“We had school elections for student government representatives, complete with voting booths and election monitors,” Dr. Yoder recalled. As a school serving Egyptians hungry for an American-style education, NAC offered its students “their only direct experience with how democracies operate,” he added.

Time chose Sarah Abdel Rahman to be one of the seven young protesters on its cover as a result of her daily presence at the Tahrir Square protests, beginning on Jan. 25, 2011. Yoder knows Ms. Nadra Ibrahim, a Christian woman he had employed as a music teacher and a Muslim man, Mr. Adel, employed as an Arabic teacher at NAC also took leading roles in the protest.  On February 4, Muslims prayed, Mr. Adel helping to lead those prayers, in Tahrir Square as Christians surrounded them.  On Sunday, February 6, Ms. Nadra led singing on the square, as Muslims surrounded Christians, a most unusual public display of mutual support in Cairo.

The non-violent grassroots movement took Yoder by surprise. From 2000 – when Yoder was hired by an Egyptian educator, Mohamed El Rashidy, to found an American-style PK-12 school – to 2008 when Yoder wrapped up his work there, Yoder saw little possibility for Egypt’s release from dictator Mubarak’s rule. He and his wife, LaVerne Zehr Yoder ’63 did, however, grow to love Egypt and to feel welcomed by its people, regardless of their religious persuasion. In fact, 90 percent of the students in his school were Muslim, and Yoder says there was no tension between them and the heavily Christian faculty and minority segment of Christian students.

NAC grew from 20 students to 490 students by the time the Yoders left. LaVerne was the school’s founding early childhood leader, developing a new kindergarten classroom after walking into a room with only four white walls.

Although the Belleville, Pa., native had majored in history as an undergraduate at 91����Ƶ and spent four decades in the educational arena as an administrator and professor, he had never been to Egypt and knew little about the country.

A conversation 11 years ago with New York educational consultant Dr. Rollin P. Baldwin about Egypt intrigued Yoder. He learned that an Egyptian family that ran a series of private schools was seeking a superintendent to open an American-style school in Cairo. So Yoder flew to Egypt for a week in March 2000.

After meeting the owners – a father and his eight daughters – Yoder spoke to prospective parents, answering questions about what an American school would be like. “I was talking off the top of my head based on my experiences in secondary education teaching in the Philadelphia area, and relying on my master’s and doctoral work at Temple University,” Yoder recalled.  “I simply talked about the critical thinking, investigation, inquiry, problem-solving and writing approach on how we do education.”

Satisfying both the school’s owners and parents, Yoder returned home to Harrisonburg, VA with a signed contract, to work directly with The Mohamed El Rashidy Family of educators.

That fall of 2000, with a total of 20 students in grades 9 and 10, the Narmer American College (NAC) opened on the grounds of the related Maadi Narmer National School. Yoder’s eyes were quickly opened to a significant educational divide. He was teaching both English and world geography that first year, and in one of the latter classes he and his students were discussing the Palestine-Israeli issue.

He asked one sophomore, Mohamed Sinbawy, his opinion. “What, you want me to say what I think?” Sinbawy responded in disbelief.

“Yes, Mohamed, what are your own views?” Yoder wondered.

“No one ever asked me that before!”

Yoder was stunned. In response, he developed what he has dubbed a “Different Way of Learning.”

“What made our approach appealing is that the Egyptian national system is based on memorizing for a big test at the end of their schooling, very similar to a British system also in place in Egypt,” he said. “So it didn’t matter if a student goes to school, it didn’t matter what the teacher says, they just have to pass a test at the end.

“This became a much friendlier environment in which, for the first time, students took the initiative to establish a relationship with their teachers. Likewise, in the national schools parents don’t even talk to their children’s teachers,” Yoder noted.

LaVerne Z. Yoder, who taught elementary school for 27 years in the US before going with Lee to Cairo, was the school’s early childhood leader. The youngest of their three children, Lawson F. Yoder, an 91����Ƶ graduate, went to Cairo with his family for the 2007-2008, where he was the first assistant principal in the middle and high school.  He had taught previously for eight years at Broadway (VA) High School and another eight years at the Chapel School in Sao Paulo, Brazil. After returning to the US in 2008, he has been teaching in the middle school in Rockingham County, Virginia.

Another lure for teachers, parents and students is the sparkling first-of-its-kind Egyptian campus constructed under Yoder’s watchful eye. It is the equivalent, he said, of an $85 million U.S. school. It is located in New Cairo City, a major new development area east of Cairo that is part of the 17-million population metropolitan area. It is unique, according to Yoder, because the entire school is contained in one three-story building, encompassing nearly a quarter-million square feet, it has a capacity of 1,500 students.

Opened in August 2006, the school’s state-of-the-art facilities include 56 classrooms, music and art rooms, science and information technology laboratories, 24-hour internet access, a library, a 475-seat air-conditioned auditorium, a health clinic and a swimming pool, indoor sports court, gymnasium, a dance studio and an outdoor athletic field.

Yoder attended to all the details for a new school, from helping name the school to designing the school logo, signage and transcripts, developing the PK-12 curriculum, all policies and procedures, recruiting faculty, chairing the school accreditation efforts, participating in meetings with architects to thrash out the new school building’s design and even helping select the American school furniture imported from the U.S.

At NAC, the curriculum Yoder developed uses the Virginia Standards of Learning with local adaptations, such as modern Middle Eastern history curiously not covered by Egyptian national schools. There were field trips, including a cruise up the Nile from the temples of Luxor to the Aswan high dam.  In 2008, the school’s newly founded Model United Nations team went to an international conference hosted by the Georgetown University campus in Doha, Qatar, while an art and social studies field trip took students to Prague in the Czech Republic.

Yoder and his staff sought to be extremely sensitive to religious and political issues. Each August, for two-and-a-half weeks before the school opens, Yoder conducted a faculty orientation. The message: “As North Americans, we are guests in this culture. Therefore, we promoted understanding and not ridicule or making fun of the ways of doing things.” In 2007, the faculty closed their orientation session and joined hands with Yoder and the Egyptian owners to symbolize the way Muslims and Christians can work together to develop a new school, as Isaac and Ishmael stood side by side at the death of their father Abraham, in Hebron, Palestine centuries ago.

Eighty-one percent of the NAC students are Egyptian. Others, including dual nationals, hail from 15 other countries.  The faculty of 55 also has an international flavor. Among the students and faculty, there are 30 nationalities reflected in the international flags displayed on the campus and for special commencement ceremonies. The majority are certified U.S. teachers who, in addition to Pennsylvanians, hail from Illinois, Wisconsin, New York and as far south as Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi and Texas and as far west as Arizona, New Mexico and Washington state.

Since 2008, the support of American certified teachers became too expensive for the school owners, so more Egyptian teachers have been hired and many American teachers either returned home or went to other schools, Yoder noted, adding that more local administrative leadership persons have been retained to lead the school in its next phase of development.

The spring semester 2011 at 91����Ƶ, Yoder is interim co-chair of undergraduate education, along with Dr. Sandy L. Brownscombe. They are filling in for Dr. Cathy Smeltzer Erb ’85, who is on sabbatical.

From 1963 to 1975, Yoder was first a social studies teacher and then the principal of Christopher Dock High School in Lansdale, Pa. During 1975-1986 Yoder was vice president for administration and associate professor of education at 91����Ƶ and then dean for academic affairs and professor of education (1992-1998) at nearby Bridgewater College. Yoder received both an EdM and an EdD in education from Temple University in Philadelphia.

Dear Friends,

Many thanks for the congratulations that have been pouring in. It is incredible what the Egyptian people have done. This is truly a historic moment for each and every Egyptian citizen. This January 25^th revolution will have deep repercussions here and far beyond.

Finally, after a very painful birth for 18 days, the People have prevailed. By the ‘Will of the People’, Mubarak and his regime have been consigned to the dustbin of history.

Finally, the army has sided with the people. They have performed honorably since the beginning of this revolution, affirming all along that they are from the people and would never shoot at the people. In their 3^rd statement, where they announced they were taking over, the spokesperson gave a military salute to the martyrs (this was a very moving moment), he affirmed that the army was not a substitute for the legitimacy that the people would agree on, and said they would take in due coarse measures to respond to the people’s call for bringing about fundamental changes. They have brilliantly resisted through out this crisis, the malicious attempts by Mubarak to create a situation whereby they would be led to confront with force the peaceful protests — which had it happened would have destroyed their historic credibility as an institution whose sons come from the people [this is a conscription army] and whose sole responsibility is the protection of the people of Egypt.  There were many tipping points through out the hopeless acts of crisis management which created frictions between Mubarak /Solliman on the one side and the army on the other.  The most serious one- I think- was on the 10^th of Feb. after Mubarak’s last statement, when thousands of angry protestors -not from Tahrir square- began marching towards Heliopolis, where the presidential palace is situated. The Palace is protected by the presidential guards whose loyalty is solely to Mubarak. They are highly trained sharp shooters. Had they opened fire in this highly volatile atmosphere to protect the regime (Mubarak was already in Sharm) , a likely blood bath would have ensued. One dreaded response was of the people directing their anger at the army. It seems that the army in those crucial moments, were the wrong decision could have cost the country dearly, decided to  play politics with their boots in order to pre-empt this doomsday scenario. It appears that in a true moment of history, they forced Mubarak to accept stepping down. (I could be wrong, but this is my reading of the situation that unfolded)

Mubarak’s last Statement: absolutely horrible, pompous, arrogant, and until the last minute he tried to give the impression that he was in control, that only himself , Mubarak is the one who sets the timings for political changes. Also it was very non conciliatory in its essence, and the tone of bitterness spoke volumes to the people. The protestors called it “Khetab al-Gazma” (the Shoe Statement) ie the protestors were treated by Mubarak as no better than shoes.  I was told by the protesters, the morning of the 11^th of February, when I went to the Square,  that between 150-200 protesters had fainted after hearing Mubarak’s statement. Many needed medical treatment for acute convulsions, epileptic fits, diabetic comas, heart attacks. Urgently needed psychiatric help was sought in Tahrir Square. The anger was very palpable, this was another tipping moment. On Friday the  11^th of February , we the people, millions of Egyptians  responded by coming out on the streets shouting, ‘The people demand the Fall of the regime”.

This has been a beautiful, non violent revolution, sparked by the youth on Facebook and twitter and very quickly embraced by the entire nation.  It was a revolution that unfolded to free our spirits, to allow us to regain our dignity, our stolen humanity and to ensure that we are able to enjoy our universal basic rights, as I’ve heard over the days from tens of protesters at Tahrir Square.

It was not planned like this. When it started on the 25^th – on the National Day of the Police Force- as a peaceful protest against the brutality and routine torture practices by the Police, the protestors had thought it would be a march for a couple of hours and that’s it. The slogans that were first raised were not calling for regime change. The main slogan said “justice, freedom, human dignity”. The trigger was the brutal force the police employed to suppress the peaceful march on January the 25^th and the bloody spectacle of innocent protesters being killed in cold blood in front of the TV cameras of the entire world. These repeated episodes of bloody confrontations, thuggery and violence by the regime’s security apparatus and supporters,  in addition to the defamation campaigns and the lies told on national Television about the protesters  and their ‘foreign agendas’,  charged the protestors with as much vigor and moral power as those of the violent means employed by the security apparatus.

Every day the revolution gained new grounds, as wave after wave of Egyptians joined what they quickly recognized as their cause, a fight for FREEDOM, a cause of the highest moral order. I met many young revolutionaries on Tahrir square age 22-30, who told me, day in and day out, ‘I don’t need to be here…I have a good job, status and family support’, yet they were determined to bring down the State of Fear, the state structures of embedded corruption, the system that created unbridgeable gaps between superfluous wealth and abject poverty. Just imagine, the moto of the police force under the Mubarak regime was changed  from ‘the Police in service of the People’ to ‘the Police and the People in service of the Nation’ (ie the regime). Unfortunately for the regime when they reverted ten days ago to the earlier motto, it was a step taken far too late for the revolution.

I consider myself a well educated person- I have an LLM in international law, a masters degree in conflict transformation from respected universities in the US and the UK, and more than 20 years of international experience as a journalist, yet I’ve been continuously humbled during those 18 days by the wisdom  of those young revolutionaries, their practice of non-violent resistance and their superb strategic thinking and organizational abilities. They were ahead of all of us.  I and millions of Egyptians believed in them, and embraced their/our cause as they raised their voices ‘Game is Over’.

Those young men and women never studied Gandhi and the non-violent struggle that he had led to free India, but everything they did were truly Gandhian in spirit and practice. Gandhi said ‘Not till the spirit is changed can the form be altered’– The protesters by their peaceful resistance, by their courage and determination to break the barriers of fear and intimidation, that we had succumbed to under Mubarak’s regime, were truly cleansing our souls. Like Gandhi they recognized that for war/violence to be stopped, the conscience of the people has to be changed until everyone recognizes the ‘undisputed supremacy of the Law of Love’. They succeeded.

Similarly, most have never heard of Martin Luther King Jr., but like King, they believed that the debasement of individual freedom was objectionable in itself. His belief that ‘Man is not made for the state ; the state is made for man’ rings true in every thing they said and did starting from Tahrir Square.

Countless Noble moments:  it will take us in Egypt and the world over, months and years to list, analyze and study the countless acts of love, generosity and kindness that were generated by the people that started the 25^th of January revolution from Tahrir Square, that later spread to the rest of Egypt.

Two scenes strongly come to my mind. I will never forget the voice and the pleadings of the well known Egyptian director Khaled Youssef, when he appeared on Arab satellite tv screens, the night of the 25^th ,I think,  when  the fires that engulfed the building of the ruling party, adjacent to the national museum, were visibly catching up and threatening the muesuem’s historic building.  He very passionately called on all Egyptians and the civilized people of the world, to come out and protect this world heritage.  Dark Images of the looted treasures of Iraq in 2003, came to mind and I cried.  The heroic protestors at Tahrir square formed a human chain to prevent the thugs from looting the Museum, and later the army fire fighters came. Khaled, later recounted how he met on the same night, a man who had walked for 4 hours to get to the museum, at a time when the roads were cut and the curfew was in place and the thugs were looting in Cairo, for no other purpose than to protect the Egyptian treasures.  Hundreds, like this man,  converged on the square for the same cause.

Second scene: I will never forget the 30+ man I met at Tahrir Square, whose haggard appearance; worn clothing clearly showed he comes for the struggling class- he comes from Nahya, a very rough slum area on the outskirts of Cairo, an area so congested, with hardly any proper infrastructure– this makes it not fit for animals let alone for a dignified human existence. This guy, who is a teacher on 200 Egyptian pounds a month ie $34.5/month, came to the square with his four children, the youngest was about seven years old. I met him on this infamous day when the Mubarak’s thugs charged the square with camels and horses to spread panic and chaos. I had left the square on that day one hour before the ugly charade unfolded, but I did witness the beginnings of some very violent confrontations and actually saw some twelve injured protestors, who were hit by a volley of stones and sharp metal objects thrown by the pro-Mubarak paid thugs. This was the background scene when I met this teacher. Hence I asked whether he thought it was safe to bring particularly his youngest son. He said referring to Tahrir square to which he had been coming regularly, ‘I feel like a human being again, even if my four children are martyred here, this is a small price to pay for Egypt to become free’. He looked lovingly at his young son, who was wrapped in the Egyptian flag and said ‘look, he is a revolutionary leader, he is the youngest orator here in the square.’

Last night, I cried when I called Ahmed to congratulate him. Ahmed is 22 and is one of those very smart, street wise and passionate guys that I’ve met at Tahrir square. He fits in the same category of those mainly from the Egyptian middle class, whom I had tried to profile in my previous story, ‘Just an Ordinary Hero’,  for their heroic  deeds all through those 18 days. He was clearly elated when the news came that Mubarak had stepped down.  He added with the same burning passion, that they would not leave the square until all their demands for:  freedom, social justice and human dignity, for all Egyptians were met. They will monitor how the Supreme Army Council will behave. With this new spirit, I am optimistic.

The nightmare is over and a new dawn has begun.

Jihan El-Alaily
12 February, 2011

Weaver was staying at ETSC and was relatively sheltered from the protests. On January 25 and 27 she was out in the city during the day but only saw one small demonstration. However, on the 27^th she was traveling by taxi when the taxi driver told her “Don’t go out tomorrow,” meaning Friday, January 28^th. From living and traveling in other Middle Eastern contexts she knew that Friday was the day that Muslims gathered at the mosques and was generally when unrest happened.

She took the taxi driver seriously and returned to the school on Thursday evening and did not leave again until Tuesday, when she made her way to the airport for a flight out of Egypt.

Finding a way out of Cairo quickly became her chief concern. Since she was alone in Egypt, without a group of mission workers or traveling companions it became more difficult to exit the country.

A friend suggested that a flight out by the US State Department might cost $6000 and that she should not travel to the airport without a ticket. Finally, she was able to get her name on the list of people that US State Department flew out on February 1. The $6000 price tag did not turn out to be true.

She was flown to Istanbul, Turkey where she then went through the difficult and expensive prospect of finding a flight home.

“In truly ironic fashion, the first three flights listed on the internet had layovers in Cairo. I obviously ignored those,” Weaver said.

After a long journey home Weaver is still thinking about her students at ETSC. The school has been closed since January 25 and will reopen next Monday, February 21. The school has an undergraduate  and graduate level program in pastoral studies. Currently 240 students are enrolled at ETSC. In 2002, Weaver taught a course at the undergraduate level. This year she was to teach a graduate level course. ETSC trains pastors for churches all around Egypt.

Weaver received an email from Atef Gendy, the president of ETSC on February 3 that read, “On New Year’s eve, Egypt was blustered by the bombing and killing of 23 Christians as they were leaving mass at one of the large Orthodox Christian Church in Alexandria. For the first time among similar incidents, the majority of citizens responded in grief and anger… That day I realized that Egypt was not the same any more. People were getting impatient with the lack of transparency and fake handling of serious situations.”

Weaver said, “I have hope that the new government that will be created in Egypt might be fair to minority and Christian groups. The previous government created a lot of challenges for Christian churches in Egypt. However, since the demonstration included both Muslims and Christians I hope good progress could be made on interfaith relationships in that country.”