English Day at Rambam

On Sunday, my school finally held its annual English Day!  After a series of changes to scheduling and procedure, everything eventually came together on the 25th.  The following is the description that I wrote for the school newspaper (for some reason, the principal wanted me to write it in English, as if to definitively prove to parents that the school has a real anglophone on its faculty):

"On Sunday, May 25th, 2014, Rambam School in Lod held its annual English Day.  Prior to the 25th, each class prepared materials for use on English Day.  Each class decorated posters depicting the flag, capital city, continent, national food, and primary language of a particular country.  For example, the sixth grade's chosen country was United States of America, and the students created an American flag from construction paper, as well as posters representing Washington, D.C., North America, hamburgers and soda, the English language, and the Statue of Liberty.

"On English Day itself, students traveled from classroom to classroom with handmade paper passports which the English teachers had designed.  Upon visiting each classroom, students wrote down the critical information of the class's country, thereby familiarizing themselves not only with world geography, but also with English terms such as "flag," "capital," and "language," the knowledge of which was necessary for completing the passports.  At the end of the day's special activities, students also received copies of an English newsletter which was a collaborative work of students from different classes, featuring articles on such diverse topics as the Chinese New Year, the construction of the Eiffel Tower, and the contemporary Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi.  The day was organized and facilitated by the school's English teachers Chani, Moshe, and D'vori.  Furthermore, a team of four American volunteers — Harry, Natalie, Noah, and Perrin — came to assist the school's regular English faculty.  Not only did the volunteers' kindness and friendliness quickly endear them to the students, but the volunteers' help was crucial in making English Day a success."

That, anyway, is what happened, according to the books.  I left out a number of details that I considered unimportant to parents, such as the fact that English Day has been one of my most stressful days since I arrived in Israel (possibly related to the fact that I spent Monday, today, home sick from school).  There were so many things to worry about, and, I realized, that, despite all of the planning that the English Teachers and I had put into the day, things just didn't go as planned.  Everyone seemed very pleased with the results, though, which is ultimately the important thing.  The students enjoyed going from room to room, drawing the various countries' flags, and filling out the rest of the critical information on their passports.  The teachers seemed genuinely pleased that students were learning new vocabulary terms.

The most unbelievable part of the day for me, though, as well as the most gratifying, was the way that the members of my program came to help out the students at my school.  I had at first expected only Noah and Harry to come, after I had helped them at English Day at Ofek, their school, a few weeks ago, but then Veta volunteered to help out, to make up for the fact that TZ left the program.  The school suddenly changed the date from a Friday to a Sunday, making it impossible for Veta to come (she spends half of her week in Haifa).  Just a few days after the schedule change, much to my relief, Perrin offered to help, bringing our English Day team back to seven.  Furthermore, when I was riding the bus to school at around 7:15 am, I received a phone call from Natalie.  She told me that she was coming all the way from Petach Tikvah to help me.  I'd like to add that not only was this everyone's day off from work, but that the men needed to wear kippot, and that the women needed to wear modest dress.  Absolutely everyone came, not only arriving early, but instantly making friends with the students and with the school's English teachers.  Perrin, Noah, Natalie, and Harry instantly got to work preparing for the day's activities and meeting students.  It's been a while since I've worked at school with other volunteers (TZ stopped working with any regularity many months ago, because of her health problems), and I've forgotten how much better with students they are than I am.  Much as I struggle with the Hebrew language, my colleagues consistently show themselves much better at communicating, as well as at functioning in general.  Amit and Carmel, our group's two madrichim, also came to assist with English Day, and succeeded in making the day run more smoothly.  All of the other members of the team really threw themselves into their work, and were the reason that the day worked out at all.  I think that the English teachers, too, were very happy to be working with a new group of Americans.

It's getting late here, and I need to go to bed.  I'm hoping that I'll feel well enough to go to school tomorrow.

~JD