Sunday is for sunday school...

Last night i went to a ballet recital for Noa, number 3 of the her tribe. She was wonderful - at one point she sneezed and i was told that the moms backstage said,

"bless her heart, she covered her nose."

I get such a kick from living in the south. they speak so formally and love formality in behavior and speech. When i was in Syracuse I said ma'am to a woman at a store and got an funny look. i don't think that word translates into northern.

Today was the last day I taught Sunday school. We concluded our unit on Israel over the last few weeks by talking about peace. I really like the book that we used, it attempted to show the humanity of both sides and not sugar coat israel. Don't get me wrong, I love Israel, but after reading things like this:


http://zmagsite.zmag.org/May2006/weir0506.html

I feel frustrated and hurt to say the least. Whether or not it these stories are valid, to think that AP could be conducting itself in this way when we rely on it so heavily for our information is sickening.

As we talked I could already feel the insanely pro-zionist dogma pouring out of these kids. It was a little frightening - they are only in fifth grade. Does the instilling a love of israel need to come before learning to be critical and uphold ethical and Jewish standards? I tried my hardest to demonstrate the need for both to them. I think most of them got the following pieces:

Israel is the jewish people's homeland

the Jews didn't have a homeland for 2000 years

loving israel is important, supporting it is important

talking about what israel does and what it expects from its citizens is important

conflict in the middle east is not a simple thing, and there are many points of view which need to be acknowledged and peace pursued through compromise and dialogue

The impressive thing was that they got to most of those ideas by discussing amongst themselves. Every time i wanted to play devil's advocate to get them to see things from a different light one of the students did it themselves. i was so proud of them. I just love, love, love teaching.

There was a ceremony to honor the teachers - we sang, got presents, watched a slide show and ate some yummy brueggers bagels. It was a good morning. I was a bit tired cause i couldn't fall asleep last night till three so I entertained myself reading blogs, watching the ever enlightening sex and the city, and writing emails.

Now I have to stop procrastinating. I have to write a letter explaining how my job has benefited me and how it can be improved. I have a lot to say, but i need to try to keep it civil and polite. I really have loved my time here - but so little of what I have enjoyed and grown from has been what i expected or what was promised to me. This was the first year my job has existed and I have a lot of suggestions...i better get writing.