Let's Reflect on This Year
First Year Teaching English
Summer Course - HOTAM
The course was very busy, We woke up early every morning, and went to sleep late at night.
Being in such a hectic course means you get you know people very closely in a very short time. I was lucky enough to meet some people there, who now I can refer to as my friends.
Being on the verge of ending a huge part of my life as a military career and starting a new career as an English teacher, there was one specific song that kept playing in my head:
"And if I was a bit sad
I may have learned something important from it
Cause when it's over
There's a reason for everything..."
"A big light is shining through
And there's no more questions
I'm here to learn from the good things and live
To start all over
Like breathing for the first time
I'm here, I'm not being wasted anymore"
Those lyrics expressed what was going inside my head these days and this song is very dear to my heart. Hope you will enjoy it same as I did,
Starting to Teach... Wait... It's the Holidays!
Being an army officer for over eight years, I never really had a proper vacation since I was 18 years old. So a friend and I flew to Barcelona for five days. It was amazing! We didn't go to see MC Barcelona's soccer game, something I thought is very reasonable cause we were two girls, but when I got back to Israel many people, females included, thought I was crazy for not going to see Messi playing live.
I hope to visit Spain again one day. I wouldn't mind going to Barcelona for the second time, but I really want to visit some more areas of Spain, such as Madrid and more.
My First Bagrut
The first bagrut exam I prepared my students to was this winter's bagrut of three points. They are poor level class, even for three points. It was in January I think. I remember going to school on Hanukkah to give some extra lessons to my students, but only one showed up. Next day a different one showed up. It obviously made me feel bad - those kids just doesn't care enough and I failed motivating them to come to these lessons.
Many of them failed the Bagrut, as they expected. I called their parents to ask for their cooperation in making their 11th grade kids understand the importance of showing up to class, bringing dictionaries and so on, but unfortunately it didn't help much.
On May the kids took their second English bagrut exam, not with much success yet again.
I guess many students feel as presented in the following Pink Floyd song:
Summer Vacation - At Last!
But I want to end this with a positive tone.
Although school year has ended officially on June 20, I'm still working. We still have meetings at school, my kids had bagrut exams and now the current military operation in Gaza also forces us teachers to be attentive and stay in touch with the students, their parents and the social / psychological services.
Still, not having to go to school everyday is good, I count it as a vacation.
So I wish us all a happy, fun vacation.
And good luck next year!
BTW,
I work in a school named after Neomi Shemer. Here's a song for the summer vacation: