Thoughts, Comments, Questions?

A teacher at the start of the school year has occasion to feel somewhat like Sisyphus, rolling a giant boulder of work up the hill. Of course, Sisyphus wasn’t interrupted by constant meetings, and probably would have lain down and cheerfully allowed the boulder to roll over him if he had been.

I am the worst in meetings. I think that having been a terribly disrespectful, misbehaving high school student makes me a better teacher, but when it comes to meetings, I’m at a disadvantage. I regress right back into terrible studenthood. I resist the notion of somebody having the right to bore me for a useless hour with every bone in my body. I can only hope that my sins of obvious inattention during meetings are paid for through the purgatory of attending them.

People are always asking me what the biggest difference is between the work environment in Israel and North America, and I think I’ve finally figured it out: North Americans have a written civilization, and Israel, an oral culture. The frustration I feel about face-to-face communication stems from a number of sources. Of course, as a literature teacher, I appreciate the written word. As an OCDP-er, I appreciate consistent records. As a busy person, I appreciate the ease of reading communications at my leisure. As a professional, I appreciate the written document over the muttered coffee-urn comment. And, as an inveterate introvert, I prefer having the option of not actually talking to anyone over the age of 18 during the course of my workday.

High school students, however, are pretty fun game. They don’t mind being asked metaphysical questions in the middle of their lunch break, and are always ready to pause to laugh at some terrible irony or test a ridiculous theory. They are both deeply cynical and incurably idealistic. They resent time-wasting as much as I do. I adore my particular batch of kids.

We’re reading Half of a Yellow Sun in my higher-level class, and steering though shoals of racist generalization as the students search for specific insights. It’s fascinating to watch the dynamic between the kids raised in Africa, and those from Europe or the Americas. Kids from both backgrounds are really sensitive about race while others barely seem to notice it, with varying results of brutal stereotype or sweet naivety.  

The new students only really begin classes next week. Many of the second years from Arabic cultures have expressed a worry to me; apparently, the number of Israelis is more than double the number of Arabic kids this year. What will the nature of the school be, if we don’t have an equal number of representatives from both sides? Excitingly, we have our first Gazan student, the first student who received approval from the Israeli government to study in an Israeli school.

Students took the English diagnostic exam today. Most students are aiming for a high level English class, and so nearly the entire junior class—about 70 kids—crammed into two classrooms and wrote their first essays. The Gazan told me earnestly, afterwards, that it was “a really great exam,” leaving me wondering what on earth does happen in Gaza that kids from there can say such things with a straight face. 

Today, when I asked a student for feedback, she started chanting with me: “So. Thoughts? Comments? Questions?”

“—Huh? Um, do I say that a lot?” I asked her.

“At least once a class,” she responded.

“…” I cleverly replied.

“It’s okay. We like it.”

I was relieved to hear that my mantra is a request for feedback, and even more that they like it.

Ah well. Back to grading my stack of sixty-five diagnostic essays. Cheers to the teachers of the world as they start their year. May the copier always function, may the testing organizations die terrible deaths, and may the classroom full of busily inquiring students still light up at a poem.