I was a bit surprised when we showed up at the Youssef School on Friday morning. Ninety-Five third graders stood waiting patiently, still, and silent. I was grateful and thought to myself, “Ok, we can do this after all.” During the day I kept thinking about my very first year of teaching and all the crazy things we did.. …We had a variety of small pets in the classroom (finches, lizards, rats), carved pumpkins at Halloween, glittered cards in December, and swam in the spring….in first grade every day seemed to be an adventure! and this surely wasn't any more challenging I thought! But quietly I wondered if I had enough energy and if we had planned enough. However, when we pulled up in front of our school, gasps of excitement and awe filled the air and I knew that no matter what was going to happen, it was going to be ok. They would be happy with so little.
The elementary students ate sandwiches that the high schoolers had prepared themselves from food they had purchased the night before, from donations from bake sales they had done previously. In the high school office, they worked in assembly line fashion on four tables; they cut baguettes, layered in mayonnaise, cheese and cold cuts, and loudly discussed the days’ plans in Arabic, French and a little English when I requested it. On the field we gathered students on the grass and then divided them into ten different stations, which were lead by two high school students. Baseball with a plastic bat, 2 stations of soccer, hula-hoops, jump rope, the playground, volleyball, and running the track were the activities planned. Gradually over the course of 2 hours, the structure morphed. Students had gone to most of the stations, were able to pick ones they wanted to do again, or connected with one of the high school students, and created games of tag, or hand clapping. At the very end, the entire group had the idea for dancing and I initiated a huge circle in the style of the “bunny hop”. All communication was done non-verbally as I guided my students to speak or lead or move—because the common language for all of them (except me!) was Arabic! In the end I realized what a huge act of faith the entire event and day was and my students said they had chills on their arms and tears in their eyes during the dance.
Comments