“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” ― Margaret Mead

One week of classes done. I know that everyone says this, but it bears reiterating. Teaching is one of the most under-appreciated roles in society. I got home every night dead on my feet, and faced behavioral issues ranging from hyperactivity to disinterest in any activity in the classroom. I had kids who admittedly hadn't eaten anything that day refuse to eat. The kids from our neighborhood show up after school every day, regardless of whether it is their day to take classes, because it gives them an alternative place to spend time with friends and run and play games than in the street.

My teaching schedule works out so that every Sunday I am teaching a professional competency course-- a class I feel woefully under-prepared to teach, since I am essentially teaching my peers. That being said, while I've held a job essentially from the time I was 15 on, most of the students in this class have either never worked or have only worked in the informal economic sector. 

On Mondays and Wednesdays I teach a women's aerobics class and my art class to one group of kids. It has been so much fun and so rewarding to see how into aerobics the women here get. Despite the fact that some of the women maybe have never worked out before (it's not a very big part of culture here) they come and work hard for an hour twice a week. My Monday/Wednesday group of kids definitely has more behavioral issues than my Tuesday/Thursday kids. They are great, but they are more hyperactive, less focused or interested in listening to anything I have to say, and less willing to participate in activities or mix genders at their tables. 

Kids work on designing their own comics in art class.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I teach Advanced English to moms from the center as well as art to my other group of kids. They are a much quieter group, but not without their challenges. At the end of every class, we line kids up by which bus they will take to get home, so the kids going home to the Balata refugee camp are in one line, the kids from Old and New Askar camps are in another, the kids from the Old City and El Ain refugee camp are together in one line, and the kids from our neighborhood, Khallat al-Amoud, are in another line to walk home. Today, lining up in the Balata line, one of the boys looked up at me and said that he was sad that class was over because he had to go back to Balata camp. Knowing that a kid is so sad to go back to his own home, and that here that feeling is so normal that he feels comfortable vocalizing it to practically a complete stranger, was pretty heartbreaking. But all I could do was remind him that I would see him again next week.