With the Help of G-d

When I was in university, I turned in my honors thesis rough draft with a feeling of great anxiety. Called in to my advisor’s office to discuss it, we spent a good hour or so on the intricacies of the quest for autonomy in American literature, and then he started humming in a way that let me know we were going to talk about something uncomfortable.

“By the way, when you’re discussing Ahab’s defiance of divinity…”

“Yes?”

“You write it in a peculiar way… I looked it up and found out that religious Jews won’t write G-d with the “o” inside—is that why you wrote G-d throughout your paper?”

“Oh. Yes. Is it a problem?”

“Well, it’s not exactly… I don’t know…”

We sat and thought on it for a while, and then called in the help of some other professors to think on it, and I can’t remember what was decided. However, the episode came to my mind this morning when I was reviewing some student work that was to be sent to the IB, and came across בס׳׳ד at the top of a document.

בס׳׳ד stands for “With the help of G-d,” and some religious Jews automatically write it on every paper they lay pen to. I wasn’t opposed to it appearing on the document, and didn’t think the IB would be, either. But somehow it seemed… unprofessional. A breaking of anonymity. Out of place. And yet it was absolutely fitting—a student who feels G-d helped him with his IA should write it! What to advise him?

I talked about it with him, without arriving at any conclusion, until I asked one of the wise heads in my school. She gave me the most brilliant advice:

“Tell him to write it, but write it in white, so it doesn’t show up on the paper.” Genius. We’ll see what he thinks of it.

In psychology class, students were researching Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and checking their own countries’ cultural norms. A Palestinian student raised her hand.

“Ms.! Ms.! Palestine is not in the drop-down menu!”

Ooosh. What to say? I remember when a student, asked where Israel should fit culturally (Europe? Asia? Middle East?), said “it shouldn’t.” It felt like a punch to my gut. And here, this student had her nationality denied by a website… no matter that Palestine isn’t officially recognized as a country, it’s her identity, and it’s missing. Should she check out Israel? Jordan? Urrggh. Nothing I could suggest seemed fitting.

I decided to think about it, but not soon enough—the next day, when they took the Harvard Implicit Bias test, Palestine was once again missing. And I still haven’t decided how to respond when it happens beyond a sympathetic shrug. I don’t think I’m the right person to counsel a Palestinian undergoing an identity crisis brought on by an American website. Ideas?

We have visitors on campus, which means… it’s time for the psych kids to run proximity experiments! They’re cozying up to strangers, or initiating conversations from uncomfortably fall away, while others record reactions.

In English class, a student brought in some William Carlos Williams for a warm-up. Opinions erupted quickly:

--The plums represent love.

--The plums represent the apple of Eden.

--The plums represent impatience and arrogance and justice.

--The plums are plums! They are just plums! Why can’t they just be plums!

--Ms. W, what do you think? Can they just be plums?

--I’m not telling. Read the rest of his poems and come back to me.

Later, I got antsy in the beautiful weather and had the kids all write questions on paper, ball it up, and head outside for some dodgeball. Once an entire team was down everybody grabbed a few questions and we sat in a circle, having a lazy, wandering discussion about The Awakening.

In a recent psychology class on authority, I showed my kids videos of the Milgram experiment, and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment, and asked them when it might be relevant in their own lives. I scanned the kids’ faces, wondering when an Israeli would think about the fact that they’d soon be joining the army. Only after a Vietnamese kid mentioned it, did one pick it up. I hope they remember it.

At the end of the class, I gave them a brief lecture about how not abusing power is one of the most important classes, one of the most important moral lessons they could ever receive.

“Repeat after me,” I told them.

“I will never abuse authority.” They intoned it solemnly.

“I will never stand by and watch those in authority hurt others.” They repeated it.

“I will never mindlessly repeat the words of another or follow their authority without examining it first.”

“I will never…” they broke into chagrined giggles at being tricked, and trickled out of the classroom in a slightly less somber mood.

Two weeks ago, on the senior trip in Eilat before pesach, we went snorkeling. I watched one of my students, a quiet girl, nervously dither on the steps, and I got back out of the water and held her hand.

“On the count of three. One. Two. Three. Jump!”

As we leaped through the air, a thought crossed my mind: if only all teaching were this easy. If only it was all holding your child’s hand, and leaping with them.

Well. Maybe it is.