My Work at the Arab Episcopal School

The school is 4 stories tall and the property takes up about half of the city block. Like all of the buildings in the city, and most of the country, the school house is made of  white concrete. A tall, white concrete wall fences in the property, separating it from the rest of the neighborhood. A driveway cuts from the front of the property to the back, with a large green sliding door on either end. There are two pedestrian entryways at the front of the property, both with large, heavy, green metal doors that automatically lock when closed. Upon entering the property, you stand in a courtyard, the building on your left and right and above your head. The concrete floor is covered in colorful paintings. The rafters in the ceiling above have phrases like "Home of Peace Education" on them. On the far side of the court yard is a black top with soccer goals posted on either end. To the left and right of that are two smaller buildings.The first is small and red, and is used as a meeting space; the other one is the Church, the sanctuary on the ground floor and a meeting hall and small kitchen are in the basement. The ground floor of the school is for the Kindergarten classes. Where in America we have Pre-K and Kindergarten, here both the age groups are called Kindergarten, KG1 and KG2 respectively. The second floor houses the office, a small kitchen, the teacher's lounge, and the 1st through 6th grades. On the third floor there are classrooms for the 7th, 8th, and 9th grade, a music room, a science lab, and a computer lab. The fourth floor is incomplete and off limits to students, the school is hoping to open it within the next few years as they expand to include a 10th, 11th, and 12th grade. There is only one class in each grade. Some, like the first grade, are large with about 30 students, others are small, like the 9th grade, as small with less than 15 students. The hallways all have bright yellow railings along the walls so that the blind students and teachers can navigate more easily. There are posters written in a mixture of languages: English Arabic and French, and the most important ones have a transparent plastic cover with the braille printed on it. This is the Arab Episcopal School (AES) in Irbid.

The rafters in the courtyard.

The school is fairly young, this year is it's 11th year, but it does huge amounts of work in this community. AES is one of the few schools for blind children in Jordan outside of Amman. These students are taught to read and write both Arabic and English braille. The school doesn't just work with blind and low vision students though, the school seeks to integrate these students with their sighted peers. This is done in the hopes of normalizing and de-stigmatizing disability. Though the school is Christian, the majority of students are Muslim, as are many of the teachers, and the school offers religion courses on both Islam and Christianity. The school hopes that it's graduates will be able to compete in the world job market, and thus teaches two compulsory foreign languages, English and French.

The third grade class.

I am humbled in many ways to be part of the team at this school. At the school, I sever several functions, though my official title is "Teacher Assistant", I personally think the best title for my job is "Resident Native English Speaker." I work with two English teachers, Miss Abeer for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade classes, and Miss Huda for the 7th grade, both of whom I hold in high regard . In the 1st grade class I mostly help with pronunciation and grading, so that the students can have immediate feed back. In the 2nd and 3rd grade English classes, I work specifically with the low vision students. I tell them what's written on the board and give them one-on-one attention to keep them from falling behind their peers. I also do this in the 7th grade, but on top of that I also work with the class on their conversational English, by leading conversation classes. On Thursday the classes are shortened to add a period at the end of the day for special activities. During this period, I am often asked to teach conversational English classes. I've discovered, from not well received classes based around role playing, that for most of these I'm probably going to play review games in order to help them practice their English. In addition to this work, I also assisted with the office's English correspondence. I write emails, assist the school newsletters, and will soon start writing the school's Christmas cards.

Some of the 7th graders.

The students are energetic and are truly interested in everything they learn. I'm not yet a month into my work at the school, but I'm already excited to see where these children go and to be part of their journey.