my new school

Dear Lucas,

How do you like Florida? How is your new neighborhood, and your new school? You are in kindergarden now! Do you like your teacher and your new friends? How is it different than your preschool and your old teacher, Miss Michelle? I know how much you liked her and how much she taught you.

Well, guess what! Here in Cairo, I'm a preschool teacher, just like Miss Michelle! And everyday, parents drop off their children to my classroom, where we sing and dance and color and draw and read stories and play with puzzles. We talk about colors and shapes, and fruits and vegetables, and animals and people. We practice our counting and sing our ABC's. We even sing some of the same songs you learned at school, like "Old McDonald," "Bingo," and "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." At the end of the day, I gather the drawings and projects each student has made and write their names clearly on top so that they can take them home to their moms and dads, just like Miss Michelle would do for you when she put your crafts into your purple canvas bag.

But there are many differences between Miss Michelle and me. She is much more experienced and has proper training, and has been a part of her school's community for quite some time. I don't have a lot of experience teaching little ones, nor do I have proper training. And I'm so new! I've only been teaching here for about a month, and at least once a week I will have a new-to-me-but-not-to-anyone-else student I've never seen before!

The biggest difference, though, is that she spoke the same language as you. Only one of my students speaks English at home. His name is Andy, and his parents are Americans working in Cairo. For the rest of them, however, English is brand new. Imagine, going to a school where your teacher understands only a little bit of what you say and you an even smaller bit of what she says! It's hard for both of us.

Other than Andy, I'm the only one at the nursery who spoke English growing up. All of the nursery workers know a few words here and there, but their native language is Arabic. Most of my students speak Arabic at home, too, making it easy for them to connect and communicate with the sitters and principle and other students.

I do have one student, however, whose family is from Sri Lanka. Natasha speaks Arabic with the other children and with the ladies at the nursery, but at home she speaks Sinhala, and with me she speaks English! It's incredible to see her switch between the three. She goes from Sinhala with her mom, to English with me, to Arabic with the other children, to English with the other children, to Arabic with the ladies at the nursery...it's amazing! But it also must be confusing for her. I can often understand what she is trying to say (whether in Arabic or English), but her sentences are stunted. She connects her nouns with basic verbs, and often forgets to say "am." "I angry!" she'll say (which is exactly how you say "I am angry" in Arabic).

Putting sentences together is difficult for many children, and it certainly can be for me in Arabic! But some of my students are so young--some as young as Olivia!--that they don't yet know the names for basic things around them, especially less common fruits and vegetables. They have to learn everything twice: once in Arabic, and once in English. One of my students, Omar, cannot remember the word "grapes" unless he says the Arabic word first. And though he certainly knows the word "banana," he'll automatically say the word in Arabic, because it's what he's used to.

But the idea is that by simply being around me, they can absorb some English and, most importantly, pick up my American accent. Here in Egypt, strong English speaking skills are essential for success in the future. Though I find it so sad that Arabic doesn't hold a similar weight--and one reason why it is so difficult to speak Arabic as a foreigner here--I know that it is beneficial to them in the future, that no matter what they do, speaking English well will give them more opportunities and open more doors for them and their families.

Do a lot of your new friends speak Spanish? You should try to learn a little bit from them! Though it's difficult, learning a new language is so important. It can give you more opportunities for work, like English does here in Cairo, but it can also introduce you to a different culture and to another life, to different peoples and new ways of thinking. Studying Arabic is what sent me to Jordan and to Morocco. It's what introduced me to delicious foods and rich traditions and beautiful literature I never knew of before. It's what brought me to Cairo, and to Mom's Nursery. And though it's been almost unbearably hard at times, I'm so glad that I'm here.

Love,

Miss Emily