Hey, Lukas again for our last week of teaching ad my first time actually writing about teaching rather than travel blogging. It wasn’t particularly well received that our earliest pick-up time of the trip would be the day after we got back at midnight after dragging ourselves through a desert for the past couple days, but nevertheless we managed to get it together and leave on time. We are teaching 30 9th graders this week so quite a big age gap from last week and there are a lot more of them, but they started well on day 1 coming up with interesting ideas such as a social network for entrepreneurs, a panic button ring, and an AI clothing app which tells you what to wear based on your wardrobe. Our speaker today was Rotem Abeles, a Sloan MBA alum who shared his experiences transitioning from his cybersecurity role in the army working for young start-ups and eventually starting his own in the coming months. A highlight of the day though was that we have lunch provided again this week and we went to the most famous hummus bar in Be’er Sheva with Shay, who is working on his own educational start-up and is at our school as a part of a pilot program he is doing. After lunch we were exhausted after the previous day’s travel so Jakob and I went back to the hotel and promptly passed out while Daniel made the trek back to Jerusalem to retrieve his lost air pods because the American Center where we were teaching last week couldn’t be bothered to send them, lol. Day 2 is always my least favourite day since we start getting into the harder material, but don’t yet have the rewarding feeling of the projects coming together. However, this week the students seem to be ahead of schedule for the first time and everyone has decided on their products unlike last week. We had a shawarma lunch at the center, something that I will really miss when I return to Boston. The afternoon was an adventure to say the least. Our speaker last week’s daughter asked us to come to an event to meet students at a pre-army program in Ofakim, an hour away by bus. We were interested in the event so we took the bus out to meet at a house at 4pm. 4:10pm rolled by and there was still no sign of her so Daniel called her and she said that she would be there in 40 mins. What?! We were then adopted by some students who she hadn’t told what was going on and they very kindly showed us around their robotics program that they were teaching highschoolers. We talked with the students for a bit more the space-themed week they were helping teach before they had to leave. The time was now 4:55pm and there was a bus back to Be’er Sheva in 5 mins. Daniel, being the kind soul that he is, wanted to wait for her for a bit longer. I left and caught the bus. 10 minutes later I got a text from Jakob and Daniel that even they had given up hope that the person we were supposed to meet was worth waiting for and had to wait for the next bus 45 mins later, sometimes it pays to be a cynic, I guess. The day ended more positively as we went out for drinks with Shay and talked about his new start-up working to legitimise non-conventional education services from educational YouTube to online courses. After being denied our afternoon nap to hang out on a street corner in Ofakim, we were very tired by the time we got back to the hotel. The third day is typically when the presentations start to come together, but at the same time the students tend to start panicking that they’re not going to finish, but this group looks in good shape so far. The main achievement of the morning was to get some extremely quiet sound to play out of the classroom speakers so that we could play our example pitch video. Otherwise the three of us were mostly just concerned with securing the ‘comfy seat’ for the group work time. Lunch was couscous today with vegetables that I previously didn’t like but for some reason taste amazing in Israel. I’m really going to miss the food when I’m eating ramen noodles again in Boston. After school we were taken on a tour of Be’er Sheva by Tzai, the history teacher at the school. We all were surprised at the importance of the ANZAC battle to change the Allied fortunes in the Middle East during World War One and the ceremony still held annually at the cemetery attended by descendants of the Australian, Kiwi, and British veterans who fought in the battle. We were then taken to Be’er Sheva’s water recycling system which answered a lot of questions such as how the city was so green despite being in the middle of the desert. The city uses a network of pipes to bring the water to a central reservoir where plants clean the wastewater. This park provided an exciting glimpse into what future water saving technology could look like and water’s future importance in Geopolitics. As a side note, our guide didn’t have a very positive view of British people (reminds me of Boston), but it was fine because he got be and Jakob mixed up and thought I was the Polish one. As a strange coincidence, one of our students’ dad is an MIT alum so we connected with him and went out to dinner with him and his wife in Be’er Sheva’s old town, before heading back to the hotel to get some sleep ahead of our last day teaching in Israel. So this is it, our final day of teaching and with our final meeting cancelled for tomorrow, I fly back to Boston tonight so that the other two could have a day to themselves without having to put up with me. The morning felt less hectic than previous weeks with groups frantically trying to submit on time, I think the hour extra per day helped. One last round of presentations, which were really impressive considering this was the youngest group we had, and we successfully rigged the presentation order so that the principal and people from Amal saw the best presentations when they arrived. With our time in Israel done, here is a summary of my experience: Pros of the trip:
Cons of the trip:
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This Post is brought to you by the Rav Kav Card, your one-stop shop for all things transit. Use code MITAMAL30 for 30% off your next purchase at ravkavofficial.co.il As Daniel mentioned in the previous post, we traded blog assignments because I was deathly ill last week with a mild cold and thus did nothing interesting. So, I’ll be writing about our adventures in Jordan this past weekend. Together with Team 2, we departed Jerusalem bound first for Be’er Sheva. As soon as we hit the road our bus came too close to another bus and smashed its left mirror. Mazel Tov! Guess we’ll have to stay in the left lane. We made it to Be'er Sheva and walked across the city to deposit our suitcases at our hotel so we wouldn’t have to bring them to Jordan. The hotel staff were initially a bit confused why we were coming to the hotel two days before our reservation but we eventually cleared it. We then went to the bus station to catch our ride to Eilat. Rylie wandered off and mistakenly went to the train station next door, which was kinda stressful because our bus was just about to leave. Luckily she found her way to the bus and we departed with all members present. Our ride down to Eilat featured a driver whose passion is rally driving and saw us tailgate at least 8 different cars (with some brake checks) and we had a lot of F1 highlight-worthy overtakes. This shaved 20 minutes off our trip, and 5 years off our life expectancies. Once in Eilat we arrived at the magnificent Corinne Hostel. What a monument to peculiarity that was! We entered into a lobby that was more of a curbside furniture and rejected fan art collection than hostel lobby but oh well. We then went into a courtyard filled with creepy dolls and stray cats, and were advised to lock our doors as the homeless people like to pay visits. A well spent $27! Our rooms were in a building that is most kindly described as ‘handmade.’ We were split into two rooms, one for 4 people and one for 2. The 4-person room featured a very diverse collection of art, ranging from Bob Ross-style landscapes to NSFW Anime characters… The smaller room had more muted decor, but size wise it was literally just the bed, surrounded by walls on all sides. Strange as it may have been, this hostel was still significantly better than our initial plan, which was to travel through the night and arrive in Eilat the next morning. At 7:00 AM sharp we departed the hostel and walked to Club Hotel Eilat, from where we would embark on our trip to Jordan. We drove to the border where we met up with some youth village folks who had taken the overnight bus from Tel Aviv. Crossing the border was thankfully uneventful, but it was quite unique as we had to physically walk across it and in the middle it very much felt like walking through a no-man’s land. On the Jordanian side we went through passport control and that was it, welcome to Jordan! We met our guide for the next two days, Kareem, and drove to Aqaba. We did not spend much time in the city, but we did drive uphill a bit, where we got to see Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia in the distance. Not many places in the world can you see four countries at once! After that we were involuntarily driven to the first of many gift shops, where we were pressured into buying overpriced souvenirs but held strong. We had lunch at a resort (for some reason) and finally left bound for our first destination- Wadi Rum. As we drove into the desert the views just kept getting more and more surreal. No wonder every movie set on a distant desert planet is set here! Once in Wadi Rum village, we got off the bus and sat on benches on the beds of old toyota trucks, which would be taking us deep into the Wadi Rum Reserve. We grouped up with team 2 and claimed a truck. Shortly after leaving the village (and with it the paved road) just ended and we were in the desert. Wow, was it breathtaking! The sand was a deep red (just like on Mars, which is why they filmed The Martian here) and it was surrounded by massive rock formations shooting out of the sand hundreds of meters into the air (please just look at the pictures as they are worth a thousand words––or $3/image if you’d like to purchase any for personal use. Commercial users please contact for a quote). Our first stop was at a rock/sand dune that you could walk up barefoot. Lots of great photo opportunities, and I’m pretty sure Matt Damon sat here in a scene in the Martian. We then enjoyed some bedouin tea in a tent nearby and off we went to our next stop. On the way we passed some free-roaming camels, and stopped at our next rock feature. It was interesting because it was like a platform up top (rather than a ragged peak like most rocks), but it turns out that was because the local zoning regulations prohibited Epcot from building any higher and thus it topped out pretty flat. After a few more photos and the first of many furors from our favorite tour member (who we will call Granny Smith) about the stairs being too steep, we got back in our truck and left for our final stop, from where we would be watching the sunset. At the sunset spot we climbed up yet another rock, got comfortable and stared directly at the sun. I cannot even begin to describe this incredible sight because I went blind and don’t know what it looks like. Also, while we were chilling a young boy from another tour jumped down from a slightly higher perched rock and gained so much momentum he almost ran off the cliff to his death. Luckily he managed to stop himself just in time. Phew. After the sun hid behind the mountain in fear of our entrepreneurial prowess, we got back in the truck and Yalla! we went back to the bus. After a short ride we arrived at Rum Magic Camp, where we would be spending the night. Our room was supposedly a tent, but it had a bathroom with a shower, Air Conditioning, Outlets, and Wifi, so to call this camping would be quite generous. For dinner, we were told we would be eating ‘food out of the ground.’ Now I assumed this was a mistranslation and actually meant that we would be sitting on the floor, but no, we witnessed two chefs start digging sand out of the ground, revealing a lid, under which chicken and goat meat had been roasting for hours. I definitely ended up ingesting some sand. After dinner, we had a bedouin dance party! This consisted of dancing in a very big circle around a fire. Quite a funny sight, especially Lukas who looked like a total mom with his glass of wine in hand. After all that dancing most guests went to bed (including Granny Smith who was very displeased that our bedtime did not match hers), but our party went on. Eventually they got sick of us and kicked us out. No harm no foul, Kareem took us stargazing in the desert, where everyone decided to lay down in the sand. I did not, but still had to deal with the consequences of it as I was forced to share a bed with Lukas who deposited a full head of hair’s worth of sand in our bed. After arguing the merit of Orion getting such a prominent belt for about half an hour, it was clear that we were getting on Kareem’s nerves, so we went back to the party tent (where the mood was dead), and eventually went to sleep. The next morning, all the MIT folks on the tour (except Lukas and me) got up at 6:30 for a sunrise camel ride. Because I did not participate I have enlisted my colleague Daniel to offer his account as a contributing columnist. Daniel, take it away! Humping? No. Camel-riding? No. We did having-funning! Jakob here, Daniel has been relieved of his duties effective immediakjasdhfalsdhfskdhush Okay this is Daniel again, I ripped the laptop back out of Jakob’s hands. I am back, and let’s get serious. Next morning, many MIT students woke up very early and went on a camel ride to the same place that we star-gazed the night before. And to be fair, it was one of the most interesting things I have done in Israel! While riding a camel, we got to explore different parts of the desert. Moreover, we also took a quick break in the middle to see the sunrise and take some amazing pictures. If you have never ridden a camel, you will be surprised how tall they are! Also, we got to hear the sound that camels make for the first time. If you end up visiting Petra, specifically the Bedouin village we stayed at, I definitely recommend you giving up your valuable 1 hour of sleep to experience this amazing activity! Ok, I got the laptop back. For the record, this does not change Daniel’s employment status and he is still very much being let go. If you are looking for a lazy staff writer whose articles are mediocre at best, he’s all yours. Just kidding, Live Love Daniel! Anyways, where were we? Right, the next morning, Lukas and I got up and met up with the rest of the group for breakfast. This was (thankfully) a very uneventful meal, and we soon packed up and got on the bus to go to Petra. As we left Wadi Rum, I realized we had made our way onto an obscure, one-way mountain road. Surely we must’ve taken a wrong turn?? This road was so windy that it left quite a few passengers feeling nauseous. After a while we arrived at a gift shop overlooking the Petra mountains, and they claimed to have the best view in the world. Apparently they weren’t kidding, because the shop next door had a sign claiming the second-best view in the world. After enjoying some coffee and being pressured into buying overpriced souvenirs, we finally made our way to Petra, the capital of the ancient Kingdom of the Nabateans. We arrived in Wadi Musa, the town adjacent to Petra, and quickly took a bathroom break before entering the site. Kareem started talking about the tour we were about to do when Granny Smith found it appropriate to interrupt him (while he was talking to a group of 30 people on a tight schedule, mind you) to complain that the bathroom line was too long. Wow, that really is a travesty! As you may or may not know, Petra is a very large site, and Kareem advised those of us who wanted to go to the monastery to run ahead as it was about 4 kilometers and almost a thousand stair-steps away. The MIT group deemed this too grueling an undertaking and stayed back with those who wanted to enjoy everything at a reasonable pace (the slowpokes). But not us. No, per tradition we were going to make this as exhausting as possible and run the whole thing in less than four hours. So we ran ahead and decided we wouldn’t stop for any pictures on the way in, decide what was photo worthy, and then take only the best photos on the way back. At first it wasn’t too tough to stick to this strategy, but by the time we entered the Siq it was really difficult to keep my camera in my pocket. What is a Siq? The Siq is a 1.5km naturally formed narrow walkway leading from Wadi Musa to Petra. It features essentially vertical rock formations reaching hundreds of meters (over 600 ft) into the air, and is at some points only a few feet wide. On one side a channel is carved into the rock where at one point pipes fed water from a spring in Wadi Musa (which is still active) into Petra. This spring is quite significant as it is said that here Moses struck a rock and in that place a spring sprang up (hence the name Wadi Musa- Musa is Moses in Islam). As a brief aside, this channel is a good example of the Nabateans’ hydrological expertise, as they managed to keep the angle of the channel at 4 degrees throughout, which is the ideal angle to maximize flow rate while maintaining some air in the pipe to minimize pressure and thus any chance of leaks occurring. Such efficient water management (which is noticeable throughout the city) speaks to the Nabateans’ incredible city planning, and shows the wealth and prosperity of a city in one of the driest places on earth. In fact, recent archaeological discoveries have noted that the Nabateans had so much water they placed large decorative pools in the city center and maintained beautiful (but thirsty) gardens. In some sense, Petra was like an ancient Las Vegas, showing off its incredible wealth through expansive albeit unnecessary public beautification projects (perhaps home to the first Parks & Rec department?). Where were we? Ah yes, the Siq. We walked through the Siq, which was quite cool due to how deep between these rocks we were, and then there it was- the Al-Khanzeh, or Treasury in English. If you’ve ever seen photos of Petra, this is what you saw. Interestingly, The Treasury is not a treasury at all, it is a tomb (as are all of the rock carvings in the city). The reason it is called a treasury is because local Bedouins suspected a treasure was hidden inside (and in the urn at the very top of the carving), which is why there are quite a few bullet holes from their unsuccessful attempts to unlock these supposed riches. I won’t speak too much about the Treasury because again, words (or indeed pictures) don’t do it justice. But one thing I will mention is that it is much much bigger than it looks! In fact, it is almost 40m tall, making it equivalent in height to a 10-story building! For our MIT-based readers, it reaches just barely lower in height than the MIT Great Dome (which is 45m tall). What’s really amazing about this structure is that although it dates back about 2,000 years (when Petra was in its golden age), it is remarkably well preserved, because it is largely shielded from the elements by massive rock faces on all sides, leaving even the most intricate details of the corinthian capitals completely intact. After giving in and taking a few pictures (we couldn’t resist), we continued on, entering the center of Petra, which is much more open and not sandwiched between rocks. Why is this relevant? Because we were back in the sun, it was absolutely scorching (yes, even in January). The city center featured a lot of ruins, but even more tents selling souvenirs, and everything smelled intensely of frankincense. We made our way through this area rather quickly, and re-entered the mountains on the other side to hike up to the monastery. This was a steep and tiring climb, and although we were frequently offered to instead ride up on a donkey, we accepted the challenge and hiked up in record time. Despite the significant effort, the view was well worth it! In addition to being even bigger than the treasury, the Ad-Deir (Monastery) was carved into a less oxidized sandstone (due to less Iron) making it appear much more yellow. Additionally, unlike the greco-roman style of the Treasury, the Monastery was decidedly more Nabatean, notably including more crude capitals on the columns, which look unfinished at first sight but are in fact a design feature unique to the Nabateans. Although we were already quite high up, Lukas decided the view was not good enough and so we tagged along as we hiked up to the very top (even more stairs…). But, credit where it’s due, the view was well worth it. You could see for many miles (probably even into Israel), and virtually all of Petra. No offense to the ‘best view in the world’ gift shop from earlier but it holds no candle to the view from up here. After a few quick photos (we had reached the end so we were finally allowed to take photos!) we started making our way back down. On the way back we got to enjoy the views a bit more and stopped at a few additional locations, including the Lion Temple (which was quite hidden and tough to reach) and the royal tombs, where we got to go inside. Despite their elaborate facades, these carvings featured very bare interiors, usually a simple rectangular cavern. Why? Well they were tombs after all so it’s not like anyone was supposed to see inside. That said, the patterns of the rocks themselves were incredibly interesting so there was really no need for ornamentation (see Picture). Despite the otherworldly beauty of Petra, one thing that was not so beautiful was the gross mistreatment of the many donkeys, which all looked very depressed. If you go I encourage you to not ride one. On the way back we ran into Amal Team 2, and slowly (because we had to be considerate of those less interested in speed-running the site) walked back through the Siq toward the visitors’ center, this time strategically taking photos in all the spots we had previously deemed photo worthy. We returned to the visitor’s center and I decided to grab a few souvenirs to support the economy. I hate haggling, but as instructed I got the prices down at least 50% and bought a few tchotchkes. I can’t wait to throw them away when my bag is too heavy. One thing I did not expect was how much Jordanians like Minecraft. We even went to a restaurant named after one of the game’s elements, namely Sandstone Restaurant. Not sure why, but the waiter (whose name apparently wasn’t Steve) got quite upset when I ordered Grilled Mooshroom and a side of fried Zombie Pigman. I guess they have different delicacies here… After our very late lunch (it was at 4:30 PM and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast at 7:00 AM) we got back on the bus and headed back to the border. Although it was over two hours away (all the way back in Aqaba/Eilat), we all immediately fell asleep so it felt like we were there in no time. We got off the bus, bid adieu to Kareem (along with a nice tip, because he was quite amazing and really deserved it!), and made our way back to the Border. At the border, we got another stamp in Jordan, and then had to walk across the no-mans land to Israel. It was at this point that Daniel noticed he had forgotten his phone on the bus, so he had to go all the way back and retrieve it. Because we were going to have a very tight turnaround for our bus back to Be’er Sheva we were quite worried this would result in us missing it. Even after the setback and getting his phone, Daniel still somehow managed to end up ahead of Arya, who must’ve missed the memo that it was time to get off and go back to Israel… Per protocol, we went through a passport check followed by a security check, where Lukas got pulled aside because his laptop was missing a few screws. Classic Windows user… After two more security checks and another passport check, we finally made it out. Well, some of us did. Riley got stuck behind someone with a suspicious last name and thus it took her really long but she made it out. To get to the bus to Beer Sheva we had two options- to take the tour bus to Eilat to walk to the central bus station, or to walk 15 mins along the highway to the nearest bus stop. Because we were feeling dangerous we walked along the highway looking like vagrants. Now this would’ve been plenty sketchy as is but because it was right by the border there’s a good chance we were walking along a minefield (there was even a sign that ominously just said ‘Beware!’ see photo below). In fact, when a bus drove by he pulled over and said ‘Guys seriously I don’t want your money but if you need a ride into the city center I can drop you off.’ All good though, we made it to the bus stop and got on the bus, which had very comfy reclining seats. I immediately fell asleep and woke up in Be’er Sheva. There, we walked to the hotel, grabbed our bags, checked in, and went to sleep. What an adventurous two days that was! Anyways, this will be my (Jakob) last blog post. Thank you for following our journey along, our adventures were incredible to experience in person and I sincerely hope you found them at least somewhat entertaining to read. Todah Rabah, Shukran, and Goodbye! Hi my passionate fans, this is Jakob writing. Just kidding. This is Daniel again. You might be wondering, "Isn't it Jakob's turn to write a blog post?" You are correct! But Jakob got sick and stayed in the room for the past few days. For that reason, Jakob and I came to a peaceful agreement where I will be writing again about the rest of our teaching week here in Jerusalem. But before I start, I forgot to mention something on the last post. Before the first day, I decided to start my day fresh by working out in the morning. Since I never usually workout in the morning, I thought I needed to fill myself up before the workout. Hence, I ate 4 pieces of bread + a quarter of a Nutella jar. Little did I know that Nutella before the workout was not a good idea. After squating and shoulder pressing for 25 minutes, I got very nauseous. I had to come back to the room and recover. That entire day, I didn't feel great. Included in the end of this post is a picture of healthy Lukas and sick myself at the hotel breakfast. The second day, to be honest, was quite uneventful. We had our regular teaching day in the American Center, where we taught about market research and product design. After teaching, we came home. I personally took today as a personal day to recover/do errands. I went to a laundry mat, worked out at the YMCA gym, and worked on some school stuff. Nothing special, but it was a much-needed day. On the third day, we went back to our regular teaching. The students this week were different than the previous weeks besides the fact that they were 12th-graders. Notably, they were full of new ideas! They kept coming up with new ideas even on the third day. Although we had to encourage them to stick with one and work (due to time concerns), we were very impressed by very enthusiasm and creativity. Moreover, when we talked about startup financing, the students asked a lot of great questions, such as "What are the different rounds of funding?" and "Which types of companies require certain types of fundraising?". After teaching on the third day, Arya and I decided to visit Hezekiah's tunnel in the old city. This tunnel was built a few thousand years ago under the King Hezekiah's reign, and it was used as the irrigation system for the entire old city. For the tourists, there were two options: the dry tunnel and the wet tunnel. Who are we? We are entrepreneurs! A.k.a., we try the uncharted. Arya and I decided to go onto the wet tunnel. The tunnel itself was extremely fun. The water in the tunnel, at one point, came up to our thigh level. Also, the tunnel was completely dark, and we couldn't see anything unless we had our phone flashlight on. We walked about 20 minutes through narrow & wide, short & tall parts of the tunnel. Then, we walked through a very rocky & narrow path back up to our original starting point. If you visit Jerusalem, I 100% recommend you check out this wet tunnel! For the dinner, Lukas, Arya and I went out to a pizza place near the hotel. With no exaggeration, I had one of the best Margherita pizzas I've ever had there! The place is near the City Center in Jerusalem if you want to check it out. Now comes the final day! As it has been with the previous weeks, the students spent the entire day to finalize their pitches and present. Students worked very hard until the very last minute before their actual presentations. Quite frankly, I believe this week's presentations were very memorable and funny! There was one group that made a very commercial for their produce. Another group prepared a funny, short skit to describe their personna. There was also a student who was initially very scared with presenting, but after getting support from the teacher and the classmates, successfully completed the presentation. After finishing up our last day, we went straight to get ready for out Petra tour. Interested about how the tour went? More about that in our next blog post. Until then, peace. Daniel (not Jakob) Dear readers, You are reading your favorite member of this team: Daniel. I have to start today's blog post with a sad news. Jakob is gone. HE IS GONE. Yes, he disappeared. Nothing serious though. He is still spending a great time with his family. Lukas, on the other hand, is also gone. He said he has to do some laundry and do some work. But my desire to explore the city still continues. So today, we have a guest. Her name is Arya, and she is from another MIT x Amal team. Arya and I explored the Old City yet again. Before we went forward with our exploration, I stopped by the gym to do my workout. Health comes first, guys. As an oldest member of our team, I want to remind all of you to go out and work out. I want all of you to be healthy and strong!! Afterwards, Arya and I started our day by going back to the marketplace in the Old City of Jerusalem. I had personally finished shopping souvenirs already, but Arya still had to buy some more for her friends. Unlike myself, who spent 4 hours to buy 4 pieces of souvenirs, Arya was very efficient and finished her in less than an hour. After shopping, we moved on to our next big plan: to visit Temple Mount. If you are not familiar, Temple Mount is a place where the Dome of the Rock is located. For Muslim culture, Temple Mount is a very holy & visited place. Hence, for the outside visitors, this place is open only for limited time each day. Because of this, Arya and I decided to postpone our lunch and head to Temple Mount. On the way, we passed by the Western Wall one more time. By the way, if you try to visit Temple Mount in the future, I can almost guarantee that you will be confused. It took Arya and I a bit of time to find a line to enter Temple Mount. When confused, just find the longest line nearby, and then it would be likely that you are on a line for Temple Mount (it worked for us at least). Temple Mount was beautiful. It was massive. There were so many Arab Muslims and tourists. Although we couldn't go into the Dome of the Rock or through other gates (foreign visitors have limited access due to religious reasons), we were amazed by how beautiful and peaceful the entire place was. There were also a lot of kids playing soccer there. After visiting the Dome of the Rock, we walked through the peripheral of Temple Mount. It felt like we were walking through a national park since there were so many families chilling under the olive trees. Since we were very close to the Muslim Quarter, we asked ourselves "Why not grab something from here?" Then we decided to visit Al-Baghdadi restaurant, which I am pretty sure was located in the Muslim Quarter. This restaurant was very interesting. The owner/cook of the restaurant made the food (kebab for our case) right in front of us. The food was amazing! Also, the vibe was very traditional. Since we were in the Muslim space, the news on the TV was in Arabic, and there were Palestinian flags hanging on the wall. After lunch, we tried to visit Hezekiah water tunnel. On the way, we walked by other famous sites. For example, we walked past the Tomb of the Virgin, Church of Mary Magdalene, Gethsemane, Mount of Olives, Jewish Cemetery, etc. We also got to walk along the Arab neighborhood, which was interesting. When we got to the tunnel, we realized it was too late to take a tour, so we promised ourselves that we will come back later to try again. We then got home and took a break. Lukas, Arya, and I ended the day by visiting a local bar/restaurant, Mike's Place, and watching Arsenal & Manchester United soccer game. It was a great way to end our day before going back to our original purpose for this trip: teaching! Now, onto our first day with Amal Dekel Vilnai. Unlike the past two weeks, this week was different in that both our teaching team and the students had to travel to a third-party location for this program. Because the school was located in the West Bank, the program was conducted in the American Center (American Embassy). This means we had to bring our passport to go through security (ohhhh scary, right?). Another big difference for this week was that the students are 12th graders, not 10th. As soon as we met our students, we realized that they were extremely smart and bright. Some of the have traded foreign currency. Some of them have been learning about object-oriented programming in their own time. They were extremely attentive during our lectures and asked really great questions. Also, it seemed like they were very excited about the fact that we were form MIT, so they asked about our experience also. In the middle of the day, we also had another speaker, Heidi Brun. Heidi Brun studied Mechanical Engineering at MIT and has been working as a patent attorney for decades! She talked about what patents are, how they are created/enforced, and some of the cool inventions she has seen in her career. The students were fascinated by her talk, and it was extremely interesting!! After teaching, our team went to grab some food at a local restaurant. Overall, it was a very successful day, and I am already looking forward to all the amazing ideas that will come from these impressive, intelligent young entrepreneurs! Lukas here, this post is coming out a bit late, but this is what we got up to between leaving Beit Alfa and starting teaching yesterday...
The hardest thing on this trip hasn’t been the teaching or the language barrier, but following Jakob’s blog posts but here is what we’ve been up to in the few days break we have had from teaching. Thursday was a reunion of sorts for all MIT MISTI students in Israel as we all came together for a full-day tour in Jerusalem. The absence of jackal howling made sleep easier which was nice because we had an early wake up to meet the MIT group at Jerusalem’s holocaust Museum at Yad Vashem. The tour we received was as informative as it was intense. Everything on the site was geared towards reflection and remembrance from the 3,000 trees on the site commemorating the ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ (those across Europe who helped Jews escape being hunted by the Nazis), to the triangular carved out of the mountain in an attempt to bring the story of the holocaust back down to earth and individualise the experiences of the persecuted. Our guide took us on a journey of antisemitism throughout history and how modern antisemitism caused resentment of Jewish people being allowed to assimilate into society. We then were taken through the start of the Second World War and how the persecution of the Jews was increased as Jewish citizens of Germany and occupied countries were increasingly sent to ghettos and labour camps. Finally, we were taken through the results of the ‘final solution’ to murder all remaining Jews in Europe. I won’t go into details here but the museum was a phenomenal learning experience and a sombre reminder of the evil humans are capable of and the importance of remembrance to prevent history being repeated. After a quiet lunch at the museum, we took the bus across town to Jerusalem’s old town in the West Bank. Navigating the ancient narrow streets in a group of 30 was a challenge, but we embarked on our afternoon tour. We started in the Jewish quarter where we overlooked the City of David and learned about the fall of Jerusalem and consequent expulsion of the Jews from the holy land in 70 C.E. We were then brought through the time of the Byzantine empire through the Ottomans in the Middle Ages before walking to the Christian quarter to see the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial. After a brief walk through the old markets we walked back to the hotel and crashed for a couple hours before meeting up with another MIT team for dinner. With Jakob ditching us for the weekend to see his family or something, Daniel and I had a day in Jerusalem to ourselves. Given that we had only briefly walked through the old markets, we decided to go for a shopping trip. In total we spend three hours getting lost in the market. We either saw the entire market or walked in circles and saw the same stalls 15 times, we still don’t know for sure. In the end though, we put all of our Sloan negotiating class knowledge to work and ended up only slightly overpaying for everything. After our chilled day out in some beautiful weather, we had a tour scheduled for Saturday to visit the ancient ruins of Masada and to swim in the Dead Sea. The cable car up the mountain was under maintenance so we had to take the long way around to the West side of the mountain and walk up next to the Roman ramp, built by the Romans during their siege of Masada in 73 C.E. The views of the surrounding desert were spectacular and we learned about the brave last stand made by the people of Masada against the Romans as the last Jewish holdout in the region against the Romans. We only had a short time in Masada because we had to get to the more Instagramable spot of floating in the Dead Sea. The experience of water was very weird in that it was so salty that swimming was hard because it was difficult to keep your legs underwater to kick. We did taste the water (yes I hear everyone reading this judging us), but it had to be done. It was salty as expected. Anyways, yesterday evening was pretty uneventful, but we have enjoyed our few days off and look forward to getting back to teaching tomorrow. Esteemed Readers of the Blog, Jakob here. As you may or may not know, we are on a mission here. A mission to seek the truth, to expose this program (GTL) for what it really is. That’s right, our new slogan is Delivering Honesty Since 2023. Wow, what a track record! So, you’re probably wondering, what is GTL really like? To tell you the (ugly) truth, participating in this program is probably the best decision I’ve made at MIT. If you’re an underclassman and have not yet gone abroad through MISTI, you’re seriously doing yourself a disservice. Now that you’re convinced that I’m a paid GTL propagandist, let me tell you about our last two days so you can understand why I feel the way I do. Day 3 started off pretty standard, we got our breakfast (delicious as always), and headed off to school. I always look forward to teaching on day 3 because it’s at a point where we’ve gotten to know the students and they’re getting serious about their projects and are working diligently. Because we had left late, we arrived after school started, so we had to jump right into teaching as soon as we walked in. Today, we chose to split up so that Lukas would teach the Electronics Class and Daniel and I took the Mechatronics Class. On the docket today: Business Models, Fundraising, Pitching, and Slide Design. But before we got to all that, it was time for an activity! We again tried the Kahoot, and the students did really well despite us making the questions rather hard. We then kicked off with a lecture. The students were quite rowdy initially but eventually calmed down and listened to us. Funny enough, during team time one of the students came up to me and held up her phone showing Google Translate saying “Are you upset with me?” As far as I knew, I had given no indication that I was upset with any student, but maybe they sensed we weren’t too thrilled about their side conversations during our lessons in the morning. No harm no foul. Oh, I almost forgot- in the morning Sameeh brought us some Arabic Coffee and tea with Sage. One of my favorite parts of the day for sure, can’t leave it out of the blog! After the first half we took our usual break in the Physics room where we reconvened with Lukas and briefed each other on the morning’s happenings over some more tea and pastries. After the break we went back to our respective classrooms and attempted a new activity. This time we tried charades, and it totally backfired. This was definitely my fault. I think I read the directions wrong or just gave really bad words because one group instantly got all the words and the other group didn’t get any. So we abandoned that pretty quickly, and got on with teaching, covering the elements of a good pitch deck and delivery. The students got back to work and all the teams were hard at work. I think they could finally sense the urgency of the matter, as they would be presenting the next morning. I found myself running from group to group helping them polish their deck, answering questions, and affirming how amazing their projects were looking. They were always super appreciative of even the smallest compliment! As the end of the teaching day rolled around one of the students came up to me and asked if he could text me later because he would keep working on it at home. Of course it’s great that the students are passionate enough to voluntarily keep working, but we also don’t want them to feel like they have to stay up late working on these projects after school! To their credit, the team ended up creating an extra amazing pitch deck. After school Sameeh took us back to Zad w Zwad restaurant in nearby Na’ura village, where we again enjoyed a great lunch. Lukas could unfortunately only eat bread because he had been poisoned. Foul play, perhaps? Definitely not. First, let me rephrase- Lukas got food poisoning, and he has determined the culprit to be frozen dumplings from the supermarket that he may have cooked incorrectly in the suspicious microwaving compartment. After lunch Sameeh kindly drove us all the way to his village (Daburiyya) as that was the closest pharmacy, and Jakob (or was it Lukas? Honestly they look the same I keep mixing them up) went in to get some frozen dumpling narcan. On the drive from Daburiyya to Beit Alfa (which is quite long as the villages are far apart) Sameeh told a fascinating story about [REDACTED]. Actually, I have no idea what he talked about because I promptly passed out in the back seat. Now that I think of it, maybe it actually isn’t such a long drive? I was asleep after all, so I wouldn’t know. BUT, the dream I had did feel like one of those more drawn out ones that follow a narrative arc with rising action and all that good stuff so I’m just going to assume it’s a long drive. I digress. When we arrived in Beit Alfa we dropped our stuff off and ran to the Japanese Garden in nearby Heftzibah before it got too dark, knowing this was our last afternoon in Gilboa. Or at least that’s what we should’ve done, but instead we proceeded to do a whole lot of nothing. Again, I should probably correct myself, because I have no idea what Lukas and Daniel did- I took a 2 hour nap. After my nap, I witnessed Daniel eat some cup noodles and Lukas probably did something else. I then actually did go to Heftzibah, although this time to do laundry. There I met a kind gentleman who graciously explained the washing machines and even gave me some detergent from his home depot bucket’s worth. In turn I offered to help him with the dryers, which were industrial and had lint filters similar in area to the square footage of a Maseeh single. While we were peeling these entire walls of lint he told me about the owner of the laundromat, who is supposedly based in Jerusalem. I really hope this person has other laundromats closer to Jerusalem, because it would be really annoying to have to drive out 2+ hours to reach your primary source of income. After laundry I answered a few late night project questions from the aforementioned student and called it a day. Laila Tov! And so day four arrived, yet again the last day at our school. In some ways this day is always amazing, and in some ways it always sucks because we have to leave all the wonderful teachers and students behind. I say ‘always’ as if we’ve done this a dozen times, but given our sample size thus far is a whopping 2, I must admit this result is statistically insignificant and does not pass the t-test. We got up, packed up the last of our suitcases, and headed to our last breakfast in Beit Alfa. Befitting this momentous occasion, the cook forgot to wake up. So we had to wait until the owner arrived, who then kindly cooked us breakfast himself. A word of advice to the Beit Alfa B&B Owner: If the hotel business becomes infeasible or otherwise undesirable, may I suggest opening a restaurant? The breakfast you cooked us was incredibly tasty and I believe that with continued effort a Michelin Star (or three) may be in order. After breakfast we piled into the van along with our many suitcases (most of them mine) and off we went to school. We arrived fashionably late, which meant we had the unique pleasure of parading ourselves through the entire campus with our many bags, and I can only imagine what a spectacle it must have been to see us bumbling around with our obnoxious luggage. After dropping off our bags we got to work, helping the students put the final touches on their otherwise complete pitch decks. There was significant tension in the air, mostly stemming from the AC being off, but the students’ nervousness about their presentations was also palpable. Frankly, they had nothing to worry about. Their slides looked amazing, they had all done really well in their practice presentations, and every single one of them knew way more English than they were willing to admit (to themselves). As we slowly wrapped up the last few decks, Daniel and I learned about the significance of the lines in our palms and how they spell out 81 and 18 in Arabic, and the meaning of 81 + 18 = 99 and 81 - 18 = 63 in Islam. This is one of the coolest parts of GTL- just learning about our students’ cultures and religions in these little side conversations. Lukas, Daniel, and I took our standard break with coffee and pastries and then headed down to the library for the final ceremony and student presentations. When we arrived we were greeted with a very professional setup. At the front was a big screen for the presentations, facing it were many rows of chairs for the audience, to the side were more chairs for the VIPs (the Principal, an Amal HQ Representative, and others), next to the stage was a table for the Judges (us & Sameeh) to sit, and at the back was a refreshments table. A REFRESHMENTS TABLE!!! WITH ARABIC COFFEE!!! Now that’s how you know it’s legit. Only the most important events get a refreshments table. I felt super important :). Before we began we had a round of speeches by Sameeh, the Principal, and others, and then we began the main attraction, the pitches. As last week, we decided to leave the order up to the wheel of names. The groups all presented one by one, and answered all of our hard questions without hesitation. If this was a class, they’d’ve all passed with flying colors. After the presentations we announced our winner(s) based on our criteria and the popular vote, and then handed out the certificates to the students. We also got gifts from the school, which was incredibly kind of them. After the ceremony concluded we spent another solid 15 minutes taking individual pictures with the students all while being showered with thank yous and statements of appreciation. Wow, what a serotonin boost that was! By the end of it my cheeks were sore from all the smiling and I had a newfound respect for the Broadway stars posing for hundreds of pictures after their shows every night. We left the school bound for Nazareth. Sameeh had kindly agreed to take us to Nazareth along with all our luggage, which meant our transfer to Jerusalem later on would be much easier. Once we arrived in Nazareth we walked to the Church of the Annunciation, where, get this, the Annunciation happened. According to the Catholics. If you ask a Greek Orthodox Christian, they will tell you it happened a few blocks over. Conveniently, there’s a Greek Orthodox church there, which we also visited. After our visit to the Church we walked through the market, which was mostly closed because it was a Wednesday afternoon (when there aren’t many tourists). After the market, we decided we should get something to eat, so we started heading in the direction of a restaurant Sameeh suggested, but stopped along the way in an Arabic Coffee shop, where I got some coffee with cardamom to take back with me. This stuff is delicious, I highly recommend it if you’ve never tried it. At the coffee shop it turned out that the owner somehow knew Sameeh and we got the coffee for free. Because Sameeh has been teaching for a while he is very well known and respected in the area, and I can totally see why! Anyhow, the owner recommended we check out a restaurant across the street for lunch so we went there instead. We enjoyed a delicious platter with a variety of meats, and towards the end of our meal we were joined by the principal who had been stuck in traffic leaving school. It was wonderful to spend some time with the principal (who, mind you, is regarded among the best in Israel) as we got to hear his story and his upcoming plans for the school. After our late lunch we went to a nearby Knafeh place, which has been around for about 200 years! With how good their Knafeh was I’m not surprised at all. Interestingly, this Knafeh tasted slightly different from the one we had in Daburiyya, and Sameeh explains that each city or village has a signature take on how it makes its sxqweets. As we wrapped up our dessert the principal called the bus company to make sure our bus was the right one at the right time, and we then soon left to get our bags and go to the bus station. It was quite a surreal experience walking through the bumper to bumper traffic in downtown Nazareth with all of our bags while the call to prayer was being broadcast. Not long after we got on the bus to Jerusalem and said goodbye to Northern Israel. After about 2 hours we arrived in Jerusalem and made our way to the hotel (YMCA Three Arches), where we briefly reconvened with Amal Team 2 to book our Petra trip and finally hit the hay. Thank you to everyone at Amal Achva Gilboa for making our stay so amazing. Thank you for welcoming us into your school and your community. Thank you to the students for all your hard work and dedication and a very special thank you to Sameeh for all you did for us, it really means a lot, Shukran! Salam Alaikum! After our successful first week at Amal Emek Harod, our team started our new week at Amal Achva Gilboa. It's a school consisted of Arab Israelis, and we were very excited to meet and experience this new culture. On the first day, we grabbed our breakfast as usual from our guest house dining room. Then, we had a little bit of trouble with finding our driver near our house, but after struggling for about 10 minutes, we found our driver. As we arrived to school, we were surprised by how beautiful the campus was. As much as we were new to their culture, students seemed to have never seen people like us. As we walked into our first classroom, many students stared at us and talk among themselves. I didn't hear what they were talking to each other, but I am sure it was something along the line of "They look so different than us." We started the day very energetically. Our introduction was done in the main hall where all 30+ participating students and our team met each other. Some of the key observations I made of these kids on our first encounter were following:
Since there were so many students, we divided the students into two groups after introduction. We started these smaller groups with a fun "birthday activity," where the class has to line themselves based on their birthdays without speaking to each other. Surprisingly, my group completed this week in just one minute! I was very impressed, especially because this exercise didn't go this well last week. Afterwards, we got into a big group again to hear from our speaker this week: Mr. Nimrod Brandt. Nimrod went to Technion for his undergrad and MIT for his MBA, and he was working at a VC firm. Nimrod talked about his journey and gave students a few amazing pieces of life advice, which students gladly and quietly listened. It was a great time. Inspired by great speech by Nimrod, our students finished their first day off strong. For our lunch on the first day, we went to a local Arab restaurant with our teacher, Sameeh. The food we ate were very different than what I used to, but it was surprising served in a similar style as Korean cuisine. Just like "Banchan" in Korean culture, foods were served in dishes in the middle of the table to be shared by everyone. The food was amazing! There were meat, hummus, falafel, salads, pickled lemon, etc., and my group very much enjoyed it. We finished our food and head back home, where we got to rest and re-energize for the next day. For day 2, we started by eating breakfast and heading to the school as usual. We spent the whole day divided into two groups, where we covered entrepreneurial strategy and product design. In the beginning and after the break, we also did some fun activities, such as human knot and hangman. There were a few kids who were causing troubles (constantly leaving the room and kicking the doors loudly), and for the most part, it was another smooth day. The students started to get excited with their own ideas and developing their product/pitch deck, and we provided help along the way. There was one interesting event that happened during the day. One of the Arab students who were not participating in our program and her teacher came up to me and asked for a picture together. First, I thought she wanted to take a picture with our MIT team. However, she soon clarified that she wanted to take a picture with just me (this is Daniel btw). I think for her (and other students), it's so rare to see any East Asians in-person, so she wanted to capture the moment where she met a Korean for the first time. That's my guess but the true reason why she wanted to take a picture with me, no one knows. After school, our assigned teacher Sameeh provided immense hospitality by inviting us to his home. This experience was amazing. People, food, story, they all came together to make this one of the most memorable days here at Israel. I will tell you more about it now! On the way to his house, Sameeh explained a brief history and conflict faced by people in and around Israel. First, he talked about international struggle faced between Jordan and Israel. Jordan is notorious for lacking enough water to support its citizens. Indeed, many people in Jordan only get limited access to tap water for 8 hours per week, limited to 2 days per week. Israel, on the other hand, has access to various natural water sources, as well as the world's leading water filtration technology. Currently, Israel sells water to Jordan at a cheap price, but with more cooperation, this issue can be better solved in a way where it can mutually make both sides positively. Sameeh also explained to us the constant conflict that exists between Arabian and Jewish Israelis. Compared to the Jewish Israelis, Arabian villages and neighborhoods usually retain less lands and resources. With smaller lands and higher density in Arabian villages, safety of the towns get affected, causing various violence issues such as gangs and drugs. As he was explaining this issue to me, we could clearly see how Jewish Kibbutz villages had a lot of green-land and low-level houses, which contrasted with Arabian villages where buildings were generally taller and very congested. Also, he shared the general sentiment of discrimination faced by many Arabian Israelis. Because of this, Sameeh believed in the power of education to open up opportunities for the younger generations, as well as the importance of going abroad and understanding the broader world. It was very interesting and helpful to hear about his views, and I told myself inside, "This is exactly why I signed up for this Israel GTL program." On the way to his house, we visited a religiously sacred spot (specifically for Catholicism), Mount Tabor. This place is also called a "Leaping Mountain," and the story goes like this. Although it's not in the Bible, it's believed that Jesus was once being chased by Romans from another mountain. To escape and secure his safety, Jesus leaped over the mountains and landed on Mount Tabor. While He was leaping, Jesus's shoe fell off in the valley, and the church has been built on that spot where the shoe fell off at. That church is not ancient and underground. On Mount Tabor were two beautiful churches—one Greek Orthodox and the other Catholic. The Greek Orthodox church was closed, but we got a chance to visit the Catholic church. There we learned that another momentous event, the Christ's Transfiguration and appearance of Moses and Elijah, happened on the top of the mountain. Because of its significance, we saw a lot of Catholic pilgrims at the church. The church was amazing, and we could also see a lot of other significant things at the top of the mountain, including a military balloon that can observe the borders when it flies up. Afterwards, we got to visit his house and eat delicious traditional Arabian dishes cooked by his wife. As you can see in the pictures, she prepared SO MUCH FOOD for us! Yogurt soup, zucchini filled with rice, stuffed grapefruit leaves, fried "dumplings" (please excuse my ignorance) with cheese, the foods were so so so amazing! Sameeh also let us tasted a few traditional Arabian spices, olive oil made from his own farm, Arabian bread, and dry yogurt afterwards. I was very grateful to try and experience all these traditional Arabian dishes. After finishing our dishes, we went to a nearby store (oldest dessert store in the village) and got some grate Arabian sweets, including knafeh and "bird nests." We ate these delicious sweets while enjoying a great view at Sameeh's porch. While staying at his house, we also got to meet his two sons and had a great time. Sameeh's younger son, Kenen (probably spelling it wrong), was very smart. He also liked playing soccer. Weirdly, he told me how he's a Barcelona and Argentina fan but not Messi's. At the end of our visit, Sameeh gave us some traditional Arabian coffee and lemon tea with ginger. We had a great time talking about the importance of education, non-violence ways to improve the society, and global experience. He then took us all the way back to our place. We (Lukas, Jakob, and I) were all immensely appreciative of the hospitality shown by Sameeh and his family. Now, coming back to our school, I am very excited to see all the cool ideas our students are developing this week. More updates will come soon. Until then, goodbye and Shukran! Ok so we had our plan for the day, which we were all excited about despite it ignoring the basic human needs for food and sleep or unreliability in public transport. Anyways, we woke up early to catch the first bus of the day down to Caesarea and the security guard that checked us in at midnight the night before was still on shift and seemed surprised that we were checking out already, but even without breakfast, we were up and ready to go. We were lucky that the Haifa buses were working like clockwork yesterday morning and we got down to Caesarea in good time and enjoyed a nice morning walk to the national park. We were the first ones there of the day so we got in line to buy our tickets, but the ticket seller ushered us in without buying a ticket (you didn’t have to tell us twice). The ruins of the town changed hands quite a few times belonging to the Roman empire in the 1st and 2nd centuries before being overtaken by the Byzantine empire for the 5th and 6th centuries. Caesarea was then held by various countries during the Crusades in the Middle Ages. The history of this place was very much physically etched into its architecture with French entrances and Byzantine walls being added to the Roman racing track. After having the place to ourselves to explore for a couple hours, we remembered that there was another sight we absolutely had to see on this trip – the Bahai Gardens from the top of Mt. Carmel. From the aqueduct it was a brisk hour walk back to the bus stop and another bus back up to Haifa. At this point, our bodies started to remember that we had walked 8 miles in the morning without eating so we crashed in the Haifa bus station and devoured some shawarma. During this break, we looked outside, felt our feet, and checked the time. Our conclusion was that our plan to hike up Mt. Carmel in less than an hour in the pouring rain was a little ambitious so we settled on taking the bus to the top. Our day had been planned around the gardens and the views did not disappoint. The city was set as a backdrop for the perfectly manicured gardens and the views stretched for miles out into the Mediterranean and north to the Lebanon border. We had had an amazing day, but it was time for the last leg of our logistical challenge; getting home on the last bus before Shabbat. Looking for an interesting way to get down the mountain, we settled on an underground cable car unlike any we had rode on before and it got us down to the station in only 12 minutes. An on-time train to Afula and a short walk later we were on our last bus of the day back to Beit Alfa. As we trudged back to our room, the past 24hrs was starting to catch up to us and we promptly fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow. Hello again, Jakob here. I apologize in advance, feel free to skip my rambles (italicized). Although the first day of school proved to be exhausting, we were all really excited to return to Emek Harod for day 2. Because breakfast at the Kibbutz usually only begins at 8:00 AM and we had to leave for the school by 7:50 AM, we were left with no breakfast. Oh well. Hopefully a few cups of coffee would get us through the day. As usual, Michal, the English Teacher, drove us to school. We spent a few minutes chilling in the teachers’ lounge before we made our way up to the entrepreneurship center for day 2. Quick Sidenote: Although it makes sense since we are teachers (for now), it was a very strange feeling being in the teachers’ lounge (and actually belonging there). Way back when I was in high school, the lounge was ‘the forbidden land’ and I could not imagine just walking in and sitting down. I guess this brings up a bigger question I’ve been pondering since we got here- what is our role in this program? The technically correct answer is to be teachers. But as much as the focus is on us teaching, I feel like we are more similar to our students than our teachers. After all, the three of us are here to learn- about our students, about teaching, about Israeli High Schools, and of course about Israel itself. A major focus at the Amal Network is PBL (Project Based Learning), hence the startup pitches at the end of the program (more on this later on). But at the risk of going meta, isn’t all of GTL an example of PBL? We are learning about teaching and the countries we are visiting via this entrepreneurship course. That makes the students’ pitches a PBL within a PBL, or in other words: “A doughnut hole in the doughnut's hole. But we must look a little closer. And when we do, we see that the doughnut hole has a hole in its center - it is not a doughnut hole at all but a smaller doughnut with its own hole, and our doughnut is not whole at all!” (GTL x Amal in a Nutshell/donut hole). Ok back to reality. Whereas on the first day the students took their time when it came to arriving punctually, day 2 saw most of the students arrive before us (just goes to show how excited they are about this program!). Yesterday a few students had asked Daniel and me if we were engaged… Why? Because we were both wearing our brass rats, which they were fascinated by. So we started day 2 with a quick overview of what the rings look like, their significance, etc. Then, to get the kids excited, we tried an activity, where the students would have to organize themselves from oldest to youngest without saying a word. About three minutes in, they seemed to almost have it, with just 2-3 students yet to find their spot. What ensued was another 5 minutes of arguing and yelling at each other before we finally cut it off. They never did manage to complete it (even after we told them they could speak…). We then began teaching, covering Market Research, Strategy, and Product Design. Because some students had told us that they found it difficult to sit through five hours of lecture, we decided to break up our lectures with intermittent team time for the students to work on their ideas and presentations. Here were some of the initial ideas they had come up with:
After school, the principal (Ilach) arranged for us to get a tour of the area by the history teacher, Hagai (I apologize if I spelled the name wrong, it was never written out for us). Hagai took us up Mount Gilboa where he taught us about 3,000 years of history in half an hour. It was really fascinating! Turns out Gilboa was home to some of the earliest biblical stories. After the tour we went home and took our after school naps, before Ilach came to pick us up for dinner. Needless to say we felt like VIPs being invited to dinner by the principal of a large high school! We went to ארטישוק (Artichoke), where Hila, another teacher at the school, was waiting for us. The food (as always in Israel) was quite delicious, especially these very fluffy pita-like focaccias that I couldn’t get enough of. I would go back there just to order a bunch of these. After dinner, Ilach dropped us off in Beit Alfa and teaching day 2 concluded. Day 3 began in much the same way as the previous two days, but we got the breakfast back! I really hope there’s a lot of other guests who come to breakfast because the buffet was delicious and extensive, and we barely made a dent… Learning from our failed activity the previous day, we decided to change things up and do a kahoot instead. We tried to make the questions quite hard, but the students still did really well! On the agenda for day 3 was a lesson about startup funding, business plans, and pitch deck creation and delivery. Students learned about different types of venture financing and methods for collecting and growing their revenue. Each team came up with its own funding strategy, and they got to work on creating the actual slides. By this point the startup ideas were wholly formed and they were all amazing! It was quite fascinating to see how varied the teams’ ideas were, allowing the students to tap into their diverse interests. One of the more memorable discussions we had with the students was regarding their plans to get their ideas funded. Many of them were shocked at how much money would be necessary to get the ball rolling, with one group initially thinking they would need just a few hundred dollars. Seeing the students directly apply the concepts we had taught them, we ended the school day feeling accomplished. After our standard Schnitzel lunch, Michal took us to a nearby nature reserve, where we walked to a few springs, which had crystal clear water and were beautiful. Surprisingly, the water was not that cold. One of the springs had a large ‘pool’ where we found a few people swimming. Hopefully we can come back during the weekend and go for a swim ourselves. A neat feature of the spring is that it becomes a shallow stream that doubles as a walking path, with trees surrounding you on all sides as if in a tunnel. We’ll definitely be back! After our trip to the springs Michal dropped us off at Beit Alfa where we promptly passed out. Before too long, however, Michal was back to pick us up. She had invited us to grab dinner with her family at Hummus Eliyahu. When we arrived, her husband (Dror) and two kids (Ariel and Ravid) were waiting for us. We each got a large soup’s worth of hummus, which was delicious, but left us all very full. Ariel and Ravid were adorable and were very keen on talking to us about their many interests. After dinner, Michal drove us home. On the way back, Dror called us and we could hear the kids screaming in the background “We miss you!” We got home, and day 3 came to an end. We woke up early on day 4, knowing our first pass at teaching entrepreneurship was coming to an end. Although the kids being incredibly smart and advanced in English made the teaching process easier, we felt as though we’d done a pretty good job. But it was presentation day, and it was time to see what impact our teaching had made. The day began with some team time to wrap up the presentations and run through a practice pitch. All the slide decks looked incredible. When it came to doing the practice pitches, a few of the students were quite nervous, but we managed to calm them down a bit, knowing they’d all deliver an excellent presentation. Before the actual pitches began, Yiftach (from Amal HQ) arrived, and we gathered with Rafie and Ilach to offer some concluding remarks and hand out program completion certificates. Then, finally, the pitch competition began. And wow, they were great! Every team delivered an incredible presentation. Moreover, whenever they were faced with a difficult question (which their classmates were more than willing to ask) they defended their ideas very well. Quick Sidenote 2: Because the ideas were the students’ own and are thus their teams’ intellectual property, we are not at liberty to discuss any of the pitches presented (the ideas mentioned earlier were abandoned), for fear that one of our readers could be a sneaky IP thief. What I do want to mention however, is that one of the products was called SafeRide. We may or may not have nudged them to adopt that name… After the pitches we presented awards, which were: Best Product, Best Design, and Best Delivery. Additionally, the students all voted for Best Overall. And with that, Week 1 was officially over. It was time to grab a quick lunch, bid Adieu to Amal Emek Harod, and catch the 2:30 train to Haifa. Michal had kindly agreed to drive us to the train station in Beit She’an. We gobbled down our lunch and hoped that she would arrive soon (she was teaching) to drive us over in time. Because it was the last day of the week, Michal had a lot to get done before the weekend and we didn’t leave until 2:40. Why were we in such a rush? Well we had a very ambitious schedule ahead of us:
We made the 3:30 train and were in Haifa by 4:30. That left us with less than 30 minutes to make it to the gardens. The clock was ticking and the race was on. If you’ve ever seen an episode of Top Gear, we felt like Hammond and May using public transit to race against Clarkson in a car. We even encountered a perfectly placed obstacle at the last moment in the form of a truck trying to make an impossibly tight turn; we had to wait for a solid 5 minutes. It couldn’t have been better if it was scripted… We ran up the hill and made it with just minutes to spare. But here’s the best part- who do we see walking out of the gardens? Amal Team 2! Again, totally unscripted (and unplanned). So, we admired the gardens for the last few minutes and then joined Sari, Rylie, and Arya for dinner at Fattoush. As always, the food was great and plentiful. Afterwards, we explored Haifa a bit more, and caught the last bus for the night to our Hostel. Lukas had booked the place, and the Security Guard/Receptionist thought our names were Lukas, Hanson, and Puffer. We promptly passed out, knowing we would be on the first bus the next morning. Thank you Amal Emek Harod, and a special thank you to Rafie, Michal, Ilach, and our Students! You made our time at your school truly special, and we are grateful for the many wonderful memories we created together. Today is the day. This is what we came here for. Months of meetings, lectures, trainings, and preparations were now all about to come together. Today was the first day of our teaching here in Israel. We woke up early in the morning to grab a breakfast at our lodging site. Then, one of the teachers from the school came to our place to pick us up. On the way there, she told us about her family, the school, and the area we were staying at. When we got to the school, we quickly went to the room and started getting ready for our lecture. As soon as we arrived, the kids in the school showed a lot of interests in us. We talked about where we were from, where we are staying right now, and being a student at MIT. Then, we went into our first day of teaching. The topics we covered today are as follows: intro to entrepreneurship, ideating process, and co-founder relations. We put extra emphasis on problem-solving based perspectives to entrepreneurship. We introduced how important it is to have a target audience/market when you are designing your produce. We also talked about how crucial it is for a startup to have a great, diverse team to be successful. Then, we also had our first speaker, Mr. Dan Grotsky, speak of his journey to our kids. Mr. Grotsky is an alum from University of Tel Aviv and MIT, and he is a serial entrepreneur working on his fifth co-founded venture called Groundwork BioAg. The students were extremely excited to have him and asked a lot of great questions regarding entrepreneurship, culture in the states, and general life advice. After teaching, our team had a quick lunch at school and came back home. Extremely excited but also tired, we all had to take a long nap to recharge ourselves. We then took a bus to a nearby Italian restaurant called "Si Cafe." Afterwards, we came back home and had a meeting to get ready for tomorrow. Today was definitely a very exciting day. Students were all very engaged and participating, and we were very grateful that we could teach thee young entrepreneurs the things that will be useful for them in the future. I will head off here. Goodnight everyone, and see you in our next entry :) Picture 1: Teaching Picture (1) Picture 2: Teaching Picture (2) Picture 3: Mr. Grotsky speaking to the students Picture 4: Mr. Grotsky x MIT Team picture Picture 5: Quick lunch at school Picture 6: Italian dinner at Si Cafe |
AuthorWe are Daniel, Jakob, and Lukas. |