Yeast

We are learning about Yetziat Mitzrayim, specifically the part where they don't have time for their dough to rise. We started talking about why they couldn't have waited, why weren't they prepared, and then how to make bread in the first place.

When I was in 5th grade myself I read a biography of Betsy Ross (the designer of the American flag) which talked about her family of Quakers, who did everything from scratch, and how when she got married, she took a piece of her mother's sourdough with her. Something about taking the dough stuck in my mind, although I had never seen real live "sourdough" myself.

I told my students about this, and they were immediately fascinated by the idea that dough rises itself, and we decided to try it ourselves. I turned to my friend Google, who as always had 10 million hits from a cult of people who actually do this, and learned that all you need is flour and water in a glass jar and to stir and add some flour every day for a week. Our EQ for the whole unit on the 10th plague was "Faith and Trust take time and energy to develop," and so soon our sourdough was nicknamed "Faith."

It was a lot of work. It continues to be a lot of work, as I struggle to remember to take it home and feed it in the evenings, and help the students do it in the mornings. Like our own private Shema, it constantly pushes in our faces the idea that the good things in life take time, that in a world of instant gratification, sometimes slow does win the race.

I am sitting in my house now, baking bread from an extra bit, a test run of what we will do tomorrow, and realizing that I have taught all of this, in addition to finally pulling them in to the world of 3000 years ago, all without actually opening a text or teaching a single word. We have learned this by virtue of something we have done, not talked about, and I am content.

I am happy that I finally feel like we have walked in the footsteps of our ancestors, that we have re-enacted Mitzrayim, and surprised that we didn't need a book to tell us the point of the whole story: Bnei Yisrael had to leave behind the leavened bread that was the invention of Mitzrayim, and walk with faith in the shadow of God into a desert filled with matzah, and then manna, until they learned to trust. They learned then by giving it up, we learned now by creating something from almost nothing, and I have learned that something we can touch is the most powerful teacher of all.

The Siren

Three years ago, on Yom HaZikaron of my first year at Pardes, we were sitting in the Beit Midrash about four minutes before the siren. Suddenly a group of about 10 students start sneaking out, and for some reason I go with them. I find myself on the roof, looking out at the corner of Pierre Koenig and Rifka, and before I can say anything the siren starts.

The siren has always dug into me, the same as a shofar, pulling at my heart and making me feel like I'm both sinking and flying at the same time. But that year I just couldn't settle into it. It felt intrusive to be watching the tiny people down there privately mourning, and it felt even more uncomfortable that one of my rooftop companions was videoing those people with his camera, as if we all were up on that roof as tourists and not as humans who shared the country's pain.

This morning in school we held our ceremony, hosted by the 6th graders and including a videotaped siren. When the moment came, I stood, expecting the famous footage of Har Hertzl that most American schools use. And then on comes the video of my corner, our corner, Pierre Koenig and Rifka, the bus stop, Kinyon Hadar, and the falafel guy. You can even hear the wind rushing and roaring in the silence, the way it always does up there. Suddenly I was inside that moment, only dalet amot from the corner of the camera's eye, on that roof. That roof where I tutored Neima's kids, where I spray painted a model Mishkan, where I snuck up to spend time on my novel.

After the ceremony, the principal approached me, pleased as punch that she had sponsored a trip down memory lane to my 'old hometown'. "Can't you just feel like you're in Jerusalem?" she said. "Didn't you feel like you were almost there?" I was there, I told her, so close that I half expected to see myself in it, caught in a storm of secret anxiety over the making of that very video.

In truth, seeing that that video was like reading an old diary entry and smiling now at the worries I had then. Three years later, the siren (and the ceremony) is no longer for me, but for my students, and I am finally glad the video was made. Five thousand miles away now, that snapshot gave my students the experience of an Israel that is my second home. And it gave me back my lost moment of siren-mourning, three years old, and the gift of thankfulness, knowing where I've come since then.

Asian Mothers

There's an article going around that talks about how Asian mothers have more successful children because they believe in forcing them to work until they get As.

At first glance, it seems the opposite of what we've been taught, all about individuality and personal goals for students.

But on the other hand, I don't think it's so different.

Yes, we don't beat our students, or want our parents to do that.

But we do believe in perseverance, and in not giving up. Just yesterday I told my boss that I was willing to believe that my students could learn to translate, believe it every blasted day until the last day of school, when I was positive they would have learned it. I told her I would not give inflated grades on the report card, I would not be a "fluffy" Judaics teacher, and that instead I would translate a passuk with them every single day, until they made progress. And they will, each one of them, by the strength of me saying they can do it.

The more I teach, the less I believe in learning styles mattering, in pegging students or even understanding them in types, in saying that a kid won't be able to do something because of dyslexia, or ADD, or 'being kinesthetic'. Because I'm seeing students just this week who are all of those things, and who are learning trope, or reading, or translating, because I believe they can, and because they are practicing.

How is this any different from the 10,000 times it takes to learn something? I am learning that 10,000 works no matter what other background you bring to the table, because the determination it takes to do it that many times is stronger than anything holding a kid back. I see my students reach for the stars, and when they do, all 180 days of the year, every single one of them gets there.

Happy End of Shemot

That's what the cake said at our siyyum this morning.

Fifth graders are a far cry from the 7ths I taught last year. I used to say, "only kosher at our parties" and they used to bring all sorts of non-hechshered junk food.

Here, I didn't say anything, and a student brought a kosher carrot cake from Whole Foods, with cream cheese frosting that said "Happy End of Shemot." We took a picture with it, and then they brought plates to all the administrators and were wished a "Happy Almost VaEra" in return.

Oh, the joys of students who love to learn for learning's sake.

(And I haven't even mentioned yet the Beshalach-themed music video with my 6th, below...)

Day Off

It's five days before vacation and I am going crazy.

Mostly because of outside, family stuff that has nothing to do with school. But also because we have a semester to finish, report cards to write, and just a lot going on all around.

First my supervisor said "Everyone gets stressed in December." Then she took one look at my pale face and was like, "Have you taken a day off yet this year?"

Actually, I haven't. I feel like I have, because they schedule meetings and trainings and PD days during my classes, so it seems like I'm never there. But I haven't been sick, nobody's died, and I don't have kids of my own.

She gave me Tuesday off. "As your boss," she said, "I ought to tell you to stay home and write report cards. But as a person, I say this day is a gift, just for you." And then she proceeded to fill out the leave slip for me, over my protests about it being two days before vacation. Because I had told her once about the family responsibilities I have on Sundays, and she knew that I might not actually get my vacation for myself.

I have strict instructions to sleep late, eat kosher takeout, and visit a museum, with no sub-plan writing or report card guilt. And to tell no family member I'm not working, and no one at school I'm not sick.

All last weekend and all day today, all I could think of was this guilty secret. Not because of the day off, which is sweet in itself. I'm so gleeful because the person who gave it to me cares about me, not just as a teacher, but also as me. It's wonderful to know that I work in a place where they think I'm amazing but know that I'm human at the same time. And that care about the person I am being healthy (not just physically) and happy, too, every day of the year.

To be here, I am truly blessed.

Golden Silence

This is my first time writing since I started school.

I feel bad not sharing my thoughts, but even now, I don't feel like I have anything to say.

Unlike last year, where I was processing and reflecting and shouting to this blog all of my thoughts, dreams and imaginings about the start of the year, this year I feel profound silence in the writing part of my brain.

"ישב בדד וידום, כי נטל עליו"

Quiet. Just quiet.

I'm getting a reputation in my new school as "having ideas as often as the Amidah-- morning, noon and night". I still think and play and dream and imagine what might work better and what doesn't work at all. I even have a mentor this year, whose sessions are like therapy :-). Just this week I started rewriting the MaTok that my school uses into something that resembles standards and benchmarks. And my supervisor likes new things more than I do.

The silence is a different kind of quiet. It's the kind that spells content. Content in the four walls of my school, the kindness of the other teachers. Content and grateful to be in a school where the good things are noticed, where my biggest problem is that I get exercise (my body and my creativity) because I have no computer, where everyone has everyone else's best interests in mind and always are supportive, and where at the end of a long week and a long day of teaching the biggest complaint from my boss is that I didn't smile!

I'm content, and my mind is quiet, because it's only my second year of teaching and that I'm in a place where I can feel successful every day, and where growing and learning (for teachers too) is good and healthy and normal. I see now that this is how it's meant to be, and really, after my big needs like that are met, I feel like there's nothing left to say.

Beginnings, Again

I'm not really back yet from the summer, in case you were wondering.

This time last year I had already had a week and a half of my first year of teaching, in which I took away a recess, gave two amazing lessons that I didn't plan, helped my class come up with their own rules, and had 5 kids suspended (I'm serious! Go read the archives..). I don't think it could have been any better, or any worse. And I was grateful to my school for having started early enough in August that I taught about 10 Mishna rabbis and 6 mishnayot before Rosh HaShanah even started.

This year I'm starting over, in a new school and a new city, and in a new grade level and a new subject. I am grateful for the renovations that mean I will have enough time to plan, for the three weeks of Pardes and the curriculum I wrote there instead over the whole next year, and for having enough summer time until September to move and to think and dream.

Last year my boss told me, "The first year sucks. You just have to get through it to move on to the second year, which will be much better." Well, the first year was definitely about suckiness, but mostly it was about learning to teach, being touched by wonderful people (adults and students) and the many small or unexpected successes that add up to becoming who you really are. It wasn't all bad. In fact, a tiny part of me fears that I will start to be the boring type of set-in-their-ways teacher that comes with knowing what to expect. Good thing I have all these new-nesses to keep me on my toes.

To those of you who just started, or are about to start, your first year: try a thousand new things, make a million mistakes, and sail ahead on the wings of your love and dedication. Don't let those of us who've done it already spoil the adventure of charting out the unknown and bringing home your own souvenir wisdom.

And to those of you who have done this before, be it once or ten times: Enjoy the ride, and stay in touch!

In honor of the last week of school...

Last July I didn’t know what my school would look like. I didn’t know if I would have a classroom, or that I was going to have to decorate it. I didn’t know how to put up bulletin board paper, and I didn’t know how to use the die-cut machine.

Last July I didn’t know what I was going to be called by the students, let alone answer to “Ms. Kaufman.” I didn’t know how to teach Mishna, how to arrange the desks in my classroom, or how to write a syllabus.

Last July I wondered if all my students would hate me for being new, or take advantage of me for looking so young. I thought that the key to success was to pretend to be too strict, even if that wasn’t something I really knew how to do.

Last July I didn’t know how to create a project, write a worksheet, or get students to work in groups. I didn’t know what to say in front of my class, and definitely not what the elusive “teacher’s presence” was.

Last July I didn’t understand how to log in to my new computer system, use a smartboard, grade papers, or enter those grades. I didn’t know how to take attendance, how to bentch on the mike, and I was nervous about having to learn 80 names. I didn’t know anything about middle school tefilla, and I was naïve enough to wonder if they might enjoy it.

Last July I didn’t know what the building blocks of learning were, how to plod through each day of the school year, or how to build a relationship with a whole class at once. I didn’t know what DD was, how to use it, or that it would get me laughed out of class by snotty attitudes and entitlement. I didn’t know what I expected of them, what I wished they could do (though I said I wanted them to reach the stars) or what success for 7th graders was. I didn’t know that good intentions were my gift, or that they would get me through a very dark February.

Last July I hoped that the people I worked with, and worked for, would love me, and knew that I had to be strong every day to give them confidence. I knew that I was reflective, but I didn’t know just how much good it would do me, or that it was a quality not every teacher had.

People back then said it would be challenging, that maybe I couldn’t possibly succeed, and I didn’t know then that I would pass with flying colors. I didn’t know then how hard it would be to succeed when half-truths were breaking me down piece by piece, or that it would be an accomplishment not to quit. I didn’t know then that my real battle would be never losing my faith, or that everyone would think I was strong just for showing up every day and caring enough to do my job.

I never knew then how sad I would feel, despite every hardship, that the year was coming to a close. I never thought that my weaknesses would become strengths so fast, or that there would be other schools, and even people in my school, who would praise them. I never thought that I would ever see the end of the eternity of the school year, let alone that I would wish it would go on forever. I never thought that I would feel so personally proud that I had done nothing more than the best I could do.

And I never thought about this July, where I will start a new year actually feeling like every inch a teacher.

A Fun One--

Here's a fun one for y'all:

My "lowest" 7th grade class decided to make a video instead of a portfolio for the end of the year. The rough cut ended up being a snapshot not just of what they learned, but of the gusto and creativity with which they learned it. We are still editing, as it will be shown to all the parents at school showcase day, but for now, a celebration of student-centered learning:



Enjoy!

Thank You

At my school, we do something at the end of the week week called "acknowledgments". We go around and reflect on something that each person has done for one of us, or someone else, during the week, and thank that person for their positive participation in our community.

This week, after what feels like a long, hard winter of hard things and often negativity in my world and life, I finally feel like spring has come and I have something to acknowledge.

To my school:

Thank you for letting me leap headfirst into a million different things every day until I learned that my greatest strength is being able to imagine the classroom as a world I can endlessly re-create in the students' image, and for the thousand mistakes I was allowed to gleefully make along the way. Thank you for this year of helping me get from potential to actual teacher, and for knowing that I have awesome people here that continue to watch me grow into my teacher-self and look forward to a future doing great things I haven't dreamed up yet. Maybe it's been really hard to have a first year teacher on board, but I appreciate every day all the learning I've done with you this year."

Amen for all of you too!

I am a teacher

And that is why I am sitting, at 6:30 pm on a rainy weeknight, and trying unsuccessfully to bake matzah in my sandwich maker.

My kinesthetic learners in my lowest level class complained that we haven't done anything "hands-on" for a while. (They're right--as long as you don't count the Purim movies we made two weeks ago, the bracha posters all over the school that we drew the week before, and the Ta'anit midterm shoebox dioramas of Mishna ceremonies from two weeks before that. But who's counting?)

Couple that with a model seder that was just cut and now won't have food, the teacher who has done it for the last million years going away conveniently that week, and the idea of the people in charge to make Mishna more important by having a Roman-themed event sometime this year, and you have it.

My Do-It-Yourself Mishna Model Symposium Seder-like Thing. lol.

Obviously they ate back in Mishna times (they were Jewish, y'know) and we've been talking all year about how their daily life was different from ours.

So when we read the Mishna about the seder plate, and they asked if we could make our own Mishna matzah, charoset and chazeret, I said I would try to find a way. That was before I knew the kitchen would have long since been cleaned, supplies put away, and we were totally on our own. Hence the sandwich maker.

What I've learned in the last (precisely) 18 minutes:

1. Flour and water (iced tea, actually, since it will be erev Pesach) together have no taste, even without the cardboard corrugations.

2. What comes out is rubbery, and only like a laffa if you mix in a huge dash of imagination.

3. Chummus definitely helps.

4. A sandwich maker cooks just like the 'tannur' we say at the donkey-riding kibbutz two years ago. Well, almost.

5. Mixing flour and water takes 30 seconds. So actually 18 minutes is a huge amount of time unless you're making enough matzah to feed a house full of starving Korban Pesach-eaters. Which I will be in 2 weeks with 50 7th graders who aren't getting lunch that day.

6. This is not the first time I've learned by cooking, but I am thinking really hard the whole time about how to teach that way. (And how to do this with a whole class with no one getting burned.)

7. That matzah is the least of my Mishna seder worries. Because now I'm on to fabricating a Korban Pesach.

7pm, and my roommate wants to know when I'm going to be done making a nightmare out of the kitchen. I tell her it's better to set off the smoke alarm in our home than in my classroom.

Yup, I've totally morphed into a teacher.

Finally Done Writing the Midterm

A week of kvetching later, and I'm finally done writing the midterm.

I've been excited about giving assessments before, but this is my first big one. I haven't given a traditional test yet all year. And I certainly haven't given one on more than just the current unit. I've leaned to the side of wanting synthesis, of needing to show them that they can take what they've learned and apply it to something new, that testing isn't just about the Mishna we did in class but about something bigger, something that's teaching them how to think.

That's what I thought, at least, until I got to this test. Now I'm starting to see that teachers give multiple choice and stuff like that for a reason. One part of that might be so that my aide (and my roommate!) can help me grade them during a week in which I also have to write 80 report card comments. But the biggest thing I've seen is that just writing the test has forced me to pull everything I've taught together, and I hope that taking it will make them proud of all the things they've learned this year. I hope they feel powerful in their knowledge, even as I know they will forget it all a minute after they take the test. This time, I'm after the memory of that empowerment, the faith I have that they will remember the day they were awesome enough at Mishna to have taken a comprehensive test like this and remembered everything.

Weird how I've finally fallen into the place of finally understanding true or false and multiple choice.

And wondering why writing a midterm had to be a skill that I learned in the middle of this terribly stressful month of February, and not a skill I learned back in Pardes.

Haven't written in a while...

And I'm still not sure I have anything to report now.

It's still January, finally nearing the end, and I'm boring myself. I'm in that rut that happens when spring hasn't come but everyone's kinda getting sick of winter. In the north, where I'm from, that happened in February, but here it seems to have happened already, with the weather being nice and cruelly awful in turns, and midterms coming only in two weeks even though we've had our 100th day of school last week.

I haven't given a real test all year, and I'm giving one for the midterm (at my director's request). Writing the review sheet is something I'm strangely dreading. I have about enough energy to sit during a free period and make smartboard slides for the next day, but that's about all the planning I've done since I came back, and I have a class for whom I don't even always do that.

I have half my students failing because of missing work I haven't chased them for, we had a meeting with the head of school about the negative school culture, and today I had to kick three kids out of my desk drawer because no, I don't let them rummage through my emergency snack (or pencil) supply.

I give free time at the end of lessons because I don't want to listen to myself talk, I gave a quiz just to stump kids and prove to them they have to take better notes, and in the deadness of January I feel myself becoming the monster of the teacher I most didn't want to be.

I can't remember when was the last time they even successfully worked in partners. And I was the queen of projects.

And I admitted in front of a class today that I don't actually think Mishna's all that important in teh grand scheme of life (though it was in a lecture about respecting others trumping all) because honestly, I'm not so sure right now that it is.

Because the most important thing right now, or the only thing that seems to matter, is hanging on to that lead-line and following it through without falling off until spring.

Guest Blogger Entry

Courtesy of a fellow Cohort 8er who teaches in NY...

today in class my student asked me 'did this happen' about the story of eliezer and rivka at the well.

i let the other kids be like 'we're never going to know if it happened. it's a question of belief.'

'but sophie, do YOU think it happened'

'i'm not going to answer that right now'

'but it's really important'

'you're distracting from the story'

(i had tried to get them to act out the story, which they were excited about, but excitement + crazy kids = INSANITY and WAY TOO MUCH GIGGLING. oh well)

what i did not do:
a) talk about type scenes (though they brought up moshe and miriam. they meant tziporah but i don't have time to correct every mistake they make and they learn)
b) talk about how it doesn't matter

but really, i hate giggly, disrespectful 9th grade girls (who are also mean. some of them, not all of them). who turn my plans for trying to make learnign fun so they don't have to read all of a really long perek into 'let's laugh at x.'

YES!

The First Day Back

Was a dream.

It was like the first day of school again, only better, sweeter, and more chilled. As if the worst was over, the eye of the storm had been reached, and the other side had arrived, but much less scary.

I'm standing at the top of the mountain, looking down at the great expanse of snow reaching out in front of me and knowing that I'm not the only one that can do it. My students can, too.

In the two weeks since we've been gone, my 8th graders have finally stopped hating me, my advisory has made a truce to not be snotty to each other, and the other teachers actually look like people. We even sat and drank tea at lunch, chatting in Hebrew about nothing, not about students.

I don't even care that I have no idea what I'm doing tomorrow, that I just got suckered into some weird Tu B'Shvat shuk thing, and that I still have trouble keeping my class quiet for more than 30 seconds. I did dream up some new ideas, but I'm giving myself three weeks for them to percolate, because suddenly I'm not in a rush. I didn't think about school at all for two weeks until yesterday morning, I know I never would have done that in August, and I am proud.

This morning I was not nervous; I knew not only all the students names but their histories, their moms, and what computer games they like. I'm their teacher, they are my students, and they were happy to see me and happy to be back. Some even complimented me on my haircut and let me talk in opening circle about my vacation, not just about theirs. Some difference from that first terrifying day of school.

I am a teacher, and I'm ready to jump off the ski-lift and enjoy every minute of the downhill slope until June.

And that is why we have vacation.

Post-Modern Students

For those of you in my cohort who have been emailing me this week, you know that I promised the kids a lesson on the "miracle of oil being a lie" and the reason why. In the end I did a full jigsaw with sources from 4 places (Maccabees, Mai Chanukah, Al haNissim, Rambam) and asked the students to compare the versions.

They did a great job comparing, and talking about how the oil miracle only appears in 2 of the four versions, and any miracle at all is not present in more than 3. Then I asked them why. I wanted them to think about what might motivate each of these sources to tell the story differently. I hoped that reading the four stories would have peaked their interest and sense of linear-mess to wonder what the "real truth" was and why the other versions chose to tell it differently. After all, that bothered an awful lot of people in Pardes, HC and everywhere else I've been as an adult. In fact, we even wrote a paper on it last year.

There was an almost visible sigh in the room as every single one of them wrote "because there are different versions with different understandings and ways of interpreting the story based on their agendas". Wow, I thought. I totally underestimated how post-modern my 7th graders are. While us adults are busy looking for the "truth", post-modernity, with its multiplicity and varying narratives for everything, has come to town. The kids know that the answer is going to be in the layers and agendas because they've learned that from Gossip Girl. They don't wonder about what other people think and how their stories are different, because they have novels in multiple voices and movies that spell out characters' motivations. How much richer it is than the one dimension that we thought in when WE were in 7th grade.

Richer, maybe, but also less connected and emotionally attached. My students know that everyone has a way to tell their story, and no version compells them. They can pick and choose at will, so they often don't even bother. I was looking forward to the second lesson, the one where we talk about each story's history and motivation, but they're already bored. Of course they all have reasons, they tell me, and that means we don't have to take anything too seriously. Anyone can tell their story (just look at the rise in self-publishing, blogging, etc) so no one's story is more than a breeze in the hurricane of images that passes before their faces every day.

In short, they have so many more stories, they don't have to care too much, or even think too much, about any of them. I threw my lesson on multiple perspectives down the drain tonight, and am now wondering how I can make just one story, one moment, really and truly matter.

Bad Day

Bad Day, bad mood. It's something about having only a week more until a 2 week vacation, and that week will be on Chanukah, and every single teacher giving a test to finish a unit before the break, and even I did that, but it means they are so loopy all day because of having three tests and not being able to focus in class.

I also am finishing a unit with each class next week, because who wants to come back and not be learning something new, but I wish there was another way and that we could be just able to just have class and not have consequences and all that annoying stuff and that we could just have a good class for a change, would that be so terrible?

DD says we shouldn't punish negative behavior of a whole class, instead we should do something fun and interesting. But how about the fact that I plan something really awesome and then they chat so much that I can't get a word in to give instructions, so I don't, and then they don't know what to do or we have no time to do it, and everyone leaves upset. How do I fix that one? I don't know, and barely getting quiet for 5 minutes means that I often don't really have any choices. Maybe it's going to have to be back to the worksheets and only having written instructions and no oral ones. But it's just more work for me to get something near the same result, and less well done since no one has ever taught them how to make or fill in a chart or graph or how to read one. I hate that I am now becoming the teacher who asks them to have it but then doesn't give them a chance to learn it on their own. And in this case, I don't even feel like it's my fault.

But I don't know how to make it better.

Not Fun

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.

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...

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.