[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Majed Jameel was overwhelmed.Poor guy. The city, peopled by Paleostinians, is "volatile." It's been "volatile" for seventy two years and shows no sign of ceasing its volatility. The U.S., having its own problems, has ceased funding UNRWA, which has cut funding to Paleoschools. The poor guy's gone from trying to indoctrinate 27 little Islamic exemplars to riding herd on 47, or approximately the same number in my (Catholic) school classroom when I and the Paleovolatility problem were both ten years old.
This wasn’t the kind of pressure he’d grown accustomed to as a teacher in the volatile West Bank city of Hebron. On a recent, not uncommon occasion, festivities erupted between students and Israeli soldiers, sending volleys of tear gas into the playground. That he could handle.
This was a different stress. After the Trump administration slashed funding last year to the UN agency for Paleostinian refugees, known as UNRWA, Jameel saw his classes nearly doubled in size.
His disciplined social studies class at the Hebron Boys’ School had become a crowded, unruly scene: Four children squeezed at desks made for two, dozens of hands shooting in the air at the same time, noise snowballing when he paused for questions.
He said the classroom is louder and filled with distractions. "You spend most of the class time restraining student interactions or fights and have no time left to track their homework and classwork ... or give one-on-one help."
Hmmm....odd, that. Paleos, you say?
The effects of US aid cuts have rippled throughout UNRWA’s operations, but its sprawling school system, serving 500,000 children across the Middle East, has been hit hardest.
With money dried up and widespread austerity measures in place, the agency says it can no longer accommodate a natural influx of students, recruit new teachers or expand to larger facilities.
Peter Mulrean, the agency’s New York representative, said average class sizes in the West Bank have grown from 30 students a year ago to 50.
"There’s a huge difference between correcting exams for 27 students and for 47 students," said Jameel. "I just want things go back to how they were last year."