To sum up my month in Israel: סוף הדרך; It translates to end of the road, but means something was really good. 🇮🇱 (s/o to the lovely students in Mitzpe Ramon for teaching us slang) (at Israel)
Classes start tomorrow and I already have homework to do, so I procrastinate by writing this obligatory post-GTL blog post instead.
This past January has been quite the experience, and I learned a lot about Israel, Israelis, and about myself. Israelis are very direct and to the point, which is nice because you know where you stand with them. However, it was a bit awkward for me because I’ve been raised as Chinese-American, so there was definitely a difference in how I handled social situations versus how the average Israeli would act. One would be that I don’t really complain and sometimes I don’t really mind, but Israelis want you to be direct and blunt with them if anythings is wrong, which was an interesting experience.
I also rekindled my love of biology - I had forgotten how fun high school biology was. It also reaffirms that I want to be involved in education eventually in my career, but I first need to figure out what I’m going to be doing post-graduation, and before that this summer.
I also definitely want to do GTL again next IAP. GTL-Israel was a fun first experience. The people I encountered were so nice and willing to help out, and I definitely learned a lot. It was also interesting to see the cultural differences because for Americans, the next step after high school is either a job or college, whereas for Israeli high school students, it’s the military. Thus, there was definitely some differences in ways of thinking. We got asked a lot of how do people decide what to do with their lives at 18 in college in the US. The short answer was - you don’t. I think people everywhere kind of just fake it till they make it by gaining experience and eventually figuring out what they have to do.
Regarding what I’d do differently in my preparation, I would probably back less shoes and bags, and maybe a few more layers. I didn’t expect it to be so cold in the Negev, but then again we also had the (un)fortune to experience the coldest week in Yeruham as well as Mitzpe Ramon during our stay. It was ironic because today was definitely warmer than what the Negev was like during all of January despite there being snow on the ground.
All in all, it was a pretty fun experience, and I’m really thankful that I got the opportunity to go. Until next time!
During our stay in Israel, we were recruited to many classes. The curriculum that we were involved in in Yeruham and Mitzpe Ramon was similar, yet different. In Yeruham, we were more involved with mentoring the Robotics students, but in Mitzpe Ramon we took on more of a teaching role.
In Yeruham, because it was the first time MIT students had come, I don’t think the teachers really knew what to expect from us. So, a large part of our time was spent at various places in Yeruham, such as MindCET and Robotics.
However, we did help out with physics and English lessons. In physics, we helped with circuits and optics. It was mostly coming into classrooms and helping students through their assigned problems and for English it was helping the students practice for their English Bagrut. We practiced English with the 5 point students who just took their exams, and then were recruited to help the 4 point students who had an exam coming up. In the next week, one of the students reported to us while we were walking to Robotics that he had received a 98/100, which was awesome because we spent a significant amount of time practicing for his exam because he was worried and needed help.
In Mitzpe Ramon, we took on more of a teaching role. We introduced ourselves to quite a few classes about ourselves and life at MIT. The purpose of these was to teach a short lesson and help broaden the students’ views. The principal of the school said that since Mitzpe was such a small town, it’s sometimes hard to imagine that there’s more to life outside. In addition, we also taught a bit of physics (magnetic fields and optics). We tried to make it interesting by talking about the applications of magnetic fields and optics to really engage the students.
We also did a lot of teaching for biology. We helped mentor some students in their biology research projects - most of the students were doing research related to the Negev. There was some pretty interesting topics ranging from plants and their essential oils and old irrigation systems. Finally, we also taught the circulatory system and the cell membrane. We included lots of videos, and even sparked discussion in the classroom and the students were really engaged because we tried to explain why certain things were important instead of just “and this happens in your body.” We also showed videos and silly cartoons to help increase and cement understanding. The students seem to really like it. We even found some rap songs about these topics and showed them to the class and the students really got into it by singing along and swaying/dancing. They were so pumped, they even showed us an enzyme song to the tune of Rebecca Black’s Friday!
Finally, we also helped students practice for their English Bagrut. One of the teachers always tried to recruit us. She said it was important to take advantage of us while we were still here, so we spent quite some time helping with English by practicing for their Bagruts as well as working through their English readings.
All in all, Israel was a pretty fun experience and we had fun reviewing biology and helping out with English and physics!
Inside of the world’s largest erosion crater! We went on a thrilling 4x4 tour of the crater. The ride was super bumpy at times, but it was a lot of fun. Gabby, the teacher who graciously took us, even gave us the run-down of the science behind the crater and very interesting stories along the way.
Last Thursday we said goodbye to Yeruham and all the lovely people we met there. After a fun weekend in Jerusalem with our MIT travel squad, we arrived in Mitzpe Ramon this past Saturday night. We met Klil, our supervisor here in Mitzpe. We were welcomed to our wonderful apartment in the student housing here. Many of the children in the boarding school introduced themselves as soon as we arrived and we received many knocks at our door to our delight :) We’re so excited to get to know everyone here.
Here in Mitzpe Ramon, we’re mostly working at the high school, “Hevrat Ha'Noar” boarding school. It a fairly new school in Mitzpe and students from all over Israel come to study here. The school is 10th to 12th graders.
Our first day consisted of a tour of the school, and tour of the world famous Makhtesh Ramon in a 4x4 by a friendly teacher, Gabby (sp?), and a tour of Spice Quarter—a very hipster industrial area in Mitzpe Ramon. The day ended at a Bedouin Camp where we say many camels (”in heat”) and were treated to great hospitality and tasty chai.
This morning we had our first class with the 10th grade biology students. Shiri, their teacher, was so excited to have us and we were excited to be there. We spent this first class doing introductions and sharing with the students more about us and about MIT. The students were very attentive and we can’t wait to work with them on the circulatory system!
While staying in Abraham Hostel in Jerusalem, we took advantage of their tour packages and took a sunrise tour of Masada, Ein Gedi, and the Dead Sea. The day starting early at 4am. We drove to Masada, hiked up 400m while the stars were still up, and by the time we got to the top we watched the beautiful sunrise. At Ein Gedi, we saw some beautiful waterfalls and did some tricky hiking up and down the rocky terrain. The tour ended at the Dead Sea where we covered ourselves with the famous mud and went for a float!
While in Yeruham, we worked with a group of girls at the all-girls high school, Kama. They have been involved in a satellite project at Herzliya for some time in which they were part of a larger team of high school students working to put a satellite into orbit! Their job involved CADing the satellite using everyone’s favorite program, SolidWorks, and doing some FEM and thermodynamic analysis. We traveled with them to Herzliya one Thursday afternoon because the parts had finally arrived and they were going to continue working on it. We helped them with some technical things like using SolidWorks to analyze mass and moment of inertia of the assembly. I was impressed because I SolidWorks was a puzzle for me to learn my sophomore year at MIT, so the fact that they were tackling it as high schoolers was inspiring. Later in the visit, they got to dress up in lab coats and hair nets to enter the clean room and handle the satellite parts. Personally, I loved seeing how excited the girls were to be working in STEM. I know they each have a bright future ahead of them!
We are currently in Mitzpe Ramon, however, there is a break during our first day of lessons, so I’m taking advantage of the time right now to reflect on our past two weeks and the things we did in Yeruham!
MindCET’s purpose is “changing education mindset.” Their parent company is the Center for Education and Technology, hence the play on words. At the time of writing, is it currently 48°F in Mitzpe Ramon!
During our stay in Yeruham, sometimes during the day when we did not have lessons to teach, we’d walk about ten minutes to MindCET. There, we helped with various projects that various people were working on. Pictured below is a figurine that stands outside of MindCET. MindCET has a very fun vibe, with lots of vibrant colors at the workplace and silly toys scattered outside the building.
One project involved empowering girls to get involved in STEM. We were asked about our perspective and what made us go into STEM, as well as what could be potential barriers and what are the motivators. We realized that sometimes, it isn’t so much as motivating the girl to go into STEM, but also having parents that are encouraging girls to go into STEM. Pictured below is another figurine that sits outside of MindCET.
Another project that was going on was bringing coding and the importance of having an education to the Bedouin girls. The person in charge of this project has been designing her lesson plans, and some of the struggles that she has to overcome include getting buy-in from the adults and teaching the very basics as the concept of a number to the girls and making sure they have the materials to practice coding. They’re using Code Monkey, a game designed at MindCET, to teach coding. When we were providing feedback, one theme arose, and that is opening up the girls eyes to see the potential of coding and what it can accomplish, as well as stressing what opportunities there are in the world. Often, a barrier to education is not realizing what can be done with knowledge and the chances it provides. Pictured below is another silly thing that sits outside of the building that MindCET is located in.
The final project we helped a bit on was headed by two guys. They were working on using everyday supplies to create a model for teachers to teach, with the eventual goal of having a community where teachers can share their lesson plans. We helped come up with three ways to show how parts of the circulatory system worked using simple supplies that can be found everywhere. Pictured below is where we generally worked.
MindCET also runs hackathons and have lessons for their budding entrepreneurs. It is conveniently located across a hotel, so I’m guessing that’s where people stay with the hackathons happen. They will be expanding to have their own building soon. Overall, it was a fun experience at MindCET, and it was fascinating to hear about the various problems that people are working on!
In Yeruham, during our evenings from approximately till 4pm-10pm, sometimes later, we go to help with Yeruham’s robotics teams. There were two teams that we interacted with, FTC #6 TwisT and The Y Team FRC 3211.
At the time of posting it is currently 62°F.
Their workplace is in an old factory. It is a bit chaotic in there, but the kids were warm and welcoming, and always ready to give us tasks to help out or practice their English. Everyone is also very jovial and like having fun with tons of personality.
However, we sometimes have to remind them about lab safety and proper operation of how to mill something and that clamping things down when cutting them is important. On our very first day when we witnessed how the shop was run, it was very surprising compared to our lab experience, in which everything was exact, slow and steady, and had a general procedure. Here, good enough was good enough and the students had a lot of confidence in their own abilities. I really like their giant emergency stop button sight though!
The very first day we went to robotics, we met the FTC team - it was an all girls team. It was hard communicating because we spoke no Hebrew and the cheerful girl who was very eager to interact with us had very basic English. One thing that we did to help was to solder some of their wires. It was a challenge because the solder iron was not in the best of conditions.
The next day, we met the FRC team - this team had more members, and was mostly boys, save for a few girls. English wasn’t so much of an issue here because people knew what they were doing so to make up for the difficulties in communication with some students, we would look at tools and mime what needed to be done. Our lab based classes that we took were helpful here. The students on the FRC team were a bit more rambunctious and joked around tons. One of the mentors brought a tub of Ben & Jerry’s during one of the days and everyone started going wild for a taste.
Some students borrowed my camera while I wasn’t looking and took some silly pics. Here are a few silly moments captured the night after the kickoff!
It was so nice to spend time with the kids, and it was a special treat for me since I also did FIRST back in high school. Overall, we had a lot of fun and the students were fantastic. It’s a shame that we were only here for two weeks and couldn’t be there for the entire build season though!
Just a few images from our apartment! This is our living room! We need to wash our sheets so you can see them piled on the couch, cause our washing machine doesn’t work, so we need to send them to someplace else to wash.
The stove and the washing machine that doesn’t work!
Yum yum in my tum tum!
More food! Lior used to shop for a family of 6, so he got us a lot of food initially. Then, he took us to the supermarket again and encouraged us to buy more food, as well as tons of junk food, or “soul” food as he called it.
My room!
Patricia’s room!
The shower! To get hot water, you have to push the big red button located outside the bathroom to heat up the water.
It’s been a few days since I have arrived in Israel, but I wanted to just recap a bit about my pre-arrival and a few general things, as well as upon arrival weather! At the time of writing it is currently 56°F!
What I Packed
Clothes
Fleece jacket
Rain jacket (My friend Lauren once said that between a fleece and rain jacket and a proper base layer, you’ll be UNSTOPPABLE!)
Another fleece jacket (because it was too new and soft and fuzzy to pass up)
T-shirt and gym shorts as sleepwear
5 pairs of socks
8 pairs of underwear
3 pairs of shoes (rain boots, nice going out shoes, and trail shoes)
Shower slippers
2 pairs of paints
5 shirts
Scarf
Cotton hat
1 Ball cap
Gloves
Electronics
Surface Pro
Wireless mouse
Camera and 2 lenses
iPhone 6 (as a portable camera when I don’t wanna lug my camera gear around)
iPhone 4 (this was unlocked)
Chargers and a portable charger, other cords
2 memory cards
Bags
44L Travel backpack
22L Packable daypack
Camera bag (was also my carry-on)
Small purse
Random
Allergy, Advil, and other medicine
Small first aid kit
Umbrella
Toiletries
Travel pillow
Small accessories such as necklaces, the brass rat, etc.
I’m not a big fan of checked baggage and since I’ll be in Israel for only a month, I wanted to back relatively light and be able to be on the move. In retrospect, I feel that I could have packed a bit less. Everything can fit into my travel backpack, but I divided up some things between my camera bag and my travel backpack so that in case there’s a fuss about meeting the carry-on requirements, I would be able to pass.
Weather
I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I packed for a relatively chilly and slightly warm environment. In Tel Aviv, items that I packed was sufficient. One thing to note is that people in Tel Aviv (and Yerucham, so also probably rest of Israel) are dressed pretty nicely and put together. So, I couldn’t get away with sloppy outfits. It was rather windy though, but locals commented that the extreme windiness was rather unusual.
In Yerucham, when we arrived, it was rather cold. However, it started to warm up later on. In general, I could get by with a fleece jacket as my outer layer.
Schedule
This is roughly the schedule that we’ll be doing for the first two weeks in Yerucham, and was designed by the person in charge of us, Lior. On the weekends we hoped to travel and explore around Israel.
Our Mission
We’ve been assigned to teach STEM in the Negev Desert! Specifically, we’ll be in Yerucham and Mitzpe Ramon.
Of course, out of all the days in December, the weather decided to be crappy on the day that I was supposed to leave. My connecting flight to Philly was cancelled and I was put on a flight to Tel Aviv that had a layover in London.
London airport is so nice. I landed there at about 6am and it was pretty empty, but so clean and the bathrooms were nice. Also Starbucks’s chai spice lattes are so much better in the UK for some reason (or in the airport at least…).
The landing in TLV was so nice and smooth, I barely noticed we were even landing. The passport control line was more of a mob though. It took a good hour to get through, but the agent at the booth was super chill.
I took a taxi to the hostel we were staying in, Hayarkon48. The taxi driver was very friendly and the ride was cheaper than expected. He gave me a mini tour of Tel Aviv along the way and so many tips. He also gave a card and said to call if I needed anything. What a nice guy!
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