Israel? It shouldn't.

Sometimes, at lunch, I get tired of pretending to be a grown-up, and sit with my kids. They’re always having fascinating deep philosophical conversations about the nature of being, and I’m inevitably greeted with a few cries of “dank, Miss” when I plop down at the table. It also lets me see who’s not eating enough, who’s sitting alone, who’s unexpectedly got a whole posse of friends that aren’t in my classes with her, etc.

So a few days ago I sat in the middle of a fascinating conversation. The Culture Club is planning an evening of international culture, and was trying to sort out where the kid from Sri Lanka would go. Not with the Chinese, Cambodians, and Vietnamese, of course—everyone could agree that was weird. The Turkish kid interjected that his country was equally lost—Europe, or Asia? Both, the students decided. But where to put Sri Lanka? Maybe he could do a dance with the one Indian kid? Decidedly not, he responded in clipped British tones.

Then somebody mentioned Israel. It didn’t fit in the Arab bloc—where should we put it?

“We shouldn’t,” answered a student. She takes Arabic as her first language instead of English, so I don’t teach her. I peered around curiously at her, while the Turkish student frantically made cutting motions across his neck at her.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It shouldn’t exist at all. Do you know originally, it was supposed to be in Madagascar?”

“Uganda,” I answered feebly, and left to turn my tray in. I couldn't think of a single response-- all of my thoughts were running around the treadmill of "wow, there's an actual person who wishes I didn't exist and told me so to my face." I had so many other thoughts I couldn't sift them-- obviously, there are Israelis who don't want Palestine to exist, and does this girl's level of anger justify the way she just tried to erase my identity, and what would have existed in this area without Israel-- Syrian Civil War? ISIS? Who knows.

As the highest-level English teacher in a school where the only other native-level languages provided are Chinese and Arabic, I tend to miss these demographics in my classes. I don’t often get to hear what they think. In both of my English classes, in grades 11 and 12, I only have one Palestinian/Arab-Israeli student each, while several Israelis share their opinions regularly. When we inevitably come up against issues relating to the conflict, theirs is a lone voice, or sometimes, a silent one.

While reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings this week, we started to talk about racial profiling. None of the kids were American, and so inevitably, they began to talk about their experiences in Israel. The Italian kid has trouble in airport security because of his passport stamps, while the Swedish girls said the blond sails straight through, the brunette gets stopped.

“It’s not great to say, but we really need racial profiling, because—“ the Israeli kids trailed off uncomfortably, wondering if they sounded racist. I wanted them to finish the sentence, and asked, “does it work? Have terrorist attacks, suicide bombs, vehicular rammings, and stabbings, gone down since it’s been implemented?” There’s too much the Israelis never say in our hyper-liberal environment.

The internationals were torn. “It’s a bad thing. But sometimes, for security, you need it,” was what they generally responded with.

The Arab-Israeli spoke once, but emphatically, against it. Racial profiling was harmful and unjustified, and just as in the book we could see evidence of Maya's complicated racial identity, it had repercussions in real life.

We moved on to the question of whether people of color can be racist, and the kids got embroiled in an exploration of systemic vs. personal racism.

While the discussion was interesting and the students passionate, I kept thinking how safe it felt. At the start of reading the book I’d asked the students whether it would make a difference that there were no students of African descent in that particular classroom. While it’s full of students of various ethnicities and who would be identified as “of color” in the greater world, nobody relates to this book as Maya’s race. The kids thought it was both a good and a bad thing, and didn’t seem to mind my asking them to be conscious of it as we read in class.

But in a week, we will all go up to Jerusalem, for three days of exploring the local conflict, and while I’m curious about how it will go, I feel deep anxiety about my role as a mediator and mentor.

On the second day there, we’re to split into investigative groups and tour on our own, preparing a presentation for the school at the end. I’ve been assigned to the group exploring “The Civic Status of East Jerusalem.” Predictably, all but one Israeli student has switched out, while Palestinians and Israeli Arabs have joined in large numbers. In our planning meeting, the other teacher leading pointed out to me how those same students who spoke so eagerly about the deprivations in East Jerusalem completely shut down when a Vietnamese kid asked about bias in our visits.

I have a lot of concerns going in:

·      I don’t really know anything about what civic status means in any city.

·      The Arab kids will feel uncomfortable sharing their true thoughts with a Jewish-American and an Israeli teacher leading.

·      The Arab kids will share some of their hatred for Israel, and spread it among the international students.

·      The one Israeli kid will sit as silently as he did in our planning meeting, for the entire trip.

·      The international kids will see only East Jerusalem, and hear only from Palestinians or Arab-Israelis.

·      While I will learn a whole lot, rarely having been in East Jerusalem, the kids from East Jerusalem who are so excited to show us their city will see nothing new and nothing that challenges their viewpoint.

·      Will I be able to emotionally care for my students? I’m worried that since I myself am unsure what my beliefs are, I will be busy processing, rather than able to watch out for them. Open-mindedness on my part will call for a lot of intentional thinking, and I’m worried that my choices are between actually processing and thinking about what I’m learning, and being there for my students.

·      Safety. Is it better for us to all speak English and pretend we’re all internationals or Arab locals, or for us to get a proper security guard who walks around with us? The Israeli kid and the Israeli teacher are both very Sefardi in appearance, and my accent and dress makes me seem American—will we be safe?

·      And so unfair that in the other groups, who will probably split their time between the two Jerusalems, the Arab kids don’t have to worry about safety with the same intensity that Jewish Israelis venturing into East Jerusalem do. I keep thinking of the questions that I'll never be able to ask if I want to let the Arab kids feel like they can share in our discussion group, and of how I can't truly investigate the question of one country supporting people within it that don't want it to exist or actively want to cause harm to its population. That's certainly not something they'll bring up on their own, but if I ask about it, will they close off completely?

I rode home with the Hungarian Global Politics teacher, who told me that it’s only natural I feel anxious—now I’m about to see the flipside of Israel that I ignored when I made aliyah, and as a religious Jew, everyone is going to assume certain things about my viewpoint. But I shouldn’t feel too anxious—I did not come to oppress, and in fact, in teaching at our school, I’m helping.

I left the bus uncertain what to do with what he’d told me. He said it as though these were things I already know and agree with, but I think my wide-eyed pondering is a foretaste of what I can expect in our Jerusalem trip.

Chief Botherer

One of the mainstays of the American classroom is a bulletin board with “Classroom jobs” posted on it. Some sorry kids are assigned to clean the whiteboards; others to collect supplies at the end of the day. I even used to make them fill out applications. But lately, kids just hop to and help out regardless. So today was the first day in this school that I created a class job.

“Stop there,” I told the kid who’d been reading Caged Bird aloud, a child who draws a grin just by raising his hand, because you know whatever he says is going to be entertaining.

“You know the way I kept interrupting you, asking questions about the book?” He nodded.

“So, when you call on the next reader, you’re going to be the main person doing that to them, asking them questions, bothering them. You’re chief botherer,” I told him.

They passed the role around from one to the next, at one point seeking clarification: “Just because she’s the chief botherer, doesn’t mean we can’t also bother, right?”

I was scandalized. “Of course not! You are ALWAYS allowed to bother.”

I think my classroom is starting to more clearly reflect relevant 21^st century skills. While graduates may not have whiteboards in ten more years, they will certainly still have to know how to bother. And the Winnie-the-Pooh undertones make me happy, too. Oh, bother.

A student who loves math sent me this poem:

The Fibonacci sequence has always been my favorite math… thing…, ever since I did a report on it in high school (thank you to the wonderful math teacher who taught me that math class could involve reading! And writing!), and I was not less excited to discover it in poetry.

It will have to wait as a warm-up for my classes, however, as I think our next warm-up will be inspired by the way a mischievous kid started answering today’s question in somebody else’s notebook. I’m going to have them all switch notebooks and write as the person whose notebook they have. I’m still thinking about what the question should be. Maybe what that person thinks of them? Hmm.

I joined the art class for their trip to the Tel Aviv art museum yesterday. Predictably, we had a lot of discussions about what art is. The curator showed us an exceedingly banal exhibit of photographs of flowers on tables. They were each recreations of the flower arrangements from photos of famous treaties. While cool history, it didn’t seem to suffice as art. Most of my kids thought so, and I quoted Oscar Wilde a lot.

Next, we explored a photorealism exhibit in which the artist had hidden tiny Easter eggs in the midst of intricate pencil drawings of nature and the city. One was of a building I’d passed on my way to the museum, and in the reflection of the window we noticed monsters, tombstones, and funny faces. The kids had actually met the artist, so they were excited to drag me around and point out all the cool stuff he’d told them.

At the end of the tour, we went to an exhibit on African-Israeli art, reflecting the African diaspora in Tel Aviv. There was one very cool short film that we arrived at halfway. At the end, the kids turned to me and said they had no idea what it was about.

“It’s a post-apocalyptic world," I explained. "Humanity has set off nuclear bombs, because we elected Trump and he’s going to start WWIII, and the soil is filled with radioactivity, so people fled underground, and now the political authorities have a vested interest in keeping people there. That’s why she got dragged out of the room by guards when she found the soil in the jar was arable.”

“What? No, Ms., that can’t be right.” They looked confused. Just then, the movie started again. Text across the bottom read: “Earth: Thirty years after World War III.” The kids turned to me in disbelief. “How did you know?” One protested, “but the film was made before Trump!”

I managed to convince them that while context clues are important, and reading lots can make you smart, they shouldn’t believe everything I say about Trump.

A kid came back from vacation with the obligatory Christmas present teacher mug, and while I’ve received a lot of mugs over the course of my teaching tenure, I’ve never received one I like quite so much. Here’s to many hours of reading and tea, for all my fellow lit-lovers.

Why I Might Commit Murder in the Next Few Hours

My winter break has been an odyssey through the depths of the Misrad Hachinuch, or Ministry of Education (MoE), here in Israel.

First, I’ve been struggling with getting my degrees recognized. In Israel, they pay by degree, so not having yours recognized is a prime pain in the wallet that my school has graciously made up out of pocket. I first sent my degrees to the MoE in June of 2016. They were returned to me four times. Most recently, they asked me to send them notarized copies of my AP scores. When I spoke to my contact at the MoE, I told him I didn’t have them—they were from high school, forgossake. But they’re mentioned on my college transcript, so the MofE needs original documentation.

“I don’t have it,” I told him. “My undergraduate university recognized it, what are you worried about?”

“Well, we need the official score report,” he answered. “To see how you did.”

“It says how I did. The scores are right there on the transcript!”

“Hm, oh, I see. But all the scores are 5’s. That’s not very good,” he told me.  

“It’s out of 5!” I bit my lip to keep myself from screaming.

“Oh. Well, we’ll try sending them again.”

Lacking faith in his messenger capability, I took a bus up to the Jerusalem MoE for the day and then sat in line, waiting to give the sympathetic American olah sitting in a boring office my degrees in person. I unfurled my degrees one by one and we forced them into the photocopier. After a tortured half hour of copying, signing, and double-checking, I took the bus back to Tel Aviv. As I disembarked, I got a text from my sister.

“You got smth from the Misrad Hachinuch.”

Sure enough, three authorizations that recognized my three degrees had been folded and forced into my post box, despite the loud letters on the envelope saying that it should not be folded. I thought about contacting the MoE to tell them they didn’t have to look at the degrees I just dropped off, but then I remembered there’s actually no way to contact anything other than an options machine in Jerusalem. Oh well. Their problem.

Simultaneously, I received a text from my contact at the MoE saying I’d been exempted from the Hebrew course for my license. Super exciting, and it only took four months! He attached a blurry, out-of-focus document to the whatsapp. I’m hoping I get it in the mail soon—probably folded into the shape of a swan in my mailbox.

The next day, I went to my introductory day of MoE courses on how to teach English for the Israeli curriculum. Although I’m not teaching the Israeli curriculum, I need it for my license. So I hopped a bus to Levinsky College, armored against boredom with five papers to grade, a kippah to crochet, and a book to read.

It wasn’t enough. I sat through five hours in which people with increasingly pathetic command of the English language read and then reread the syllabi to us.

We are English teachers. Why do they feel the need to read things to us? Why are we not trusted to understand them on our own?

The woman who is going to teach our course on teaching American and English literature started off this way:

“We’re going to use a particular critical method to study American and English literature because that’s what the misrad hachinuch mandates. Does anybody know which method?”

I’m sitting here thinking about it, because this is actually an interesting question. One critical method, and only one method? What could Israel want? My gut says reader response theory because it's the best for high school, but maybe there's some kind of historicist Zionist agenda, or a postcolonialist reading against the British for making our lives miserable all those years?

“We use an important critical method in literature. It’s critical thinking.”

Dafuq?

“We use critical thinking in literature.”

Wait! When do they not use critical thinking? What is happening in the rest of the Israeli curriculum? Is rote learning ever an option? Jesus.  

I’m three hours in and I might just commit murder so that I get to go to jail, and relieve myself of the mind-blowing monotony of this course.