Our first week in the Al Moutanabi school

 

The Al-Mutanabi school 

We call it stage and so do the teachers of the school, this is but one of the things we have in common.

Every day we walk to the Al-Mutanabi school. It’s a 20 minute walk, which isn’t that long, but there are a lot of hills, so we work on our condition every day.

The people in Tamra are very friendly and helpful, and so are the headmaster, teachers, students and other staff at the school.
Every day when we arrive at school they welcome us with open arms. They want to learn from us as much as we want to learn from them. Everybody is very interested in where we are from and what we are doing here.

This week we observed the English teachers to get to know what English education in Israel involves. These observations also gave us the opportunity to get to know the school, teachers and the students better. Although there are a lot of similarities, there are some differences. The most striking difference is the relationship between the teacher and pupils. The school week here in Israel starts on Sunday, which is a little adjustment for us because normally, in Belgium, it starts on Monday. But this also means the weekend starts earlier here since the school week is done on Thursday.Also, in Belgium there is a greater distance between the teacher and his pupils, while in the Al-Mutanabi school the relationship is closer and has some more similarities with friendship. 

We reached the top together

through the water

During our first week of the school we got the opportunity to go on a school trip with students of the 8^th grade. Yesterday we went with them to the Golan. The Golan is a beautiful part of Israel because of its nature. During the trip we went on a hike through a part of a river. The students enjoyed it very much, especially the boys goofing around in the water.  We couldn’t do the entire hike in the water, this year there was not that much rain and because of this and the warm weather there has been a drought this year. But still the walk through the beautiful nature of Israel was a great experience, except maybe for the part where I fell, and hurt my hand. But my friends, the teachers and students of the school took very good care of me. 


We enjoyed the trip very much and it was a fun way to get to know the students of the 8^th grade better. 


Gerlinde