Appreciation: A Universal Language

With a background in tutoring and working with underprivileged youth, I thought I knew what to expect when I met the seven students with whom we would be working. I had no idea, walking up the stairs to the school on the first day, slightly anxious about using my Hebrew and teaching my own first language to someone as a second language, that I would be so deeply and profoundly affected by the “talmidim,” or students with whom I work. On our first day, they were all a little bit shy, some more than others. As the days went on, though, and the kids began to open up, I began to realize how each of us, tutors and students, were being affected. Not only did we help them with their English, but we also talked about our lives and theirs, and the similarities and differences between them. The girls, for the most part, all love “One Direction,” a new British boy band, and spent a lot of time talking, in English, about each band member. The boys love to play sports, and found some common ground there with another tutor, David. We tutor individually, but we also come together as a group, playing English alphabet games to help increase their vocabulary. We even made up a four-corners style game, where we were all running all over the place depending on whether the person in the middle called out a country, city, animal, or food. The moment that most affected me, though, came on my last day of tutoring. One of my students, Hana, said to me, “You are a good person. I am glad to know you.” Though she spoke in simple English, Hana spoke volumes about the Ethiopian National Project and the relationship we had developed with her kind words. I hope to see her again someday, and I know that she has an incredibly bright future ahead of her.
 Alex Friedman, ENP Intern, Amirim Program, July 2012 University of Pennsylvania '15