sheets were immediately
transformed into paper
airplanes, spitballs and
writing paper.
I pitied Karen for hav-
ing to face these kids
daily. I reminded myself
that these kids have
problems that led to this
behavior. It was depress-
ing to see them with
such negative attitudes
toward school, but it
added a new urgency to
my personal quest to be
the right kind of teacher.
I pushed the stereo-
types aside and refused
to fall to the frustration,
but it wasn't easy. At
Nahalal, teachers don't
take attendance, and
students don't raise their
hands before speaking.
Teachers assign home-
work, and students don't
do it. I quickly learned
that the remedy for
reaching the students —
and the teachers — was
quite elementary:
patience and a sense of
humor.
One particular morn-
ing as I approached our
classroom, I noticed my
entire class gathered in
the courtyard. A biology
teacher needed our class-
room for an extra hour,
so she took it upon her-
self to use it. To compli-
cate matters, Michelle,
the teacher, was absent
that day.
Ten minutes later, the
seventh-graders had a
substitute classroom and
a substitute teacher: me.
The room served as an
arena for yelling and
fighting, and I was the
referee.
With Michelle, they
had been reading a
much-abridged summary
of the story Annie in
their textbook Tune Into
English. I incorporated
story-related words such
as orphan, wealthy, lone-
ly and happiness into a
game, and was amazed
that they could draw and
guess the correct words.
A success, a small one,
but still a success. It was
enough to help me get
through this part of the
day and move on to
Karen's 12th-graders.

Erica and a friend standing outside the school.

Teaching the 12th-
explaining the rigorous
grade English class not
process required for
only helped me re-learn
entrance into the
grammar, but it allowed
prestigious Israeli Air
me to learn firsthand
Force. For Israeli
about
Israeli
life,
teen-agers, who must
straight
from
the
enter the armed forces at
experts, the teen-agers.
age 18, the dream of
Divided into smaller
being a pilot is compara-
groups, the class of 30
ble in importance and
12th-graders seemed less
desire to admittance to
intimidating. As I
Harvard.
walked around to the
So, I taught and I
various groups and
learned. While I relished
offered input on AIDS,
my position as a respect-
road acci-
dents and
future
army plans
— the hot
senior top-
ics — I
found my-
self linger-
ing over
conversa-
tions with
these very
opinionated
teens. On
the brink of
adulthood,
the stu-
dents en-
gaged in
such knowl-
edgeable
and pas-
sionate
arguments
only in
English,
their sec-
ond lan-
guage.
Adiv, a
particularly
vocal stu-
dent, ..spt
one entire
The Nahalal student body.
class period

ed authority figure, I
often felt like a school-
girl, gaining experience
with each mistake.
Regardless, each day
after school, I would
rush back to our wing in
the school infirmary (our
home for two months),
eager to trade stories
with my fellow
Otzmaniks.
As we lunched on cof-
fee, pretzels and
oranges, we amused our-

selves with re-runs of
classroom antics, which
always began with,
"You'll never believe
what happened in class
today."
One shocking Nahalal
episode involved the
ninth-grader whose
speech about beer includ-
ed an in-class taste-test
of the Israeli brands,
Maccabee and Gold Star.
Another popular story-
line was the in-class
disco, which allowed one
grade level per week to
learn an American line
dance and the words to
"How Do You Do?," an
up-beat song that has
recently topped the
Israeli music charts.
I particularly valued
this time to rehash the
day's comedies and
horrors, for our work did
not end with the final
chimes of the school bell.
After a few hours of rest,
relaxation and restora-
tion, it was time to join
the students once again,
but this time, as their
friend. E