An accredited course (SOC 110) studying the history, practice, and philosophy of volunteering - an exciting part of Young Judaea and FZY's Year Course.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Journal Week 4
A reminder that I won't be in class this upcoming Monday the 22nd of October as I will be schleping through central Europe with YC Olami. Please use your extra time this week wisely - seize the day - write your journals!
Volunteering this week was very mix-matched. On monday I went with my "Jewish Identity Patrol" volunteering group to the Jewish Diaspora Museum at Tel Aviv University. Although we werent actually volunteering there, being a part of that experience and trying to take away the things we learned to enlighten jewish high school students living in israel made me realize how important it is to know about your jewish identity. Since all the high schools are still on strike, I found it unfortunate that the "Jewish Identity Patrol" Journey was ending, becuase after I understood what our programming was supposed to be about, I was discouraged that I didnt get to use that I had learned. My other days of volunteering at Save A Childs Heart made me realize something else, no matter where I volunteer, if i put my heart into it, I will affect someones life. This week we have two Iraqi children, and by me playing with them and keeping their minds off the pain of their surgeries, I wonder if they will remember this experience as a positive one, and not just remember being in a hospital. One of the boys from Zanzibar is 14 and will definately have memories of being away from home, with no family with him, in a foreign place and I realized, I am quite similar to him. I am there to volunteer and play with him and keep in entertained, but in a way, its also the other way around, he also keeps my mind off of how far away from home I am, and how I also have no family here, and dont speak the same language as everyone else. We are in quite a similar situation, and realizing that made me have an epiphany, I wouldnt want to be playing with puzzles either, or doing nothings with pipe cleaners. My real challenge now is finding a way to connect with him on his level, because he is a young adult, but he didnt choose to move to a foreign country for a few months, he had to, and I am going to take that into consideration for the next month or so of my volunteering because his time here should be an meaningful an experience as mine.
Volunteering has been really really great. I have been in charge of more and more activities each day for the kids in the gan and I have been having a lot of fun with all of them. Also, one day I really connected with one of the teachers. She began asking me about my family and I could tell she was really trying to get to know me better. I really felt like I finally made that connection and I could tell how much she appreciated that Jen and I were volunteering at her gan. She began to open up to me and tell me things about herself and it really made me happy. I also recently found out that we volunteers get to be in charge of a project at our volunteer placements. My initial reaction was that I was a little nervous that I would have to be in charge at my gan and plan activities for one whole day. Then Jen and I thought of many creative ideas and activities that we could do at the gan. We thought of some creative art projects that we would try and teach the kids their names in Hebrew and in English. I am really looking forward to being in charge of the gan for a day because that is why I am here to volunteer and to really get that chance to make a big impact on these kids. I feel that by me teaching them maybe how to write their names of at least how to say their names in English, it will be something that they can definently remember!
When I started volunteering at the Gan I felt like I was the only one who was not good with speaking hebrew. It created obstacles for me that were hard to overcome with the children. Recently I have realized that I am not the only one in the class who isn't familiar with the language. We have a small group of about four Russians who cannot speak hebrew but they do understand. There is Valeria, Laura, Bar, and Ines. They follow the teacher's directions but they cannot respond in Hebrew instead they just smile and sit in silence. For instance the other day at the playground I was yelling at Ines to stop climbing up the tree and she came over to my bench and started explaining herself in a something I cannot even explain. I was so lost I couldn't stop laughing at her but in hebrew I tried to explain to her that I didn't speak Russian! She just giggled and kept talking in her own little language and I just sat there in a puzzle. Laura is our other Russian she speaks hebrew but sadly her accent is so thick that not even the teachers can understand her. Tali and I don't know what to do about her because she talks a lot and we have no response for her? Bar is our little boy who sits in silence. He does smile at me sometimes and he listens and follows directions but he doesn't speak hebrew so he has problems playing with all of the children. Valeria is the last of the group she is shy and quiet but she tries to be so innocent when she is a bad little girl. She doesn't listen and the teachers know that she understands she just doesn't care sometimes. One time I even caught her eating plato..and I know she understood me when I told her to stop one million times! This week that is what we focused on most was the russian language barrier we face with those four silly little children. Hopefully each day as my hebrew improves so will my little group.
Over the past few days I've seen a few kids misbehaving and the responses from those incidents. One girl got mad that i moved her walker that she was not using to make room for another student at the table. She tried to spit on me, but it hit a student instead. She was not given any consequence. Today during a break two girls got into a fight and were hitting each other. I don't know that cause of the fight, however one girl got brought to the princpal's office for awhile and the other girl went back to having break. Later I saw the girl from the principal's office walking around again as though nothing happened. Finally at the end of that break a student walked by another student in a wheel chair and smacked her upon the head. No one payed much attention to this incident at all, not even to check if the girl in the wheel chair was ok.
These situations make me curious as to why behavioral incidents are handled the way they are in Israel and specifically in this special needs school. I understand that a lot of the time the kids may not know better, however if you discipline them they can learn proper behavior. I wonder if regular Israeli schools ignore misbehavior like this one does. In my schooling at home any of those incidents would have resulted in consequences, such as a warning, detention, suspension or revocation of privileges.
One of the Israelis at my camp once told me that kids are given a lot less discipline and more freedom in Israel. Thus far I can confirm that his statement was very true.
Dear Journal, This past week has been a pretty wacky one at Ohavim. For some reason the food this week seemed unusually nauseating. As i served and prepared the meals, i heard a few complaints that the food tasted old, and one woman claimed that there was mold on her shnitzel. The next day, we ran out of cucumbers and lettuce so we were forced to make an all cucumber Israeli salad. And to top off the week, on Thursday, we ran out of food. I never thought that running out of food at Ohavim would even be possible, since typically we have pots of extra food we throw out at the end of the day. It worried me a bit that the food was sub-par, but i was even more worried by the idea of turning away hungry people from the soup kitchen. As i talk to and get to know more and more of the regulars at Ohavim, I'm starting to feel worse about many of their situations. When i first started volunteering, I grouped all "Ohavimers" together, but now that I've begun actually getting to know these people and building relationships with them, I can relate to and pity their individual situations.I expected most of the people to be Israelis with serious mental issues, which prevent them from holding down steady jobs. Although there are a some loony people, from what i see, most of the people are completely stable their problem however is that they are not educated. Many of the people that come are Russian and Ethiopian immigrants, who were never really taught how to adapt to Israeli society, others are just Israelis who never received proper educations and don't have enough ambition or confidence to do much. My volunteering has turned out to be a really great place to help out at; however, i still want to get some other experiences and am talking with Noah, from the yearcourse office, in order to arrange a Wednesday afternoon volunteering placement. As i was leaving Ohavim, Moshe one of the usuals at the soup kitchen started up a conversation with me. He saw that i was reading the book The Exodus and told me that he came to Israel on an Exodus-like boat, from Poland. He continued, saying that if i wanted to know the true story, i should go to some museum in Tel Aviv. I had another encounter at Ohavim this week toward the end of meal time on Monday. One of the old Israeli regulars, known as Captain, started up a conversation with me and one of my co-volunteers. He began by asking us, in a shy mix of Hebrew and English, where we were from, and why we were volunteering at Ohavim. He then immediately asked the girl i was volunteering with, if she believed in G-d. The girl said, "I'm not sure", and after some visible disappointment on the seemingly secular old mans face, he said, " if you don't believe in G-d, you are stupid!" I really found it incredible that a random man with short grey hair,mismatched socks, and dirty pair of corduroys, was so sure of G-d's existence. I'm not quite sure why i found it so amazing, but while both kids and adults often dodge questions about G-d, much like my friend did, this old man, came right out and said his true feeling about G-d within the the first few minutes of our conversation.
The children know my name. It has taken about 5 weeks, but they finally know my name. They can't pernounce it perfectly because they are deaf, but I know they know me. It feels good. My ganent has a made a point to tell me that she finds me helpful, and I was glad to hear it. They do feed us everyday, and at first I think they thought it was a nuisance, but now they seem happy to. I have bonded with my two co-volunteers and the three ganents. I'm happy with my placemet. At service training, our group leader told us we are supposed to try and run one activity at the Gan. You know, opposed to just assisting an activity, we should plan one and implement it. My co-volunteer and I thought up some ideas, but we have yet to bring it up to our ganent. I'm not sure why we havn't mentioned it. I hope it's not laziness. While playground time is long, hot, and tiring, it really is my favorite part. (Next to meal time of course.) I love practicing my hebrew with the children, and I even found some cool Russian kids who will translate Hebrew to Russian for me. Yeah volunteering!!
This week was definitely a lot better than the weeks I spent at the hospital. It is very interesting to see a little of how the farm works. We picked tangerines and learned which are good and which are bad, we sprayed weed killer on the weeds, we pulled out the weeds, we cleaned the tangerines with a very interesting machine, and we trimmed the trees. Trimming the trees was probably my favorite thing to do out of all of the work that we have. We don’t cut so that the tree will take up less space, but so that it will grow back better. It’s very meditative, and somehow relaxing. It lets me think abut anything from the paradox of destroying in order to create to how I could make a bloodier video game. When we’re not working, we are usually sitting in a shed with one of the farmers. He seems happy to have us, and is often making jokes that are only funny to him, but we try to laugh along. He also speaks Spanish, so those of us who know fluent Spanish can speak with him freely. Unfortunately, I have never taken a Spanish class in my life, but it allows others to make a better connection with him. Later in the week, the head farmer came back from his vacation to Paris. I think he went to see a wedding. He was a lot more focused than the farmer we had been working with so far, as well as being much more uptight. Often, we were divided between the two farmers. Although the work was not easier with the first farmer, it was not as tense. The head farmer probably felt the responsibility of keeping the farm going a lot more than the other one.
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
7 comments:
Volunteering this week was very mix-matched. On monday I went with my "Jewish Identity Patrol" volunteering group to the Jewish Diaspora Museum at Tel Aviv University. Although we werent actually volunteering there, being a part of that experience and trying to take away the things we learned to enlighten jewish high school students living in israel made me realize how important it is to know about your jewish identity. Since all the high schools are still on strike, I found it unfortunate that the "Jewish Identity Patrol" Journey was ending, becuase after I understood what our programming was supposed to be about, I was discouraged that I didnt get to use that I had learned. My other days of volunteering at Save A Childs Heart made me realize something else, no matter where I volunteer, if i put my heart into it, I will affect someones life. This week we have two Iraqi children, and by me playing with them and keeping their minds off the pain of their surgeries, I wonder if they will remember this experience as a positive one, and not just remember being in a hospital. One of the boys from Zanzibar is 14 and will definately have memories of being away from home, with no family with him, in a foreign place and I realized, I am quite similar to him. I am there to volunteer and play with him and keep in entertained, but in a way, its also the other way around, he also keeps my mind off of how far away from home I am, and how I also have no family here, and dont speak the same language as everyone else. We are in quite a similar situation, and realizing that made me have an epiphany, I wouldnt want to be playing with puzzles either, or doing nothings with pipe cleaners. My real challenge now is finding a way to connect with him on his level, because he is a young adult, but he didnt choose to move to a foreign country for a few months, he had to, and I am going to take that into consideration for the next month or so of my volunteering because his time here should be an meaningful an experience as mine.
Volunteering has been really really great. I have been in charge of more and more activities each day for the kids in the gan and I have been having a lot of fun with all of them. Also, one day I really connected with one of the teachers. She began asking me about my family and I could tell she was really trying to get to know me better. I really felt like I finally made that connection and I could tell how much she appreciated that Jen and I were volunteering at her gan. She began to open up to me and tell me things about herself and it really made me happy.
I also recently found out that we volunteers get to be in charge of a project at our volunteer placements. My initial reaction was that I was a little nervous that I would have to be in charge at my gan and plan activities for one whole day. Then Jen and I thought of many creative ideas and activities that we could do at the gan. We thought of some creative art projects that we would try and teach the kids their names in Hebrew and in English. I am really looking forward to being in charge of the gan for a day because that is why I am here to volunteer and to really get that chance to make a big impact on these kids. I feel that by me teaching them maybe how to write their names of at least how to say their names in English, it will be something that they can definently remember!
When I started volunteering at the Gan I felt like I was the only one who was not good with speaking hebrew. It created obstacles for me that were hard to overcome with the children. Recently I have realized that I am not the only one in the class who isn't familiar with the language. We have a small group of about four Russians who cannot speak hebrew but they do understand. There is Valeria, Laura, Bar, and Ines. They follow the teacher's directions but they cannot respond in Hebrew instead they just smile and sit in silence. For instance the other day at the playground I was yelling at Ines to stop climbing up the tree and she came over to my bench and started explaining herself in a something I cannot even explain. I was so lost I couldn't stop laughing at her but in hebrew I tried to explain to her that I didn't speak Russian! She just giggled and kept talking in her own little language and I just sat there in a puzzle. Laura is our other Russian she speaks hebrew but sadly her accent is so thick that not even the teachers can understand her. Tali and I don't know what to do about her because she talks a lot and we have no response for her? Bar is our little boy who sits in silence. He does smile at me sometimes and he listens and follows directions but he doesn't speak hebrew so he has problems playing with all of the children. Valeria is the last of the group she is shy and quiet but she tries to be so innocent when she is a bad little girl. She doesn't listen and the teachers know that she understands she just doesn't care sometimes. One time I even caught her eating plato..and I know she understood me when I told her to stop one million times! This week that is what we focused on most was the russian language barrier we face with those four silly little children. Hopefully each day as my hebrew improves so will my little group.
Over the past few days I've seen a few kids misbehaving and the responses from those incidents. One girl got mad that i moved her walker that she was not using to make room for another student at the table. She tried to spit on me, but it hit a student instead. She was not given any consequence. Today during a break two girls got into a fight and were hitting each other. I don't know that cause of the fight, however one girl got brought to the princpal's office for awhile and the other girl went back to having break. Later I saw the girl from the principal's office walking around again as though nothing happened. Finally at the end of that break a student walked by another student in a wheel chair and smacked her upon the head. No one payed much attention to this incident at all, not even to check if the girl in the wheel chair was ok.
These situations make me curious as to why behavioral incidents are handled the way they are in Israel and specifically in this special needs school. I understand that a lot of the time the kids may not know better, however if you discipline them they can learn proper behavior. I wonder if regular Israeli schools ignore misbehavior like this one does. In my schooling at home any of those incidents would have resulted in consequences, such as a warning, detention, suspension or revocation of privileges.
One of the Israelis at my camp once told me that kids are given a lot less discipline and more freedom in Israel. Thus far I can confirm that his statement was very true.
Dear Journal,
This past week has been a pretty wacky one at Ohavim. For some reason the food this week seemed unusually nauseating. As i served and prepared the meals, i heard a few complaints that the food tasted old, and one woman claimed that there was mold on her shnitzel. The next day, we ran out of cucumbers and lettuce so we were forced to make an all cucumber Israeli salad. And to top off the week, on Thursday, we ran out of food. I never thought that running out of food at Ohavim would even be possible, since typically we have pots of extra food we throw out at the end of the day. It worried me a bit that the food was sub-par, but i was even more worried by the idea of turning away hungry people from the soup kitchen.
As i talk to and get to know more and more of the regulars at Ohavim, I'm starting to feel worse about many of their situations. When i first started volunteering, I grouped all "Ohavimers" together, but now that I've begun actually getting to know these people and building relationships with them, I can relate to and pity their individual situations.I expected most of the people to be Israelis with serious mental issues, which prevent them from holding down steady jobs. Although there are a some loony people, from what i see, most of the people are completely stable their problem however is that they are not educated. Many of the people that come are Russian and Ethiopian immigrants, who were never really taught how to adapt to Israeli society, others are just Israelis who never received proper educations and don't have enough ambition or confidence to do much.
My volunteering has turned out to be a really great place to help out at; however, i still want to get some other experiences and am talking with Noah, from the yearcourse office, in order to arrange a Wednesday afternoon volunteering placement. As i was leaving Ohavim, Moshe one of the usuals at the soup kitchen started up a conversation with me. He saw that i was reading the book The Exodus and told me that he came to Israel on an Exodus-like boat, from Poland. He continued, saying that if i wanted to know the true story, i should go to some museum in Tel Aviv. I had another encounter at Ohavim this week toward the end of meal time on Monday. One of the old Israeli regulars, known as Captain, started up a conversation with me and one of my co-volunteers. He began by asking us, in a shy mix of Hebrew and English, where we were from, and why we were volunteering at Ohavim. He then immediately asked the girl i was volunteering with, if she believed in G-d. The girl said, "I'm not sure", and after some visible disappointment on the seemingly secular old mans face, he said, " if you don't believe in G-d, you are stupid!" I really found it incredible that a random man with short grey hair,mismatched socks, and dirty pair of corduroys, was so sure of G-d's existence. I'm not quite sure why i found it so amazing, but while both kids and adults often dodge questions about G-d, much like my friend did, this old man, came right out and said his true feeling about G-d within the the first few minutes of our conversation.
The children know my name.
It has taken about 5 weeks, but they finally know my name. They can't pernounce it perfectly because they are deaf, but I know they know me. It feels good.
My ganent has a made a point to tell me that she finds me helpful, and I was glad to hear it. They do feed us everyday, and at first I think they thought it was a nuisance, but now they seem happy to. I have bonded with my two co-volunteers and the three ganents. I'm happy with my placemet.
At service training, our group leader told us we are supposed to try and run one activity at the Gan. You know, opposed to just assisting an activity, we should plan one and implement it. My co-volunteer and I thought up some ideas, but we have yet to bring it up to our ganent. I'm not sure why we havn't mentioned it. I hope it's not laziness.
While playground time is long, hot, and tiring, it really is my favorite part. (Next to meal time of course.) I love practicing my hebrew with the children, and I even found some cool Russian kids who will translate Hebrew to Russian for me.
Yeah volunteering!!
This week was definitely a lot better than the weeks I spent at the hospital. It is very interesting to see a little of how the farm works. We picked tangerines and learned which are good and which are bad, we sprayed weed killer on the weeds, we pulled out the weeds, we cleaned the tangerines with a very interesting machine, and we trimmed the trees.
Trimming the trees was probably my favorite thing to do out of all of the work that we have. We don’t cut so that the tree will take up less space, but so that it will grow back better. It’s very meditative, and somehow relaxing. It lets me think abut anything from the paradox of destroying in order to create to how I could make a bloodier video game.
When we’re not working, we are usually sitting in a shed with one of the farmers. He seems happy to have us, and is often making jokes that are only funny to him, but we try to laugh along. He also speaks Spanish, so those of us who know fluent Spanish can speak with him freely. Unfortunately, I have never taken a Spanish class in my life, but it allows others to make a better connection with him.
Later in the week, the head farmer came back from his vacation to Paris. I think he went to see a wedding. He was a lot more focused than the farmer we had been working with so far, as well as being much more uptight. Often, we were divided between the two farmers. Although the work was not easier with the first farmer, it was not as tense. The head farmer probably felt the responsibility of keeping the farm going a lot more than the other one.
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