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July 27, 2009

Taught like an Egyptian

Corbin Middle teachers study Egypt for students

By Carl Keith Greene / Staff Writer

A memo from Corbin Superintendent Ed McNeel sent a pair of teachers from the city middle school on a trek along the Nile this summer.

Melissa Evans and Michele Anderson took the challenge — they applied for and received the grant that would take them to the land of camels, caravans and Cleopatra.

From June 26 to July 8, they and other teachers toured the Nile Valley in Egypt from Alexandria to near the border with Sudan, experiencing the historical and modern cultures of the nation.

The trip was paid for by a grant from the Fund for Teachers, a non-profit organization that seeks to enrich “the personal and professional growth of teachers” through first-hand experiences across the globe.

Evans explained that one of the criteria of the grant is that the teachers write a thematic unit that connects in some way to the subjects being taught in their classes. Evans teaches science and Anderson, mathematics.

And from the trip they brought back to share “lots of understanding and knowledge of their culture and the contributions they have made to the world,” said Anderson.

They also learned how Americans have misconceptions of the life of people in Egypt. And through that learning, the pair can help people to know that Egyptians, though different, are typical, peaceful Muslims and are not to be feared, but embraced.

“They were kind to us and we never had a reason to be afraid,” Evans said. “They are good, family-oriented people. Everyone in the family works. It’s a survival situation.”

She said by experiencing the trip, she and Anderson can help make Egypt more real for the students.

“You can read and read and know (about a place) but to experience it is different. What we wanted was an experience,” she said.

“There are not a lot of cultural experiences for the (school) children. To see it first hand and bring it back and share with the students can help them to understand a small piece of the rest of the world,” Anderson added.

The trek started in Cairo, literally across the street from the pyramids and Sphinx, the tombs of Egyptian kings.

“It was mind boggling to drive down a city street and look to your left and there it is, the Sphinx,” Anderson said.

And, she said the Cairo Museum with its artifacts of King Tut and other Egyptian history was fascinating.

The journey then headed to Alexandria, the Greek founded city on the Mediterranean coast that once hosted a library of hundreds of thousands of scrolls, which were lost in an ancient fire.

The new library was an interesting site, as was an ancient catacomb that bore remains of the dead, including the “Three Musketeers,” she said.

On the way back to Cairo, the group stopped at an ancient Coptic Christian monastery, and at Cairo again, boarded a sleeper train for the 14-hour trip to Aswan.

There, on the Nile, they sailed in feluccas, traditional sail boats used by fishermen for centuries, made a trip to the Elephantine Island, toured a Nubian village and had dinner on the roof top of the adobe home of the people there.

From Aswan they took a plane to Abu Simbel, the home of Ramses II and Nefertiti, the queen whom is thought to have found Moses in the bulrushes.

It was there that when Lake Nasser was created on the Nile, the temples of those two were moved 80 meters upward on the river banks to keep them from being flooded.

Then it was back to Aswan, a three-day riverboat trip on the Nile with a stop in Luxor and the Valley of the Kings, the site of Tut’s tomb.

Then they were back in Cairo and soon heading home to the U.S.A.

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