SEPTEMBER 12
I coerced a distant Israeli relative into co-signing my lease, I exploiting the goodwill, brute strength, and luggage racks of three different cab drivers, I spent dozens of painful hours at the bank, I pack and unpacked and packed and unpacked and packed and unpacked, and I think I might have contracted stress-induced eczema.
What I'm trying to get at is that I'm writing this from the living room of my third and final apartment. And it feels terrific.
There was a last-minute, excruciating 48-hour delay in moving because of missed deadlines in the rehab of the unit next door (into which the previous tenants of my apartment just moved). I should have known to expect it: the promises of an Israeli construction contractor are doubly fishy.
The up-side is that my new next-door neighbors, Tal and Arik, have been so warm and generous and welcoming to me (possibly out of guilt, but I'll take it anyway I can get it). They gave me their old vacuum cleaner, two sets of curtains, two kitchen chairs for the breakfast nook in the kitchen, a kam-kam, a suede couch and love seat (both the color of urine, but extremely comfortable), three area rugs, a television, a dvd player, a huge bedroom wardrobe, and a silver lizard screwed to the wall next to the toilet in the bathroom whose curved tail holds the requisite toilet paper. Not only that, but Arik also patched me into their cable TV service and gave me the password to their wireless internet!
Michael is happy with our new home too. His new favorite activity is crying at my feet until I open the doors of the balcony and pull open the bottom set of the shutters so he can stick his head through the slats and wait for unknowing pedestrians, bicyclists, and stray cats to pass by so he can give them his loudest, most basso profundo WOOF and watch them jump, scowl, and hiss, respectively. It's great fun.
He also loves sniffing his way through all the construction detritus left behind by the renovation next-door. For some reason, peeing on splintered two-by-fours and half empty bags of plaster is way, way more fun than peeing on boring old trees and light poles.
Things haven't been all ponies and rainbows, though. I thought long and hard before deciding to share this with you all, but I realized that keeping it a secret would only make it worse.
I bought a pair of Tevas.
For those of you who are (blissfully) ignorant of these sartorial shandas, just imagine all the grace and style of an orthopedic walking shoe, stripped down to its clunky sole and with the addition of velcro-trimmed nylon straps.
Basically, these are the ugliest sandals in the world. They're favorites of the granola set, the type of nouveau-hippy-crystal clutching-backpacker-hydroponic gardener whose shoes have to be sturdy enough to hike and trek through the wilderness, but also permit the toe-baring integral to their deep connection with the electromagnetic energies of the earth's chi.
They are also popular with people who have horrible toenail fungus.
And here in Israel, where they were first spawned (in some horrible shoe-laboratory, deep in a hastily-converted bomb shelter, as part of some sinister plot hatched by the Israeli secret police), wearing them is basically a civic responsibility. I spotted a dozen or so pairs at the wedding I went to last weekend.
Iam all for inter-cultural understanding, but heinous footwear is where I usually draw the line. Look, living in Holland doesn't mean you have to clump around in wooden clogs, and spending time in Japan doesn't necessitate a pair of those thong sandals with the little white ankle socks.
But. I'm going on a day trip to Jerusalem tomorrow, with everyone else in my cohort, and we're going to spend the afternoon in the City of David—which is sort of like a theme park, except with all sorts of ancient ruins and architectural finds instead of roller-coasters and cotton candy stands. So, actually, it's not at all like a theme park. But the main draw at this place is the network of underground tunnels (I know, I know. First Bet Govrien, now this. What I can say? The Jews of old were a cave-loving people). These tunnels are rocky and dark, it takes about 45 minutes to travel through them, and they're filled with water—the levels are apparently between waist and knee-high, though that's vague sort of estimate when it comes from someone 6'2'' (our guide, Ilan). So, Ilan told us we were required to bring along a pair of what he crisply termed “sport sandals,” with his South African accent. Or, if we didn't have a pair, he would permit us to wear a pair of “Aqua-Sox.”
What could I do? I was stuck, as said, “between the devil and deep blue sea.”So, I sulkily chose the lesser of the two evils, and slunk into the “Steve's” outdoor store at the Dizengoff mall. Now, as a completely inexperienced, unseasoned hiker and camper, I normally love these stores. All the little collapsing cups and space-foam mattress pads and water-purifying tablets—ooh, and the rainbow selection of carabiners!—give rise to vague fantasies of tromping around in some sunny forest wearing sweat-wicking socks designed by the U.S. Army, eating beanie-weenies cooked over a campfire before snuggling into my sleeping-bag spread out under the stars.
But then I remember that I hate beanie-weenies. And that I really, really hate peeing outdoors. But until I recall all that, I can spend hours inspecting compasses, listening to the virtues and drawbacks of different tent models, and imagining what freeze-dried beef stroganoff would actually taste like, once reconstituted.
Not on this visit though. Instead, I slunk to the footwear section, where I was greeted with a veritable orgy of Teva sandals and their many imitators. It was disgusting. After I swallowed my vomit, I gingerly poking through the selection, I picked out the least offensive of the lot. Plain black nylon straps and a black sole. I brought I brought them to the register, holding them away from me between thumb and index finger in the same manner I carry Michael's bags of doody on walks. And once the sale was completed, the cashier thoughtfully placed my purchase in a plain brown shopping bag, ensuring me the same anonymity allowed to purchasers of hard-core pornography or hemorrhoids medication.
I had to swallow a little vanity, but even though they may not look good, man oh man are they a dream to wear! Lightweight, sturdy, and incredibly comfortable. And I don't even mind donning the huge pair of Jackie O.-style sunglasses and the blond wig
SEPTEMBER 3
The dog has recently discovered how to transubstantiate. Or, at least, that's my lead hypothesis at the moment, since I've come home to Temporary Apartment Number Two: Electric Bugaloo on three separate occasions to find him waiting for me at the front door, outside of the bedroom/study area where I had sequestered him behind a securely closed bedroom door. Maybe I could earn some extra tuition money by taking the dog on the road and staging spectacular escapes, like a modern-day, canine Harry Houdini. I mean, you'd pay 69.90 (plus TicketMaster charges and handling fee) to see that, right?
No?
Alright, this more mundane explanation is probably the right one. The bedroom's attached office closes with a heavy sliding glass door, rather than one on hinges. And somehow, the dog has learned to nudge ithis door open just far enough for him to wriggle out, Riki-Tiki-Tavi style. Or at least that's what I think. Mom and Dad actually bought me a tiny camera designed to attach to a dog's collar document what the dog does when its alone in the house, as a lark. But now I'm really regretting leaving it in Chicago.
So, I've co-taught two days of school so far, and as I was warned, the cultural differences between American and Israeli public schools are huge. There are lots of little things. Like, the kids have two recesses, one ten-minute one in the first half of the day and one twenty-minute one in the second half. The school day begin at 8:00and end at 2:00, instead of 3:00 or 4:00. However, almost all of the kids spend the hours between 2:00 and 6:00 in what we would call extracurricular activities, for which they pay additional tuition. Elhareezi has one of the largest offerings of after school options in the city. This year, besides playing basketball and soccer, kids can join dance classes, learn how to draw comics, make pottery, take music lessons, or help in the zoo.
Yes.
The School Zoo. Okay, this is not an Israeli school thing. The Zoo is unique to Elhareezi, and I'm not quite sure what the genesis of the whole program was, or how long it's existed. But on the grounds on the school campus, beyond the front gates, in between the basketball courts and the soccer field, is a little red wooden bungalow with an attached outdoor yard. It's currently home to several ducks, two chickens, a pair of huge, floppy-eared bunnies, and an extremely placid pygmy goat. My co-teachers told me that the zoo will incubate and hatch chicken eggs in another few months (always a thrill for grade-school kids) and shelter the obligatory butterfly cocoons (also nice) and that they sometimes also have alpacas, adolescent lambs or even ponies. Apparently they also had guinea pigs at one point, but they didn't get all one gender, so the resulting surge . . and reduction. . . in the guinea pig population was very disturbing for the children (Who wants to be the teacher who explains that some of the Guinea pig mommies ate a lot of their guinea pig babies? Not me.)One of the long-time teachers is the zoo-keeper, and she also takes care of the huge (6 feet wide and probably 7 or eight feet tall) aviary of little birds (a bunch of parakeets, plus several others whose names I don't know)adjacent to the main stairway in the school itself.
But while there is a zoo, there's no cafeteria. Israeli kids eat during a twenty-minute gap between second and third periods (so around 10:00 or 11:00 o'clock) in their classrooms, and while the period is called “breakfast,” most kids eat that in the morning at home and just have a snack at school.
Gym class is held two or three times a week, always outdoors (unless there's rain), and it begins with a mystifying series of what looks like a mixture of calisthenics, tai chi poses, and yoga asanas.
The kids buy all of their textbooks before school begins, instead of using school copies, and they organize their work in six-inch tall two-hole binders and write tiny little notebooks that look just like college exam “blue books,” only with plastic covers. . . usually covered in pictures of “High School Musical,” or the like.
But the Israeli kids themselves are the biggest difference. One of the older teachers struggled to describe their temperament to me on the first day of school. Finally, she told me, “We say they are like little animals. I'm not sure what they are called in English, but we say they are like groups of a sort of kind of wild goats.”
Great.
I guess the best way to put it is to just say that Israeli children really have a lot more chutzpah. A whole lot more. They are, to to borrow from the AKC's description of the purebred dachshund:
“Highly vocal, intelligent, and brave to the point of brashness.”
The organization of the classrooms do nothing to quell these qualities. Like primary schools everywhere, the walls are covered in pictures, charts, student work, written reminders like,“No fighting,” written in stark red letters in a 6th grade room) and institutional propaganda, such as “Math is Fun!”( written in glittery paint on one on of the fourth grade walls). But the rooms themselves are only big enough to comfortably seat say, twenty or twenty-five students. Instead, the typically host around forty kids. And their desks. And their straight-backed chairs. And their backpacks. And their personal cubbies (in lieu of hallway lockers). And all the other flotsam and jetsam elementary-school kids seem to accumulate.
This makes for a very crowded room. What's worse, the kids are seated in pairs at small tables, rather than desks, making cross-talk during lessons irresistible, and cheating during exams almost effortless.
Just working silently, or heeding the (constantly, constantly repeated) admonition to “Raise your hand and wait to be called on before you speak (goddamnit)” is a huge challenge for Israeli kids. In America, following directions, listening to the teacher, waiting for your turn, and working well with others are (for better or worse) constantly drilled into kids heads from the first day of preschool. But in Israel, early childhood education isn't standardized, kindergartens are all private, and the preschool teachers are more circus ringmasters than instructors.
I'm fortunate because, once the beginning of the year English language placement tests are processed, I'll take the native English speakers and the students who are deemed “advanced” outside of the large English classes to do more specialized instruction—in so called “Native Speaker English Enrichment” classes. I'll be able to lead writing projects, plan my own lessons, and tailor the classes to the individual goals and interests of each child. I even get to choose my own textbook (which I can follow or deviate from as required).
The full-time, salaried teachers are not so lucky. I can't imagine having six (50-minute) periods a day of barely-contained chaos. Plus, the teachers have to stick pretty closely to strict (but constantly changing) Ministry of Education-mandated curriculum and standards, and don't have the extra help to implement lessons more ambitious than the ones set out in the subject's text and workbook, which sounds very stifling. And, in spite of unions that have grown far more powerful in recent years, teachers in Israel are paid the lowest salaries of anyone in the so-called “Developing World,”though, to be fair, salaries across all professions are much, much lower (in spite of a fairly high cost of living) all across Israel.
One thing I do love about Israeli schools is the hand-raising system. In Israel, students generally raise their hands while pointing their index finger. However, when they raise their hand to ask permission to go to the bathroom, they raise their index and their middle fingers together (like in the Boy Scout pledge). So, it's easy to wordlessly nod yes or no to bathroom requests without interrupting the flow of the lesson. I think this should be implemented in American schools post-haste.
However, amidst all these differences one bit of teaching wisdom was the same.. The head of the English department, Vered, advised me, as so many vets have advised first-year teachers, to not smile until a mid-year holiday. Only, instead of saying to wait 'til Thanksgiving or Christmas, like everyone says in the U.S., she told me to wait until after Chanukah.
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