Thanksgiving, and home. I haven't been writing because I haven't been talking and this doesn't rate the "real" blog still of the Pardes people, though I haven't written in three weeks.
It's my day off and I'm procrastinating doing an assignment, writing the curriculum for Chanukah in standards and benchmarks. It's easy, except that I have to write it in big words. Maybe that's not usually hard for me, but I haven't been in the mood for any words in weeks.
It's not something wrong with me, in case you were wondering after reading the last post. It's just a lot of taking care of too many people for too long and without anyone taking care of me. It happens when you're a teacher and November means you have a lot of friends who need help.
Thanks for letting me stand by you. But I need a vacation with people doing that for me. This one with family just doesn't count.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Novemeber Blues
I've got them. It's a good thing it's just a few days before Thanksgiving, and I'm going on vacation, or else it would really be bad. All I want to do is sleep, I feel like I don't care that they act up because all I want to do is just let it go. I don't want to meet with all the people who think they can help me. I just want to sleep.
And I really want to be angry at the person who told me this month would be easier without nano, because that's what makes it possible to get through at all...
And I really want to be angry at the person who told me this month would be easier without nano, because that's what makes it possible to get through at all...
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
In Over My Head
(Shifra)
My student's sister is deathly ill. We are learning about praying for rain, (Ta'anit) and expecting G-d to answer us. This girl came into class and said "I don't mean to offend you, Ms. Kaufman, but I can't really do this work right now because I'm really angry at G-d for making my sister so sick." And I know it's because she's been praying, and because they still don't know anything but the basics they learned in Kindergarten with some frum teacher that G-d answers prayers.
I don't know how to say that sometimes He doesn't answer, and sometimes He says no.
So we are going to take a detour, my class and I, to talk about the thing that bothers them a lot more than if those Mishna dudes ever got rain. It's not getting off topic; in fact I wonder if it's the first ON topic thing we've done all year.
Obviously the principal and the guidance counselor and my mentor etc want me to "just bring in the Head of School, who's also a rabbi, and let him talk to them about it and give them some feel-good answers". No shock to you who know me that I don't want to do that. And then they yell at me for biting off more than I can chew in my first year.
But isn't this what first years are about? About not being stuck in your ways enough that you really enjoy the rollar coaster in which you never know what things you'll do tomorrow? I say, embrace the ability to just take a week and talk about the touchiest subject in all of religion. Sure, why not? At least this class, when they graduate, will be able to say that they thought about things that mattered in Judaics classes, that there was a teacher willing to engage the big picture.
It all comes back again to them being able to think. Are we helping them by leaving them with pat answers? By encouraging more of them? I think it would help them more to interview people who don't know, won't know, and think we can't know, and see that sometimes, there just aren't answers and the only thing left is to dream up your own.
My student's sister is deathly ill. We are learning about praying for rain, (Ta'anit) and expecting G-d to answer us. This girl came into class and said "I don't mean to offend you, Ms. Kaufman, but I can't really do this work right now because I'm really angry at G-d for making my sister so sick." And I know it's because she's been praying, and because they still don't know anything but the basics they learned in Kindergarten with some frum teacher that G-d answers prayers.
I don't know how to say that sometimes He doesn't answer, and sometimes He says no.
So we are going to take a detour, my class and I, to talk about the thing that bothers them a lot more than if those Mishna dudes ever got rain. It's not getting off topic; in fact I wonder if it's the first ON topic thing we've done all year.
Obviously the principal and the guidance counselor and my mentor etc want me to "just bring in the Head of School, who's also a rabbi, and let him talk to them about it and give them some feel-good answers". No shock to you who know me that I don't want to do that. And then they yell at me for biting off more than I can chew in my first year.
But isn't this what first years are about? About not being stuck in your ways enough that you really enjoy the rollar coaster in which you never know what things you'll do tomorrow? I say, embrace the ability to just take a week and talk about the touchiest subject in all of religion. Sure, why not? At least this class, when they graduate, will be able to say that they thought about things that mattered in Judaics classes, that there was a teacher willing to engage the big picture.
It all comes back again to them being able to think. Are we helping them by leaving them with pat answers? By encouraging more of them? I think it would help them more to interview people who don't know, won't know, and think we can't know, and see that sometimes, there just aren't answers and the only thing left is to dream up your own.
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