Italy in Hanukkah

Hanukkah is a major holiday in Israel. So I will be flying to Italy over Hanukkah to spend 8 glorious days traveling from Northern to Southern Italy with the amazing Anna Tzizik! We will be eating the best food there is, drinking the best wine there is, and not to mention seeing the birthplace of the Renaissance. As our friend, Matt, likes to say, "Huzzah!". Two days until departure, break hasn't even started and I am already there.

OUR ITINERARY... Abridged:

Depart Tel Aviv Friday at 1am and arrive in Belgium at 5 in the morning for an 8 hour layover. This is when Anna and I train to Brussels and get Chocolate Belgium Waffles and Beer.

Depart Belgium (au revoir); arrive in Venice just before sunset (taking in city from the sky, there will be lots of photos so don't worry!)

Meet ANNA'S EXTENDED FAMILY! Yes, we will be staying with her legit Italian family (So, YES there will be wine and awesome home cooked meals) Vicenza! is the name of the city and will be our departure point for the beginning escapades.

Next few days, totally and completely unplanned and I couldn't be happier to spontaneously adventure through Northern Italy with Anna and perhaps see few other countries as well nearby!

Head south and meet Anna's other family who just happens to live in ROME!!

AND...as the saying goes...WHEN IN ROME :-)

Off to Florence! Our amazing friend Sarah (who lived in Florence) provided us the golden list of what to see and what to do. We will hopefully complete all of these things before time runs out.

Then we take the day train back to Venice and laugh from the tremendous memories made in our 8 days of Hanukkah trip to Italy

Arrive in B'eer Sheva at 4am. Just enough time to change clothes, pop an aleve, and head to our 7am teacher training class.YESH!

So, that's the plan. Will write again after to let everyone know the results :-)


Ciao!

Miss Lowen? Who is that?

Teaching is the best and worst job.Some days I exit the school grounds and I can't stop smiling. Other days I am trying as fast as I can to return to my bed so I can crawl under the covers and fall asleep. I teach 1st through 6th grade.Typically I work with 4-6 students per period. I now know all my kids names, and they call me Becca and sometimes Miss Lowen which always makes me slightly uncomfortable. Because I mean who likes to see themselves as a grown up. One day, I entered the first grade class to drop off a key, and all the 1st graders stood up and I literally stopped and looked around to make sure nothing had happened. But all the little kiddos stood there staring at me waiting for me to do something. So I just broke into a smile and walked back out of the class. .. while they giggled. Bemet.
The most challenging aspect of teaching for me has been 1. never feeling good enough 2. disciplining. If the kids don't absorb the material or the lesson plan isn't as interesting as the lesson the previous week and I can't keep their attention, I feel like a total failure as a teacher. I have learned that certain methods of teaching work better than others and certain methods definitely do not work. For example:
1. Station learning works very well: They can work on an activity for the duration of a song and then when the song ends, time to switch!
2. Scavenger hunts for clues around the school so everyone is up and moving, and who doesn't like a little competition
3. Skits!!
4. Lecturing definitely does NOT work
5. Using songs can help
I try to remember on the bad days when a student might have been particularly disruptive or not interested in learning English that I will have a larger impact on that student if I can be patient and calm and remember that teaching is about figuring out what it is the pupil is interested in learning and using whatever that is to propel the student into an engaged and motivated mindset. One of my favorite students (is it bad to say I have favorites) was very challenging in the beginning because he didn't enjoy sitting. Every day he would climb on the table while we were doing an activity and it would be very difficult to get him to stay put. So one day he came up to me during hafsaka (recess) and asked me if I know how to break dance? I told him no, but could he show me? So he began a little minny break dance series right there completely improvised. So the next day I decided to teach the names of body parts and had him teach us a few break dance moves in English at the end. I think he loved it and so did everyone else. Mostly because it was fun! That day I left smiling.