Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The Games We Play

Last week, during my session with D, my 15 year old student, I did something a little different.  Instead of just making conversation, I pulled out a copy of Fluxx and a set of Rory's Story Cubes.

Fluxx is a game where the rules change based on what the card says, so it encourages reading, as well as conversation because the cards are very silly.  The Story Cubes are a set of 9 dice with different pictures on each side.  You roll them and tell a story based on the images that are showing.  We had enough fun that neither she nor I realized the hour was up!!

I'm thinking this week of watching a little West Wing with her as well as playing Guillotine, another English heavy card game.

If you give a man a fish...

When I was 15, I went to a Sunday program at the New York Aquarium, where we got to see the Beluga Whales up close.  At the end of the program, the teacher mentioned that they had a docent program every summer.  That summer, I applied and was trained to be a docent for  the Education Department at the Aquarium, and began my love affair with education.

Since then, I have taught everyone from 3 year olds at a science activity to 90 year old Christians who wanted to learn about Israel.  I have worked with the Ultra-Orthodox world as well as the secular anti-religious one and have learned something from each and every group.

This blog will follow my teaching experiences.  This fall I will be finally going back to school to get my teaching certification, but don't plan to work full time immediately.  I will however, be tutoring a special needs 5 year old in science, English, math and Judaism.   I am also tutoring a 15 year old girl in conversational English.