(From Springfield Public Schools)
Sarah Alkhaldi has been a teacher for 16 years, and her favorite thing about Wilder Elementary School is the small libraries in each classroom.
“I also noticed how the playground equipment is a good place for children in elementary schools,” said Alkhaldi. “They can move and they can run and they can learn outside the classroom, which is a good thing for them. We don’t have playgrounds in my country.”
Alkhaldi is one of 28 teacher leaders from Saudi Arabia participating in the Khebrat Program as part of an internship with Springfield Public Schools, in partnership Missouri State University’s English Language Institute.
Teachers from Saudi Arabia are placed in 14 other universities and their communities in America and five other countries to learn best practices in education globally to implement in their own classrooms in Saudi Arabia.
“The Saudi Ministry of Education and Cultural Mission had learning goals for participants, who volunteered to be a part of the Khebrat program,” said Rachel Love, school immersion coordinator at the English Language Institute at MSU. “In the program, they’re reaching those goals by teacher training courses, like education technology courses, and the active immersion experience in the schools.”
From Oct. 1 through Dec. 14, Saudi teachers are observing classrooms at six sites: Wilder, McGregor, Hickory Hills, Carver, Parkview and Central. At each site, Khebrat participants are partnered with a site mentor, who helps to oversee the teachers’ observations, as well as answering their questions about processes, procedures and customs in American schools.
At Wilder, ELL teacher Lesley Strange-Robinson serves as Alkhaldi’s mentor, working and learning right alongside her.
“I have actually learned a lot from Sarah,” said Strange-Robinson. “We were talking today about how the schools in Saudi Arabia compare to us here, and it’s been very interesting, culturally, as well as getting to know someone who I have a connection with in Saudi Arabia.”
In the ELL classroom at Wilder, Strange-Robinson and Alkhaldi learn from each other daily. But Alkhaldi isn’t the only one in her family learning at SPS.
“I like school because I like math and reading and writing and listening,” said Linah Alkhaldi, second-grader at Sherwood Elementary School. “It’s fun to go to school, even though there are boys here.”
“We have summer school in my country, but it is not as effective as it is here,” said Sarah. “My daughter in fifth-grade at Sherwood said that her English was getting good and she can now speak with her teacher fluently in English after summer school. Now she can understand everything in the class, even if the ELL teacher is not there.”
At Sherwood, Faizah and Linah are two of 11 students who are children of participants of the Khebrat program -- with 40 total Khebrat children enrolled at SPS in its first cohort, according to Jeremy Borland, coordinator of English Language Learners and Migrant Education Program.
“It’s great that we’ve welcomed Khebrat participants with open arms and that they feel welcome in our district,” said Borland. “We only want to strengthen their relationships with our community, so they can learn from us and we can learn from them.”
At the end of her internship, Sarah Alkhaldi will take her pages of notes about Wilder Elementary’s building, classroom, lessons, specialty classes and more to create a final project. The culminating project will focus on a systemic change for her school district in Saudi Arabia, based on her learning from the 12-month Khebrat program and her experience within Wilder Elementary.
“The teachers here in SPS can design her class; we don’t have this opportunity,” said Alkhaldi. “She can design it to be attractive for her kids, so they can learn easily and they feel safe and interested in the class. That’s a great process for the students: they learn more.”
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