Many many many many many many thanks.

   Once a week I help in a first grade classroom listening to kids read their journal entries and typing them so they can have a typed book of writing at the end of the year.  Popular themes include listing friends:
   "I like James.  I like Krista. I like Tre.  I like Khang...."
Talking about recess:
    "At recess I was looking for a friend when I found a rock.  I banged the rock against the wall.
     Before it was sparkly but then it broke and it was really sparkly.  I asked the teacher if I could take it
     home and she said no."
And exclaiming things:
    "I am really really really really really excited to play my WiiU"
     "I very very very very want a bike for Christmas."
     "I am so excited.  I am so so so excited. yes Yes YES! I am excited."


This last theme brings me to the real point of this blog entry.  I had to explain how I must express the depth of my gratitude: I am very very very very very grateful to my wonderful friends and family who donated to JRS for my birthday. yes Yes YES! I am thankful, so thankful, so so so thankful.

My last entry I talked a little about how Sudanese and Somali education at JRS has evolved. Now I want to dream more about where it could go with a little birthday/Christmas money. To give you amazing people who donated an idea of what could be...

After I left Jordan, JRS hired the Sudanese community leader onto their staff. The education project now is made entirely of 30 volunteer teachers, but with growth, the project could look into hiring more teachers and staff from local population.

One of the strong assets the Sudanese and Somalis in Jordan have is their very strong sense of community.  However, with no meeting space bigger than someones small home, it's difficult to have planning or social events.  JRS is a free space, but there are still costs of transportation and food.  Being able to have a meeting or a celebration is an important line on JRS's budget.

Home visits and rent assistance have for a long time been part of JRS's project to serve Iraqi refugees.  When I left, those things had not yet been extended to include the Sudanese and Somali communities.  Sudanese women voiced during discussion groups how little they felt supported by NGO's when they felt Iraqis got so much.  It wasn't so bad all the time, but in the winter it gets very cold.  Heat is expensive, as are clothes, coats, and blankets for the kids.  Alleviating some of this burden would be true service and an amazing way to open minds up for better learning (either kids at school or adults in the education project).  Can you imagine the gift of letting a mother not have to worry if her child will be cold at night?

Finally, most dear to my heart, I know that JRS can do better and expand its "informal" education project.  Working in a school, I know what doors can be opened with a few extra dollars.  It means a whole new set of books, new technology, school supplies, a teacher training manual, a warmer building, transportation to and from school.  Oh the list goes on of things I would love to see those students have.  Typing/computer classes, vocational training, access to JRS's higher education project (which requires mastering English).  All of these things could take  "informal" and turn it into "abnormal" Abnormally offering a depth and breadth of education to those who would otherwise have no opportunity to learn.

So, thank you.  Thank you! Thanks!! thanks you thank thank thank you.  very very very very very very very very much.  I am so so so so so so happy, oh yes, so happy about the support my friends and family gave to this project for me and for my friends/students in Jordan. It was absolutely the best birthday gift I've ever received... and it'll be the best Christmas present too!

What happens in a year

    A year ago, I sat on the floor.  The sole teaching tool, a whiteboard, hung on the wall. Fourteen or so men and boys gathered around me; this was my class.  I don't remember what we learned about that day, if it was simple verbs or nouns.  I'm sure we asked "What did you do today?" because we always did, and I'm sure the answers were "I worked" or "I went to the store" because they always were.  My students were attentive, dedicated, and positive. As I was putting on my shoes to leave, a resounding chorus of "Happy Birthday"  echoed around their home.  My co-teachers had taught them, and they sang with grins, a group that I have no doubt wanted not just my birthday, but me, to be truly happy.
    With so much stuff in this world, society often tells us to feel sorry for those who have less than we do.  However, when we focus on what a population does not have, we often forget how much they can offer us.  From the refugee students I taught in Jordan, I learned how to best wish someone a happy birthday. I learned gratitude, a healthy pride, and how to accept help. I learned a profound ability to take care of each other. I learned community, drive, and dreams.  While materially my students had less than many, in my eyes, they also had much more.  I believe the first step toward social justice, or one of them anyway, is when all people recognize this.  When people know the beauty of their own culture and the depth of their own intelligence.  I run into so many kids who are taught they are trouble, taught they are stupid, taught they are behind, taught to fail.  This is what drives inequality. Stopping this will end hunger more than a food pantry ever could.
   So this year, for my birthday, I'm not asking friends or family to give a handout. Of course, I want kids to have coats and the hungry to have food. But my focus right  now, is that my former students and friends in Jordan get a good education.  My priority is that they learn so they can express their already valuable opinions.  I want them to attain their goals so that they can see as I do the great impact they have on the world.   In the past year, classes have moved out of the house, and are now taught in a school.  There are more people, women, and children, of a wide range of age and ethnicity. They  have chalkboards, photocopied textbooks, and other simple supplies.  The dreams I have for this project in another year? Endless. For a truly happy birthday, merry Christmas, or just being a good citizen, if you haven't, think about donating a small amount to the cause.  If you have, good for you.  You are one step toward living in a better world.  Trust me, these people know how to make it.
    

anomaly: a deviation from the norm; irregularity

      The past six months I have been working at an elementary school in Madison, WI that has been labeled by test results as "high need."  Indeed, the students and families I work with are faced with a variety of issues I never dreamed of when I was a kid.  Many students face challenges of poverty including homelessness, transience, hunger, illness, racial tension, drug abuse, physical and emotional abuse, and long histories of economic failure and instability.   My job at this school is "family, school, community partnerships" which is another way to say beat my head against a wall. As much as everyone really does want these kids to succeed, teachers are already overburdened with new, required pedagogy and parents are struggling to maintain multiple jobs and figure out how to pay the months' rent.  So many parents just don't have time to go to parenting workshops and they don't check their kid's backpack to find the fliers about them. With truancy another issue, it's hard enough to get kids to school, let alone their parents.  Despite my frustration seeing all of this, I have hope for this community.  Because of its No Child Left Behind status, the school gets lots of extra Title 1 funding for school programming. We frequently get community grants and businesses wanting to donate to the school, and there is a dedicated staff that truly cares, not just about the students now, but for their families and futures too.

      It's difficult for me not to compare this scenario to where I was this time last year.  Last November some friends and I had just started in-home English classes for Sudanese refugees in Jordan.  Like parents at my school in Madison, this community was worried about rent, putting food on the table, and racial injustice.  They similarly had to work many jobs, though theirs provided undoubtedly a more unpredictable income. They had a difficult past following them- war, genocide, running, hiding, and being social and political outliers.  This is where some of the striking differences come in between my situation now, dealing with American citizens.  School officials aren't checking up on Sudanese kids to make sure they are in attendance.  No one is reaching out to provide adult education or give food or rent assistance.  No one is donating free coats, gloves, or hats.  No free community dinners, family game nights, school carnivals.  By being in the U.S., families in Madison, WI, though still facing hard times, have a great deal more than what is available to Sudanese in Jordan.  

    I do not mean to start a race to the bottom comparison of need, but rather to argue that the hope and drive of the individuals I met in Jordan is unmatched by anyone I have met before or since.  All over the world, poverty strikes individuals in a variety of ways, all of them unjust, all of them "the worst case" for those affected. But when I met the Sudanese community in Amman, I was struck with the hope and happiness they maintained.  With their dedication, persistence, and patience, we were able to expand English classes to a new building.  Despite the cost of transportation, we had over 100 students every week crowd into one room (a class of 20+ in each corner).  We asked people to arrive on time, though we understood it was difficult to get to class after a 12 hour day of physical labor. And of course, we excused the absence for the student whose uncle back in Sudan was brutally killed.  Through all of this, along with worries that going to and from the building could be ground for police investigation leading to arrest, our students showed up eager to learn and participate.  Their teachers untrained professionals, they never showed us anything other than complete respect and friendship.  I have heard words out of kindergartners in Madison that I don't think my Sudanese students would dare utter in any language under their breath, let alone out loud to a teacher.  With minimal resources, no books, and the stress of life, these students came passionately to learn.  Why?  They want to go back to Sudan and help.  Their dream: education.  Their goals: make their country a better place. Give their children a better life. Help people.

     This Christmas, I am asking friends and family to donate to Jesuit Refugee Services specifically for this project that is near and dear to my heart.  Go to https://www.jrs.net/donate#EN_3 and type in "For Sudanese and Somali education in Jordan" in the notes section of the donation.  Funds will go directly toward books, educational materials, teachers, and maybe even a fun event for the individuals who I have been writing about and so completely deserve it.    You can read more about JRS's different projects at jrsmena.org.  I will be writing all this month about this amazing group of individuals, sharing more memories from Jordan, and encouraging you to give a donation as an alternative gift this Christmas. Help my friends help people.  Give the gift of education, of language, of hope.