English Camp: We are now finished with English Camp for this semester. Schools here continue school through the end of January, when there is a 3-week long winter vacation before second semester starts at the beginning of February. These pictures are from the last two schools we went to, where the students were particularly sweet, engaged, and eager to learn. I have absolutely loved traveling and working with a new group of students almost every week. I will miss camp over the next two months but I am happy to have many varied experiences under my belt now that I can share here.
Teaching Chanukah to an entire elementary school (!!): This is definitely one of the most exciting opportunities I have ever had in my life. The past two weeks have been the most exciting (and the busiest!) this semester. I have been able to teach about Chanukah for a full two weeks; I have taught every class in the school about Chanukah. The teachers and administrators at Chong Qing have been curious to learn and helpful to me as I planned all of our Chanukah programming. For each class, I presented a powerpoint that included an introduction to concepts such as ‘Jewish people’ and ‘Hebrew language,’ and explained the basic story of Chanukah. I also presented key vocabulary, taught a Chanukah song, and showed pictures of Jewish students from my mom’s kindergarten class in the United States. After presenting the powerpoint, I taught the students how to play dreidel and then gave them a chance to spin and play this exciting Chanukah game. Following this, I reheated pre-made latkes, a traditional Chanukah food, and each student was able to eat a piece.
Before all the pictures ... Here is an article about Chanukah at Chong Qing (http://www.pacificnews.com.tw/shownews.php?postnewsid=19&titleid=81632) that was published in an education newspaper. It's all in Chinese, but it's worth a quick look! Everyone here has been so excited to learn about a new holiday and it's wonderful to see that the school made sure this article was published. Several teachers said to me "I'm so glad our kids can learn about something other than Halloween and Christmas," and both teachers and students alike have eagerly been asking questions about this new culture/religion :)
Then
on Friday of the first week, I was able to take about 15 minutes of our weekly all-school
assembly to present a Chanukah program. First I showed an abbreviated version
of my powerpoint. I was addressing an audience with a wide range of Chanukah
knowledge; many students had already had had their Chanukkah lessons, many were
not scheduled to have those lessons until the following week, and none of the
teachers had seen anything yet. Then I welcomed one of our Grade 4 classes to present some Chanukah introductory sentences in both English and Chinese and then to sing I Have a Little Dreidel. I taught this song to students in Grades 1-4, and this particular class was very enthusiastic about performing it, complete with hand motions, for the whole school. Then lastly, I showed a video I made that included clips of Chanukah activities from our students here, from my mom's kindergarten students, and from 8th grade students at the Jewish elementary school I attended from 4th - 8th grade. My 5th grade teacher and I have been compiling and sharing videos of our students engaged in Chanukah activities as part of a cultural exchange project, which was a wonderful addition to our Chanukah programming here.
On
Monday of the second week I was able to put together what was definitely one of the highlights of
the whole experience. During the 20-minute break in the morning, I set up skype
with my mom! She was projected up at the front of our audio-visual room, and
students and teachers came to see Teacher Sara’s mom! Some students sang the
Chanukah song I had taught them (“I have a little dreidel”) and a few more
students asked her some questions. Then, when everyone was there, we watched as
my mom lit the Chanukiah (with real candles!), showed us different dreidels,
sang the Chanukah blessings … and showed everyone our pet rabbit and cat. The
students loved it, oohing and ahhing at the Chanukiah and dreidels, calling out
the different colors of the candles, and waving hello and goodbye to our pets.
The teachers, too, were interested, and some even stayed afterwards to
personally say hello to my mom. It was quite an exciting morning and it was
wonderful to see how much everyone got out of the skype call – including
students, teachers, and my mom.
On
the whole, this experience has been incredibly exciting for me for many
reasons. My school has been nothing but supportive and interested in helping me
bring something new to this community. Many people at my school have a
surface-level knowledge of Judaism (if any at all), and most have never met a
Jewish person before. To be able to give 400+ people a positive experience with
a Jewish person, Judaism, Hebrew, and Chanukah specifically, has truly been a
remarkable opportunity for me.