Tuesday, May 31.  We’re going to visit more students and teachers today at the Mar Elias School — the school that Father Elias Chacour founded.  This time, we’ll be with younger students.  I wasn’t so sure it would be as interesting or rewarding as it was.  I’ve seen my share of schools — first as a parent and then as a substitute in all grade levels and then in the high school working with students who have special needs.  This was, however, much more rewarding than I had counted on. 

Starting with joyous fourth graders — we got to watch them in action reading aloud in English and even answering questions on the reading and working on moving between the singular/plural versions of words.  This was amazing because they don’t even start working on English lessons until the 3rd grade with just the rudimentary letters/numbers, etc.   The teacher told us she had never seen the students as quiet before and that we could come back anytime.

Moving on to the 8th graders — typical 8th graders wanting to take pictures with us of course, but it was impressive to see what great attitudes they seemed to have.  Someone in our group commented on how they may be more motivated than some of our American counterparts at home.

Later, we had time to talk with some college students training to become teachers.  They spoke candidly about the day to day issues young people face because of the injustices — even if just the fact that when they went to the mall to shop, they very well might get stopped and have their bags searched assuming they would be a threat.