Shout out to my Arabic teacher that looked at us yesterday mid-lesson and said, “I’m worried. You all look exhausted and depressed.”
Of we were all like, “Oh yeah we’re dead inside, you haven’t noticed?”
And he snapped shut the textbook, threw up his hands and said, “That’s not healthy! No more vocab! Time for dancing!”
And he taught us a dance from Iraq and we danced instead of doing vocab. We didn’t stop dancing until he saw all of us laughing and was satisfied that we were all feeling better. It was perhaps the coolest, most kind-hearted thing I’ve ever seen a college instructor do.
This is great of your teacher as a person, but I think it also says a lot about him as a teacher. There is something deeply amiss (in my opinion) when xy-language classes only teach about vocabulary, conjugation and grammar. Don’t understand me wrong, these are important, but it also makes you blind to everything else that has to do with what you’re supposed to learn. Languages don’t exist in a vacuum and are shaped and influenced by the people and their culture who actually speak it. Learning an iraqi dance? Not only makes it the class more fun, but it also allows the students to connect to the language on a deeper and more fundamental level because this is what the people who live the language do.
Thursday, October 25th Hi everyone, I’m Gemma and I’m so sorry to ask this again so soon from my (please help me avoid eviction post) as I still desperately need help.
As many of you may know, I’ve been struggling these past few months, literally since the new year in January, because I’ve had my welfare benefits (Universal Credit and Housing Benefit) revoked under the UK’s controversial changes to how benefits are assessed and assigned and due to my mental illnesses, I am unable to find work despite my many applications. And if anyone has ever had their benefits sanctioned or capped, then you’ll understand how much of a struggle and death sentence it is.
And at the moment my U.C benefit is under a “capped- sanction” and the £185 that I received today went towards paying off some of my utilities, tax and other bills, leaving me with nothing to help pay my electricity & heating or get groceries for this month. The photo above is how much I have until November 25th and I know that I have asked this a lot these past few months and all the help I have previously received has literally helped me from spiralling into more debt and helped me to eat and stay warm so far and I absolutely hate to ask for more help but I have no one else to turn to and government aid/food banks are unable to offer me anymore assistance.
If anyone could spare any amount to help me, even if it’s just £1/$1/€1, it would literally save my life and, sharing definitely helps just as much as donations. Nobody has to donate if they can’t or don’t want to, I know we’re all struggling. Thank you for your help 💖
Please consider helping out guys if you possibly can, I desperately need help to keep my lights/hot water on and get groceries. Literally anything helps right now. 🙏💖
willowfoot 