This week we began volunteering individually. A group of us are at Gimnasia Atidim, one of the three high schools that serve Ramla. We’re all working on various different projects, from just helping tutor students in English to starting a school newspaper.

Eliza and Sarah have taken on the challenge of teaching a group of oleh hadash (new immigrants) English, but their native language is Spanish which makes the teaching more challenging. Regardless, they are both using their Spanish skills from school to help this new group learn English. Oh, and twice a week, I’ll join the girls in teaching English, thus also brushing up on my Spanish. (Gosh… all these languages are going to make things very confusing. We’ll have to remember which language we’re supposed to be speaking.)

Joey has begun tutoring a group of students for the English portion of their Bagrut (the Israeli equivalent of the SAT). He’s also pairing up with Eliza, Sarah, and me doing a group discussion class one day a week in English.

I have joined a teacher here at the school in the Graphics class, helping teach Photoshop. They’re using an older version, so once I practice a little, I’ll be acting as an aid in the class, walking around helping the students as they need help. (Since it’s a computer course, it’s taught in Hebrew, but mixed with English since the software is in English. Therefore, all the students must understand English, which means I’ll be able to help.)

Five of us (Ben, Josh, Daniel, Eliza, and I) are starting a school newspaper with a group of 10-12 students, in English only. We’re developing plans to first put it on the school’s Internet website, but hopefully also print it on a one page and distribute to the students. There are only about 400 students here, as they only teach 10-12 grades.

Josh has managed to score himself an entire class to teach. At least one day a week, he’ll be teaching his own English class. I guess from what I have heard so far they are short teachers, and since he is just four credits away from his license, they’re using him now.

More to come soon…