. They were all so nice. They showed us what they wanted and we did. We had to bag veggies, loafs of bread, and cookies. It was a very fun. Another thing that really made it enjoyable was that about 5 soldiers were there volunteering as well. It was fun conversing with them and explaining why we were there and what we are doing in Israel for a year. They talked to us and told us why they decided to come and help out today and what they did in the army. It was really great. Along with the soldiers, a class of school children also came to volunteer, they were kind of annoying but I could tell it was because they were all really eager to be there. Wednesday passes by super fast. I wished everyday was like that, and not because it passed by quickly but because it gave me the feeling of I really I’m making a difference. Thursday was crazy! I personally enjoyed the hell out of it but my other volunteers thought it was a little to intense. On Thursday the food bank opens up, the thrift store opens, there are people that cut hair. There were so many people there at really needed help. There was so much going on, it was amazing! It was great really cool to see how it all works and how much it helps people. I enjoy it a lot because I know that this is the kind of career I want. Hopefully one day I can open a facility that can help others so drastically.
Although after volunteering for two weeks I've seen seen several sides of the complex relationship that exists between a teacher and his or her students (for the rest of this article I'll use she/her, mainly because the teachers I've worked so far and observed this in are female), on my first day I was struck by how completely burnt out some of these teachers seem. I'm setting my imagination free to roam here a bit, but I can picture these teachers at the start of their careers excited to begin working with students, hoping to make a difference in their lives, and slowly losing their excitement largely through dealing with disruptive, disrespectiful children. A teacher, who likely once saw herself as an open-minded, caring mentor, has been reduced to a dictator caught in a power struggle, shouting in front of the classroom in an attempt to be heard, using the same tone to teach as to discipline.
Obviously, this is not the best classroom environment. A teacher's time is divided between discipline and the lesson, with a much larger proportion of the time devoted to discipline. It paints the teacher as a disliked dictator, which makes the students less likely to listen and care about what she has to say. Because so much time is spent yelling at children to be quiet, sit down, etc, etc, etc, the students who really want to learn are forced to sit through a tediously slow lesson. Lastly, and possibly most importantly, the teachers seem to lose imagination. Because giving a basic lesson is such a struggle, it is deemed too difficult to try any new style of class, such as work in small groups, discussions, games, etc. The class becomes rote for students, and because it is taught by a teacher talking at students, the children are not engaged, and have few opportunities to test knowledge. This is a particularly big issue in a language class, which requires that language to be spoken. Even in the better of the classes I've observed and helped in, the extent of a child's interaction with English was a brighter student calling out the translation of a word or phrase from English to Hebrew. There was no venue for the slower students to have their knowledge verified, or for any to really practice speaking English.
I was blessed to attend a high school (still public but optional, for juniors and seniors) at which students were there by choice. Even if they originally only wanted to leave their traditional large public high school, by the end of their two years, students truly care about what they are learning. Classes were organized in a way that made lessons plans extremely flexible, and field trips, discussions, lab work, and group activities very very frequent. This makes it almost painful for me to see classes so obviously frustrating for both students and teacher, but I also have a wealth of experience to draw from throughout my time here, and hopefully I can help teachers implement some ideas into these classrooms, if it might help. I can only imagine what a joy it must be to teach a class of children who want to learn, and I hope I can help the classrooms at the school I volunteer at become more joyous for both the teacher and the students.
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