Wadood+Journal+Entries

Each is a page long on Microsoft Word __Journal 1__:

I had just started service late into the first quarter and was trying to wrap my head around what I had to do and the concept of “service hours”. I was stuck in regards to what I had to do and I asked Mrs. Mazhar for some guidance and she recommended that I either teach orphans in Maadi, help out at a clinic with Taymour or help Mrs. Lantz teach Sudanese children. The third choice appealed to me as I had seen a presentation on it the year before and it seemed interesting. Prior to going for the first time, I thought these children were able to communicate in English albeit on a basic level. They simply needed help writing an essay or other such projects. I also thought that they would be immature and unruly from what I had heard, despite having a bit of doubt about this. I had based my Action Plan on these things and was ready to go.

Early in the second quarter, I met with Mrs. Lantz at the back gate for the first time and I noticed that I wasn’t alone in this endeavor, far from it. The school was somewhere in Maadi near the Grand Mall and needless to say, I was surprised at the run-down state which was in. I went into the ground floor of the apartment building and there were Sudanese kids of several ages being taught in different classrooms. I met the head-teacher and I instantly had great respect for the man. I walked out into the outer area and found Mr. Ramadan (the head-teacher) preaching religious statements. Afterwards, Mrs. Lantz gave a little introduction and divided us up into groups after telling us what to teach the kids.

The boy I was assigned to was called Boulos and he was friendly. I had an advantage over the rest of my peers because I spoke Arabic and I was able to use that as a bridge for my teaching. Boulos was smart; he was able to speak basic English and it was obvious he understood the material but he just had trouble expressing it. He showed me a basic essay he wrote about himself and it looked good, despite messy handwriting and miniscule grammatical errors. However, it was incredibly difficult explaining some grammatical concepts to him yet, in time, he got some idea of them. But I feel that I should say that not all kids had the same mental capacity as he. I had fun the first time I went but I was saddened by the fact that these kids are so underprivileged. While some were able to function well in an English environment, others had a lot of trouble and were reluctant to learn such a mysterious language. I knew it was going to be hard but I was determined to help them learn more as the year progressed.

__Journal 2__: It was nearly the end of the second quarter and I had already gone to FACLC a few times. I had become acquainted with a lot of the kids that were there and they seemed cool. I had learned about how to better teach them, per sé, and to make my communication more effective, especially since the Arabic language barrier that the rest of my peers were affected by didn’t affect me. One day I had gone to the school and found that Mrs. Lantz was teaching them math.

While there were problems, there was a lot of success. Math seemed to include concepts that they grasped faster and more easily than any English or scientific concepts. The maximum amount of time we spent on one math concept was about 5-10 minutes which, to be honest, is quite fast. Mrs. Lantz had assigned me to a small group of 4 boys, two of which I cannot remember. The other two were called Boss Peter and Doss Peter; they were brothers. I taught the four of them such things as absolute value and we went over and revised such things as long division, long multiplication, addition and subtraction. Again, they had nearly no trouble with this and finished the exercises I gave them quite quickly, even the final test at the end of the day went quite smoothly.

However, there still were some small problems. Two of the students seemed to not feel like learning and I had no idea what to do to motivate them. They did the work and everything but they were just reluctant to learn and were distracted by other things. This makes it harder to teach them and they’ll obviously learn a lot slower but it wasn’t too serious so hopefully ill be able to work that out later.

Today and the few days before made me feel like things are looking up, per sé. I was happy that my effort actually mattered as the kids seem to be both warming up to me and getting a better feel for the language, especially since they can get help from someone who speaks their native tongue. I’m still determined to help them enhance their English usage and I am quite confident that the students I am teaching will be able to speak English as well as some of the older Sudanese kids.

__Journal 3__: It was relatively late in the third quarter and I had needed to catch up on several hours, so I began going to FACLC more frequently than before. I recall one day, I went early and was there alone; only Mr. Rabih, one of the teachers who had a really raspy voice but was a good man, and a few young students were there. I had waited for about a half hour, during which Mr. Rabih and I were talking about school and life in general, before the older kids began showing up.

There was still an hour or so before Mrs. Lantz showed up with the day plan but Mr. Rabih offered that I teach the older kids some science. I was nervous about this to begin with because I really can’t control a group of kids that are my age or older for long enough that I can teach them science and concepts even I don’t understand yet. I had no authority and no experience. What’s more, the subject they had next on their curriculum was magnetism, I had no idea why.

It began roughly. I introduced myself as Karim but Mr. Rabih insisted that I be called “ostaz” which didn’t exactly help the situation. I went around asking people their names and I had already known some of them so we went on after that. I began by putting it into context; why we learned about north, south, east and west. I had known at least some kids in the class were muslim so I was talking about finding the qibla by knowing the direction of north and I asked who was muslim. I had a bit of trouble here because there was one muslim boy in the class but he decided to mess around with me a little and make some fun. I took it alright and laughed it off and made fun of him lightly too and we all laughed about it.

After 15 minutes I ran into my first real problem; I ran out of things to talk about so I just froze. But sooner or later, my saving grace, Mrs. Lantz showed up and was there to take control. Needless to say I gave a huge sigh of relief as she took me to the side and explained to me what exactly we were going to do today and divided up the kids into groups depending on how many kids we had.

This was the toughest time I had at FACLC, mostly because I was a bit nervous but it showed me that teaching really isn’t as easy as many of us might think. It was a new experience though and despite the obvious discrepancies, I’m happy I can teach from a different position.

__Journal 4__: The CAC school year was drawing to a close and as of now, I had spent a large amount of time dedicating my effort to Sudanese children mainly for the sake of teaching them and helping them learn, with gaining hours and passing class being a side advantage. This journal will be about my last experiences with the Sudanese kids this year and a reflection on my service experience.

As I said before, the CAC school year was coming to a close as I returned from my wonderful spring break vacation. This meant that I had little time to complete my hours, but I figured that if I went to the school each Saturday for three hours, I would be in the clear. However, as it turned out, the school had, unfortunately for me, decided to close for summer one month early because of the elections.

While I and the other FACLC visitors were in a panic, Mrs. Lantz came up with a great idea; the girls would take the female Sudanese children to her house to cook and do whatever girls do at their houses while the males would take the males to CAC and play football there. As it turned out, it was actually quite fun; I enjoyed myself very much and felt that Boutros and Dos Peter enjoyed themselves as well.

Without a doubt, the year was challenging for me as it forced me to adapt my schedule so that it would dedicate a huge amount of my time to something that wouldn’t have any bonuses for me in return except for self-satisfaction and a great life experience. At first, going to the school was strange yet it was easy getting along with the kids there. We had one major thing in common; we both spoke Arabic. This set me apart from most of the other people that went with me and helped me get along with them better. I met two remarkable men this year as well. I’ve come to learn that Peter Ramadan and Mr. Rabih are two men who deserve the utmost respect and have earned mine because of their hard work and their dedication to ensuring that the student that they supervise get the opportunities that they have been deprived of because of their given social state.

This year was not only enjoyable, but gave me valuable teaching experience, which would help me look through the eyes of a teacher, not just a student. This, as I have learned, would help my relationships with my teachers as I understand the occasional plight that they have to endure in order to teach us. With my teaching experience, I found that I have made a few friends too and that I have gained a sense of self-worth and self-satisfaction unlike any other because I knew that I had actually helped these kids, regardless of how small an extent it was.

To summarize, I really enjoyed teaching the kids as they were mostly very eager to learn what I was ready to teach. I was surprised to find out that some of them had hidden talents for things; excessive knowledge of math, knowledge of all African capital cities, etc. Mrs. Lantz was also a really good sponsor who was constantly helpful. I feel that this year was quite a good start to my high school service learning experience and I am looking forward to having more like it in the future.