All This Waiting: Merhavim Junior High |
The weeks are passing quickly in Merhavim, and soon I will begin my third month. While it is true that time flies here, sometimes at school it seems as if it has stopped altogether. This was one of the reasons I initially hesitated to teach. Although I love teaching and being around children, I dislike waiting and wasting time, and in school everything moves slowly, especially at the junior high level. Lessons are often canceled without warning, and even when they do take place, they rarely start on time. For example, it takes my seventh graders twenty minutes to walk from one building to another, so instead of beginning a lesson at, say, 10:30, I rarely start before 10:50. I assume they arrive late to homeroom after recess and then take forever to gather their things and make their way to the English room. I suppose schools operate according to their own special sense of time.
Other than that, it was a very good week. On Sunday, the members of the Service Year (there are fifteen of us in Merhavim) gathered, and together we drove to see the blooming anemones in the Western Negev (the Gaza Envelope) and visited several historical sites in the area. Our guide was one of our group who became a tour guide after retiring. It was a very interesting visit. Although we did not explicitly mention October 7, its presence was felt everywhere.
For example, the famous annual Anemones Festival of the Western Negev has changed its name from “Red South” (Darom Adom), which has become too painful because of the many atrocities that took place in this region, to “South in the Heart” (Darom Balev). Yet most people get confused and call it “Red in the Heart” (Adom Balev), even though the whole purpose was to eliminate the word “red” altogether.
We were having a picnic lunch when we suddenly noticed another Service Year group nearby. It is truly a wonderful feeling to know that there are so many of us who have come to spend a year in the south.
In general, my work in the two schools has improved. I can say that most of the lessons I taught — twenty-three in total — went smoothly. With the help of the teachers, I am finally able to work with children who struggle but genuinely want to improve.
This is a very precious time, because soon we will celebrate Purim and then Passover, and it is common knowledge that after Passover very little gets done in school. In several of my junior high seventh-grade classes, this is a Bar Mitzvah year, and for some of the young girls a Bat Mitzvah year as well. Last week it was difficult to get the girls to focus on their studies because they were so excited about the Bat Mitzvah party of their friend that was taking place that evening. Still, after everything they have been through in recent years, I was happy to see them excited and giddy