Back to school!

I spent a lot of time in the classroom today, probably double what I spend on a typical day at school (college that is...senior year of high school's 9 straight hours probably takes the overall award in this category).  I accompanied an Israeli girl who has been here since before Shavuot to the primary school and mostly observed as she taught a couple of classes Hebrew, joining her when we deemed it helpful or necessary.  Mostly, I wanted to get a sense of where the students were at, and what the best way to instruct them in Hebrew might be.  We taught P6 and P7 (~ ages 12-13) and a couple of things struck me quite strongly:
1) The main focus is on reading, and understanding is very limited throughout.  Aaron had explained this to me already, but it was interesting to see it in action.  This is mainly because they want kids to be able to read the tefilot (prayers) and Torah, but transmitting a third language (Hebrew) from a second language (English) already breeds enough difficulties, making it nearly impossible to teach children spoken Hebrew. All classes, including Hebrew, are taught in English, though actual knowledge of English, especially at the primarily level, is usually not very advanced.
2) Even with classes at Hadassah being smaller than regular public school classes, the varying levels of the students in each grade is immediately evident within the first few minutes of beginning a lesson.  As in schools all over the world, it's a huge challenge to contend with--some students are obviously bored (they are usually the ones answering the questions) while other struggle, and still others simply space out.
3) It feels WEIRD to teach Hebrew, especially in a Jewish context, at a school in Uganda.  As my Israeli friend expressed to me, it almost "feels like we're missionaries."  We both put emphasis on teaching what the principal tells us, and we are obviously not there to impose anything upon the students or the community (if anything, we are there to learn, not to preach), but when discussing prayer and Torah it is a feeling that is hard to shirk.
There's certainly more to say and muse, but that'll have to be all for now--apparently, I'll be teaching English spelling at the high school tomorrow morning, so I best attend to that!
Layla Tov,
Nava
P.S. To oblige my first-ever comment, a request for a gastronomic account of my day: an omelet, mango, pineapple, avocado, stir-fried vegetables and too much rice. I hope you all found that enlightening. :-)