Week 3 of classes begins today, Monday (Memorial Day in the States). We have only 2 weeks left of "academics" - Fluids and Arabic. We also have only a few days left to finish our Service Learning assignments. The website team is finalizing its work; we hope to have a draft ready by Wednesday so we can show it (the draft website) to our NGO partner and then show off our students' great work to the communities with whom we are working - Establ Anter and Muqattam.
Our weekend was spent recuperating (many of our students found themselves with colds and headaches; a couple still suffer from stomach ailments). On Saturday, our 2nd group of students took the tour with Iman Abdel-Fattah of Islamic Cairo (see post from last Saturday). Iman was most impressed with our students ... the amount of questions, and the depth of those questions, made her feel that we were truly connecting with Egypt's Islamic history -- i.e., that we had both an interest in, as well as a growing understanding about, Islam in Egypt.
I believe it is the "chemistry" of this group that makes it that much more impressive than many other groups that came before them (i.e., came before, with me, to Cairo). Our students are majors in Arts & Sciences (Middle East Studies, International Affairs, Political Science, Linguistics, Psychology, Biology, History, Physics, Music, English, Sociology, and Human Services), Criminal Justice, International Business, Bouve (Pharmacy), and of course Mechanical Engineering. The inter-disciplinary elements, the various learning styles, the different ways of seeing the world, the multiplicity of perspectives, to say nothing of the sheer size (35 students!) allow for a unique learning environment for all of us, professors and students alike.
And now, off to plan the rest of the week ... in particular, our final night of Dialogue (tonight) at Fulbright offices.
2 comments:
thanks for the continued postings. I, too, check each and every day to see if there's anything "new" that I can read. My thirst for a connection to this wonderful experience is always satisfied by every new entry.
Thanks again! Looking forward to the next one.
(and I'm glad to hear that young woman is ok after her fall)
thanks DF ... yes, one more person has recovered, and we struggle less and less (now) with "tummy troubles". I think that, after Egypt, our students can go nearly anywhere, having developed something close to "iron stomachs"!
Post a Comment