The choice to immerse yourself into a foreign culture without family or friends for four months is a hard decision to make at fifteen. I was excited to have a winter of 70-degree weather instead of the cold winters to which I was accustomed. I looked forward to the freedom, the food, and the culture. I was excited about what Heller High had to offer. I was excited to live with 80 other American teens while still living in Israel. I was excited to be in an American high school, where I would take Chemistry and World History while also taking Jewish History and Hebrew. I was excited to enter the journey of adjusting to a new place, language, culture, and school schedule, while everyone around me was going through the same transition. 

I had been considering going to Heller High School in Israel for a long time, but finally making it a reality required not only a lot of hard work but also confidence. I started my application process in the fall of my freshman year and nervously awaited January 29, 2019 for over a year.

When I arrived at JFK for my departure, I was welcomed by 75 friendly faces who quickly turned into some of my closest friends. After a long day of travel, we arrived at our home for the next four months: Kibbutz Tzuba. We were separated into dorm rooms and given our schedules for the intensive 11 hour days that lay ahead of us.

Each morning we had two hours of Hebrew and three hours of Jewish history. I learned to speak conversationally with the Israelis I lived among. I went in not knowing the alphabet and by the end of the semester, my class and I were able to buy groceries and bargain in the shuk without any English at all. In Jewish History, we studied from the time of Creation to the present in the land where much of our history took place. When we studied the Six-Day War, we went to the trenches where the battles were fought. I was able to connect more deeply with the content by not only seeing where the events took place but also by living in a society shaped by the outcome of these events. This not only gave us an opportunity to learn about our shared cultural past and the Israeli society we had just entered, but it also allowed us to travel around the country on biweekly field trips. In the afternoons we had our common core classes and group meetings to round out an exhausting, fun, and rewarding day.

In addition to adjusting to new people and a crazy new schedule, we were immersed in the rich culture of Israel. We lived on a kibbutz, a communal settlement where all residents work in the multiple trades of the kibbutz. Tzuba, the kibbutz I lived on, had an amusement park, a hotel, glass factory, ice cream shop, grocery store, and winery where the kibbutzniks, or members of the kibbutz, worked. In addition to working on and for the kibbutz, all residents played together, ate together, and even shared pets. At first, I was surprised by the warm welcome from dogs outside my dorm room. As I adapted to kibbutz life, I soon realized the true beauty of kibbutzim and looked forward to petting the dogs on my way back from class. If I was sick and went to the kibbutz doctor, I would be greeted by one of the friendly faces I saw in the dining room each day. It was a warm community where people shared common goals, work-life, and interests. While adjusting to communal living on the smaller scale of the dorm rooms and the larger scale of the kibbutz was difficult at first, it allowed me to have an appreciation for the people around me and the joy of debriefing your day with peers as you fall asleep. At first, the time change was also difficult. Being eight hours ahead of my family and friends made the reality of instant communication less attainable. However, I soon learned the times when I could talk to my friends and family back home but also figured out not lean on my parents as much for help. This allowed me to become closer with my friends and counselors in Israel by having them as the first people I would go to with problems. My dorm rooms became little families where we delegated chores, cooked together, and wrote our bathroom schedules..

I grew academically, and my perspective of the world and therefore my maturity grew as the semester continued. As the time came to I return to Chicago, I began to await my return to Parker. I couldn’t help but compare my recent experience with the familiar system of Parker. Besides obvious differences like having class Sunday through Thursday instead of Monday through Friday ( in a Jewish country you have Shabbat off instead of Sunday, the Christian sabbath), traveling constantly, and living with my peers, it was hard to pinpoint deeper differences between my two schools. Much like Parker, Heller High values community, not only between the students and teachers but between the school and the surrounding community. The classes were small and we had amazing relationships with our teachers. However, the classes were very hard for me to adjust to. For the first time since I came to Parker, I was immersed back into the reality of most American public schools and the majority of my classes were straightforward lessons and problems from textbooks. It was a completely new system and little things like remembering my textbook were surprisingly challenging. However, it led me to appreciate the open curriculum we have at Parker even more than I already did. I missed my teachers being able to adjust a lesson plan or test so we could explore our questions and interests more deeply.

Looking back on an amazing semester, I know I am very lucky to have had the experiences I have had at this age. I am excited to take back what I have learned and the culture I was immersed in to share them with the Paker community. Now that I’m back on a Monday through Friday schedule and Central Time, I will try to keep from reverting back to normal and instead keep learning and exploring the American culture I’ve returned to.