News

Thulasi Seshan, United States At 8:55 sharp, Miss Sara would ring the bell calling the students to line up in the courtyard of the Jarrahiyeh school. She and the other administrators and teachers would do the difficult work of wrangling the students into some sort of order, then sending them off into their respective classrooms.…

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Jeromie Whalen, American I woke up at 6:15 AM, took a quick shower, and headed off for school. As a high school teacher in Northampton, Massachusetts, it’s a familiar routine. For this early morning in July, however, it marked the start of another day I had the privilege of experiencing at the Jusoor Educational Center…

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Maya Yammine, Lebanon Today was pretty chaotic… We got a lot done in science, and the majority of those activities were very successful. I started off with the making of some slime, since the students were so fascinated with it, when they said another volunteer did the same. They really enjoyed playing with it, considering…

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Tacarra Lake, American My fear was palpable. Six year olds. In Classroom No. 4, there were rows and rows of tiny humans that hardly resembled the high school students I was so accustomed to working with in the United States. It took the first week of classes to fully grasp how to begin to create…

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Jesse Polenberg, Unites States Today was a good start to the last week we are here teaching. I was a bit concerned about handling my class on the first day of the week, as my co-teacher was ill. But to my surprise, fewer students were present than usual, and I received help teaching from other…

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Jana Sayegh, Lebanon This week I decided that my class would need to learn through their independent, step-by-step work. Usually I’d plan for an activity that requires a teacher’s guidance throughout, but on Monday they only needed me to supply a fixed set of rules and the rest was on them to make of in…

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George Abdallah, Lebanese-American For the past few days, I’ve been noticing one student in particular. At the start of each day, her head is tucked down low. She sits at the same desk, in the far back of the classroom, to avoid having to make eye contact with me or her fellow students. No matter…

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Gianluca Generoso , Italian Another intense day at Jaraahiye is over. As a sports volunteer my task is to help children play during their outdoor break hour. Even if it may seem trivial, it is not an easy task to canalize students’ energy in meaningful and collaborative games, but it is indeed very fun for…

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Esther Ng , Chinese As I ate my man’oushe for the lunch break, a teacher sat opposite me asked, ‘Are any of the volunteers this year from Germany?’ Intrigued by her question and unsure of what to say, I answered, ‘No. I don’t think so. But I think one of the volunteers is half-German’. ‘Oh,’…

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Claire Ziller, American Every day spent at Jeb Jannine is a day spent laughing, exchanging languages and expressing love in every way humanly possible. As a teacher that can’t speak Arabic fluently, I’ve been learning the most genuine forms of human interaction from these kids. My class is around nine years old and they are…

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