As an intern, my initial fears revolved around whether I could provide the education these children deserved. But as the days unfolded, those fears transformed into a deep bond with my students. It's hard to imagine not seeing their excited faces and sharing in their learning journey each day.
Read MoreIt was the Tuesday of my second week into teaching, and I was finally beginning to get the hang of it all… or so I thought. For today’s exercise, we were tackling a semester-long project I had invented and coined as the “Verb Monster” activity. Thinking myself quite clever, I’d designed the activity to teach my students simple sentence structure…
Read MoreWalking through the streets of Nablus, it is difficult not to notice all the children. There are children playing soccer and cycling in the streets, children selling watermelon and cucumbers in the Old City, and children laughing with friends on steps to pass the time.
Read MoreDuring my time at TYO I have learnt a lot; and I learnt the most during the craft activities in my classes. Teaching grade 1 during the summer camp meant I was able to dedicate lots of the time to simple activities that would help the children engage with the topics we were discussing.
Read More“Use your words.” It’s a phrase I heard countless times as a kid, and one that naturally slipped into my vocabulary as an adult. Yet after the first few weeks of teaching an energetic class of second graders at TYO, I started to feel like a broken record repeating this adage of the past. Every accidental nudge, misunderstanding, or interpersonal issue snowballed into a larger conflict
Read MoreIntroducing our fall 2019 International Interns. Our interns Chambri and Laura have arrived to Nablus to support our programs for children, women, and youth. Learn more about them.
Read MoreFor any of us who have travelled, the excitement and diversity of our world never ceases to amaze and drive us. However, not everyone has this privilege. This realization immediately motivated the core focus of my summer course’s design: I wanted to share how exciting and different the world around us is, in a way that fosters my Grade 5 students’ self-awareness and curiosity.
Read MoreEvery second grader hates to lose. Building a healthy relationship with defeat is not easy for adults, much less for 7-year-olds. At TYO’s summer program, youth learn critical socioemotional skills through play. This involves lots of engagement, excitement, and fun, but with games also comes the possibility of losing.
Read MoreAfter a typical day in my first-grade summer class, students leave for home with muddy shoes and dirt under their fingernails, because they have just spent an hour submerging their hands in flower pots, smelling and tasting herbs, and inspecting all the curves and dents of a flower bulb or a seed. We have ditched pencils for watering cans and notebooks for piles of soil.
Read MoreDuring my time at TYO, I had the unique opportunity to work with the Youth Rehabilitation Through Entrepreneurship Program (YREP). This program plays a pivotal role in combating unemployment in Palestine. Last year, Palestine’s unemployment rose 5.4%, from 24.5% in 2017 to 29.1% by the end of 2018.[1] In a society where job opportunities are scarce…
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