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Students learn Arabic culture through day camp |
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| Education | |||
| Written by Kristin Babcock | |||
| Wednesday, 29 April 2009 00:00 | |||
 The school day began with the slightly unfamiliar tastes of falafel, baklava and hummus for Pawnee Elementary School second-grader Virginia Gonzales. “It’s actually quite good,” she said with a nod of approval. Virginia, along with students from 14 Shawnee Mission elementary schools, Holy Spirit Catholic School and Holy Trinity Catholic School, recently took part in an Arabic Day Camp held at Indian Creek Technical Center, 4401 W. 103rd St., Overland Park. Students visited learning stations where they tried on traditional clothing, learned to write their phone number in Arabic, and practiced saying common phrases in Arabic. The idea to host an Arabic Day Camp came from Emad Rawy, a visiting instructor of Arabic in the Shawnee Mission School District Center for International Studies. “I wanted them to have a different kind of learning experience,” Rawy said. “They will forget what I am teaching on a chalkboard, but they will remember food and music and dance.” Rawy, who is from Egypt, is spending a year in the Shawnee Mission School District through the Teachers of Critical Languages Program. The program is part of the National Security Language Initiative announced by President Bush in 2006. Through the program, native-language speakers provide instruction to students, with the aim of strengthening national security and prosperity through language. In the United States, the most commonly taught foreign languages are Spanish and French, said Mervat Ibrahim, Shawnee Mission schools Arabic instructor. But the demand for Arabic speakers will likely increase in a more global society, she said. “If you bring it to students at a young age, hopefully they will get more interested,” she said. Students at the day camp learned simple Arabic phrases such as “hello” and “thank you.” “I learned Spanish and I learned English when I was a baby,” kindergartner Jimmy Mendoza said. “It’s kind of different and kind of the same. I like testing it out. You can (learn Arabic) if you study it a lot.” Arabic has been classified by the U.S. Department of State as one of the most difficult languages for English speakers to learn, compared to other world languages. Shawnee Mission South junior Nada Abusalim said peers at school often ask her why she wants to learn such a difficult language. She tells them she wants to learn because of the beauty of the language and its growing importance in geopolitics. The elementary students learned about Arabic culture from high school students, like Nada, who study at the Center for International Studies. “We want these (elementary) students to know their futures are bright if they take the footsteps to become fluent in Arabic,” Nada said. The district received a $5,000 grant from the U.S. Department of State to help with the day camp, Rawy said. “I hope this lasts with them for a long time and they have a good picture of Arab culture and Egypt, not just what they picture in media,” Rawy said. “This is a time to interact and build their own ideas and experiences.” As an exchange teacher Rawy said part of his role will be to talk to students in Egypt about the United States culture when he returns home.
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