Reflecting on an experience such as the past weeks is difficult. There are so many emotions. The brain hasn’t had a chance to process and assimilate all the sensations.
Because of this experience, I wonder about my own prejudices. I find biases everywhere. I have thoughts about smokers and New Yorkers and men and hoodlums and ignorant people and fundamentalist religious followers and welfare abusers, and so many more. It’s hard to accept. I am certain people have these same thoughts about the various groups into which I find myself a member.
It saddens me because I felt like I was a person who looked at the individual, not the group stereotype. Yet, I have the same frailties of those who hate. Maybe the lesson we take from this exposure to the results of hatred is that we each carry prejudices within us. It is what we do during those moments when these biases rear their ugly heads that determines what kind of people we are.
Perhaps this is the lesson we teachers give to the children in our charge. Our choices have consequences. How do we make the choices? What do we do with the consequences of the choices we make? Ultimately, permit ourselves the time to consider and make a choice. I take from this experience that standing aside as a bystander is never the right choice. I must encourage my students to take a stand, to make a difference, and to change the world—no matter how small a scale that world might encompass.
This is the action I choose to take. It may be only a drop in this great big world, but I can’t wait to see how the ripples my drop makes will fan out and affect the ocean of our world.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
721 words; thoughts while not able to sleep at 2:38 am CST, 07-29-08
I’ve returned home, and it’s been interesting. I read Irving’s book, I watched the DVD from the 2006 seminar a couple of times, now I’m reading Olga’s book. In my first year of teaching I used to go to Barnes and Noble a lot and read entire books while I was there. I told my students I did this and they accused me of stealing because I wasn’t paying for the books. In this way, on Sunday, I read Jewish Literacy by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin and Day by Elie Wiesel. Jewish Literacy was read because of my determination to come to some working order of the identity of Jewishness; I (and we) might be satisfied with ambiguity, but I don’t think my 8th graders will be. And on a side note: I don’t think acceptance of all will come when we become ignorant of our identities, but when we come to celebrate the uniqueness of our identities (GO SUE!). Day was read because it was there, and I hadn’t read it yet. It is an amazing book; the writing reminded me of two of my favorite authors: Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. When me and my college buddies discovered The Stranger we never knew someone so intelligent and so dead could describe absurd existence with so few words; it always took us a long time to try to explain anything. I’m quite sure Wiesel is not an existentialist, but his despondency in Day is so complete that I’m sure I’ve only encountered it in Camus and Sartre (and maybe Chuck Palahniuk, but maybe I don’t read widely enough). I took notes as I read, both of the actual words Wiesel used (in my opinion it is his best work I’ve read) and my responses to his words.
Just at the end of the six o’clock hour I read this: “I wanted to get rid of all the filth that was in me and graft it onto her pupils and her lips, which were so pure, so innocent, so beautiful. I bared my soul. My most contemptible thoughts and desires, my most painful betrayals, my vaguest lies, I tore them from inside me and placed them in front of her, like an impure offering, so she could see them and smell their stench.”
According to my journal, at 7:02 pm, this was my response: I want to eat glass. I want to pound car hoods and scream and cry – no weep. I want to bleed a thousand times over and walk through crowds of witnesses with questioning eyes and jaws hung open out of horror. I am a murdered, an adulterer, and a thief. I don’t know how to wake up in the morning. The only thing I want is to hate myself even more. And now my eyes wander, imagining: smiles and laughter, family, and happiness.
In his “Preface” to The Myth of Sysiphus, Camus writes: “The fundamental subject of ‘The Myth of Sysiphus’ is this: it is legitimate and necessary to wonder whether life has a meaning; therefore it is legitimate to meet the problem of suicide face to face. The answer, underlying and appearing through the paradoxes which cover it, is this: even if one does not believe in God, suicide is not legitimate. . . . Although ‘The Myth of Sysiphus’ poses mortal problems, it sums itself up for me as a lucid invitation to live and to create, in the very midst of the desert.”
Somehow, in all the absurdity, Camus found a way to be encouraged by bleakness; this is the greatest difference between him and Wiesel. Camus relished the absurd life; Wiesel was pushed into it. In the “Preface” to Day, Wiesel explains that he had to change a few specifics to fictionalize his encounter with the cab in New York; he really didn’t see the cab, so his accident wasn’t a suicide attempt. Still, in his story, it had to be faced. In Night he was the messenger of death, witnessing the murder of his family and his people, and walking away a corpse. In Dawn he brought death to the doorstep of his enemy. In Day, he faced self-imposed death, and discovered “to be and not to be. . . . That man lives while dying, that he represents death to the living.”
Just at the end of the six o’clock hour I read this: “I wanted to get rid of all the filth that was in me and graft it onto her pupils and her lips, which were so pure, so innocent, so beautiful. I bared my soul. My most contemptible thoughts and desires, my most painful betrayals, my vaguest lies, I tore them from inside me and placed them in front of her, like an impure offering, so she could see them and smell their stench.”
According to my journal, at 7:02 pm, this was my response: I want to eat glass. I want to pound car hoods and scream and cry – no weep. I want to bleed a thousand times over and walk through crowds of witnesses with questioning eyes and jaws hung open out of horror. I am a murdered, an adulterer, and a thief. I don’t know how to wake up in the morning. The only thing I want is to hate myself even more. And now my eyes wander, imagining: smiles and laughter, family, and happiness.
In his “Preface” to The Myth of Sysiphus, Camus writes: “The fundamental subject of ‘The Myth of Sysiphus’ is this: it is legitimate and necessary to wonder whether life has a meaning; therefore it is legitimate to meet the problem of suicide face to face. The answer, underlying and appearing through the paradoxes which cover it, is this: even if one does not believe in God, suicide is not legitimate. . . . Although ‘The Myth of Sysiphus’ poses mortal problems, it sums itself up for me as a lucid invitation to live and to create, in the very midst of the desert.”
Somehow, in all the absurdity, Camus found a way to be encouraged by bleakness; this is the greatest difference between him and Wiesel. Camus relished the absurd life; Wiesel was pushed into it. In the “Preface” to Day, Wiesel explains that he had to change a few specifics to fictionalize his encounter with the cab in New York; he really didn’t see the cab, so his accident wasn’t a suicide attempt. Still, in his story, it had to be faced. In Night he was the messenger of death, witnessing the murder of his family and his people, and walking away a corpse. In Dawn he brought death to the doorstep of his enemy. In Day, he faced self-imposed death, and discovered “to be and not to be. . . . That man lives while dying, that he represents death to the living.”
Friday, July 25, 2008
Shoah, New York - Stephen Smith
Steve emailed his final reflection piece and asked me to post it. Enjoy!!
Shoah, New York
“We are always afraid of falling so we balance ourselves.”
Louise Bourgeois
Broadway and 42nd Street
The sound of July escaping,
a musician moving air
with the striated muscles of an ex-junkie,
flexed stance of a subway vet. A bluesy flute, moving fetid air, moving me
past furtive glances, cold stares.
He blows long cascading notes as we enter the station,
bracing his body against the slowing train, against our leaving,
hands on the final notes, balanced.
The notes, strung out along the tracks,
climb the stairs, move through turnstiles,
funnel, then spread up and down Broadway
to heaven and hell.
The train has stopped but no one moves. Silence hangs.
I expect applause, but get a last ironic note:
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for that wonderful round of applause…
…If you can find it in your heart
to make a small donation, I would truly appreciate it. This is Times Square,
please watch your step as you leave the train.”
Broadway and 12th Street
At Strand’s in the Village I hold the new translation of Elie Wiesel’s Night. The New York Times calls it a “slim volume of terrifying power.” After fifteen city blocks and three beers I have not escaped day three of a two-week seminar on “Reading, Writing, and Teaching the Holocaust.” Today, we met Gisa, a Holocaust survivor.
In clumps of syllables she tells us “After the war was a famous slogan—‘Never again,’ but that I think is lie.” We nod and take notes—boxcars of 80 people traveled for three days and nights, without water, one bucket for shit and piss. The waste ran down her legs, where it caked and dried. When they arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau, she saw the smokestacks—“What is belching out like that? Why is it stinking? Why white particles—like butterflies—we didn’t know.”
At 84, she is small, slight, with dark eyes, dark hair, and a direct gaze.
I am reeling from her words.
“…ate clumps of grass, boiled up like spinach soup.”
“…had to undress in front of men…and the world, because this was our world.”
“…if you wanted to finish your rotten life, you could run to the electric fences.”
She watched her mother taken out and shot in her hometown, watched her older sister and little brother march to the shower where they were gassed. Her sister, knowing what awaited them, tossed her braided hair back, took her brother’s hand and went left. Gisa felt the ponytail brush her face, and went right.
How did you survive? I want to ask.
One time she laughed at her friend’s childish prank, but told us “You cannot laugh with crematoria belching out human skin.”
When she finishes answering questions,
Gisa, “slim volume of terrifying power,”
asks to use the restroom.
36 Battery Place
From the windows of the Museum of Jewish Heritage I see Ellis Island
and the Statue of Liberty. Under brilliant blue sky the harbor teems with ship traffic, with life. We are studying primary sources, trying to understand the cold steel engineering of the Nazi war machine.
“Ninety-seven thousand Jews have been processed in the trucks to date, but minor operating defects have been discovered and we recommend the following improvements.”
Like my Krupps coffee maker, an efficient machine, but the filter clogs occasionally, spilling coffee. I should write the company.
“It would be desirable in future to install electric lights, shielded by a steel grill, in the ceiling of the truck. For it is dark in the car when the doors are closed, and when the exhaust gas begins to be piped in, the result has been panic and loud screams, which make the work of the drivers more difficult and may attract undesirable attention.”
Some of my fellow teachers are gasping, some crying. When we take a break, anger and horror spill out of the conference room. How do I teach this to fifteen year olds? What pedagogy is there for efficient, technological mass murder?
“In addition it is desirable to make the cars shorter—although we are aware of the concern expressed by the engineers regarding the increased pressure on the front axle. There is no need for concern about the overweight on the front axles of the trucks, for the merchandise, without exception, is pushed together during the journey and, for understandable psychological reasons, pressed to the locked doors at the rear end, so the weight will nevertheless be well distributed on both axles.”
I look up from this document, checking the blue, the harbor, and Liberty.
Delancey at Essex, Lower East Side
We do a fine job of memorializing those we have slaughtered. Some of us have become very rich off the tragedy of others. In Hollywood, they say there’s no business like Shoah business. Ask Steven Spielberg.
In the last year, I’ve read reviews on three new films about the Rwandan genocide. For this year’s National History Day competition, one of my students developed a website on the Khmer Rouge that took her all the way to Washington DC.
One can now take a virtual tour of the “most significant act of domestic terrorism on American soil,” the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The website encourages the tourist to visit “the famed gates and empty chairs to appreciate the beauty and serenity.”
Many cities in our country have a street or park named after Martin Luther King, and they’re often a symbol of a city’s health. Detroit’s Martin Luther King Blvd is a mass of potholes and weedy sidewalks, but I found a beautifully maintained MLK park tucked away in the Lower East Side.
In New York City, there seems to be a museum for most oppressed groups, including Jews, American Indians, Chinese, and even tenement dwellers.
New York teachers can adopt a Holocaust survivor. It’s almost as easy in places like McCool Junction, Nebraska and Paradise, Michigan. We can meet a death camp survivor on line, say from Bergen-Belsen, ask questions, get to know him or her...sort of.
Despite our efforts to honor and remember, to share stories, to teach the past in order to inform the present, we continue the horror. “Never again” is a phrase completely devalued by our repeated history. And when we’re not killing, we ignore, even those we honor. By one count, today there are over 100,000 Holocaust survivors living in poverty.
Maybe it is enough to survive as something other than our original self.
Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street
Even looking at Rodin’s “Les Bourgeois de Calais ,”
it is not easy understanding man’s horror
when he faces death.
My daughter presses for an explanation.
Then he appears at my side, like a docent, speaking earnestly
about the sculptor, the subject, his own life and his father.
It is more than I need, but I am relieved of parental duty.
I never learn his name, even later when we shake hands,
so I think of him as Frank.
He points to the figure of Jean d’Aire, the second burgher to volunteer
for death. d’Aire stands wide, jaw set, holding
one of the keys to the city, a noose about his head.
“That’s my guy. He’s got that thousand-yard stare.”
I cannot see his eyes. Rodin’s figure is looking beyond death.
“You were in ‘Nam.”
“Thirty-nine months.”
d’Aire stands outsized with enlarged hands and feet,
a paradox of emotions on his face: proud but overcome, hollowed
yet living fully in this last moment of breath.
Frank is here every Saturday, working a few hours at the information desk. After his shift, he tours one of the galleries, piecing together the art and history, but he always ends his day in front of “Les Bourgeois de Calais”—“it’s a French sculpture for the French people, but they didn’t like it because it wasn’t heroic.”
Frank has burn scars on both arms, a twitch in his right eye. After he’s told us everything he must know about the sculpture, I tell him about my friend Irving Roth, a death camp survivor. When the Allies liberated Auschwitz, Irving was 15 years old. “Now, you may have pondered the Messiah, but I saw him—one was black and one was white, they were strong and healthy, and gave us pork beans, and when they saw us, they broke down and cried. Never seen walking skeletons.”
Frank’s eyes well up, but not from the obvious.
“My dad told that story. He was there, too. We could never really talk—we both served, but our wars were different. That’s the only time I ever saw him cry, when he told that story.”
I listen as d’Aire as Rodin as Irving Roth as Frank as Frank’s father
talk through death,
breathing a museum to life.
1.Lower East Side Tenement Museum, 90 & 97 Orchard Street
2. Holocaust Resource Center, http://eev.liu.edu/holocaustrectr
3. The Burghers of Calais (Les Bourgeois de Calais) is one of the most famous sculptures by Auguste Rodin, completed in 1888. It serves as a monument to an event in 1347 during the Hundred Years’ War, when Calais, an important French port on the English Channel was under siege by the English for over a year. England's Edward III, after a victory in the Battle of Crécy, laid siege to Calais and Philip VI of France ordered the city to hold out at all costs. Philip failed to lift the siege and starvation eventually forced the city to parley for surrender. Edward offered to spare the people of the city if any six of its top leaders would surrender themselves to him, presumably to be executed. Edward demanded that they walk out almost naked and wearing nooses around their necks and be carrying the keys to the city and castle. One of the wealthiest of the town leaders, Eustache de Saint Pierre, volunteered first and five other burghers soon followed suit. They stripped down to their breeches and Saint Pierre led this envoy of emaciated volunteers to the city gates. It is this moment and this poignant mix of defeat, heroic self-sacrifice and the facing of imminent death that Rodin captures in his figures. In history, though the burghers expected to be executed, their lives were spared by the intervention of England's Queen, Philippa of Hainault, who persuaded her husband by saying it would be a bad omen for her unborn child. The original work is in Calais, while several sites own a casting, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. (adapted from Wikipedia)
Shoah, New York
“We are always afraid of falling so we balance ourselves.”
Louise Bourgeois
Broadway and 42nd Street
The sound of July escaping,
a musician moving air
with the striated muscles of an ex-junkie,
flexed stance of a subway vet. A bluesy flute, moving fetid air, moving me
past furtive glances, cold stares.
He blows long cascading notes as we enter the station,
bracing his body against the slowing train, against our leaving,
hands on the final notes, balanced.
The notes, strung out along the tracks,
climb the stairs, move through turnstiles,
funnel, then spread up and down Broadway
to heaven and hell.
The train has stopped but no one moves. Silence hangs.
I expect applause, but get a last ironic note:
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for that wonderful round of applause…
…If you can find it in your heart
to make a small donation, I would truly appreciate it. This is Times Square,
please watch your step as you leave the train.”
Broadway and 12th Street
At Strand’s in the Village I hold the new translation of Elie Wiesel’s Night. The New York Times calls it a “slim volume of terrifying power.” After fifteen city blocks and three beers I have not escaped day three of a two-week seminar on “Reading, Writing, and Teaching the Holocaust.” Today, we met Gisa, a Holocaust survivor.
In clumps of syllables she tells us “After the war was a famous slogan—‘Never again,’ but that I think is lie.” We nod and take notes—boxcars of 80 people traveled for three days and nights, without water, one bucket for shit and piss. The waste ran down her legs, where it caked and dried. When they arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau, she saw the smokestacks—“What is belching out like that? Why is it stinking? Why white particles—like butterflies—we didn’t know.”
At 84, she is small, slight, with dark eyes, dark hair, and a direct gaze.
I am reeling from her words.
“…ate clumps of grass, boiled up like spinach soup.”
“…had to undress in front of men…and the world, because this was our world.”
“…if you wanted to finish your rotten life, you could run to the electric fences.”
She watched her mother taken out and shot in her hometown, watched her older sister and little brother march to the shower where they were gassed. Her sister, knowing what awaited them, tossed her braided hair back, took her brother’s hand and went left. Gisa felt the ponytail brush her face, and went right.
How did you survive? I want to ask.
One time she laughed at her friend’s childish prank, but told us “You cannot laugh with crematoria belching out human skin.”
When she finishes answering questions,
Gisa, “slim volume of terrifying power,”
asks to use the restroom.
36 Battery Place
From the windows of the Museum of Jewish Heritage I see Ellis Island
and the Statue of Liberty. Under brilliant blue sky the harbor teems with ship traffic, with life. We are studying primary sources, trying to understand the cold steel engineering of the Nazi war machine.
“Ninety-seven thousand Jews have been processed in the trucks to date, but minor operating defects have been discovered and we recommend the following improvements.”
Like my Krupps coffee maker, an efficient machine, but the filter clogs occasionally, spilling coffee. I should write the company.
“It would be desirable in future to install electric lights, shielded by a steel grill, in the ceiling of the truck. For it is dark in the car when the doors are closed, and when the exhaust gas begins to be piped in, the result has been panic and loud screams, which make the work of the drivers more difficult and may attract undesirable attention.”
Some of my fellow teachers are gasping, some crying. When we take a break, anger and horror spill out of the conference room. How do I teach this to fifteen year olds? What pedagogy is there for efficient, technological mass murder?
“In addition it is desirable to make the cars shorter—although we are aware of the concern expressed by the engineers regarding the increased pressure on the front axle. There is no need for concern about the overweight on the front axles of the trucks, for the merchandise, without exception, is pushed together during the journey and, for understandable psychological reasons, pressed to the locked doors at the rear end, so the weight will nevertheless be well distributed on both axles.”
I look up from this document, checking the blue, the harbor, and Liberty.
Delancey at Essex, Lower East Side
We do a fine job of memorializing those we have slaughtered. Some of us have become very rich off the tragedy of others. In Hollywood, they say there’s no business like Shoah business. Ask Steven Spielberg.
In the last year, I’ve read reviews on three new films about the Rwandan genocide. For this year’s National History Day competition, one of my students developed a website on the Khmer Rouge that took her all the way to Washington DC.
One can now take a virtual tour of the “most significant act of domestic terrorism on American soil,” the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The website encourages the tourist to visit “the famed gates and empty chairs to appreciate the beauty and serenity.”
Many cities in our country have a street or park named after Martin Luther King, and they’re often a symbol of a city’s health. Detroit’s Martin Luther King Blvd is a mass of potholes and weedy sidewalks, but I found a beautifully maintained MLK park tucked away in the Lower East Side.
In New York City, there seems to be a museum for most oppressed groups, including Jews, American Indians, Chinese, and even tenement dwellers.
New York teachers can adopt a Holocaust survivor. It’s almost as easy in places like McCool Junction, Nebraska and Paradise, Michigan. We can meet a death camp survivor on line, say from Bergen-Belsen, ask questions, get to know him or her...sort of.
Despite our efforts to honor and remember, to share stories, to teach the past in order to inform the present, we continue the horror. “Never again” is a phrase completely devalued by our repeated history. And when we’re not killing, we ignore, even those we honor. By one count, today there are over 100,000 Holocaust survivors living in poverty.
Maybe it is enough to survive as something other than our original self.
Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street
Even looking at Rodin’s “Les Bourgeois de Calais ,”
it is not easy understanding man’s horror
when he faces death.
My daughter presses for an explanation.
Then he appears at my side, like a docent, speaking earnestly
about the sculptor, the subject, his own life and his father.
It is more than I need, but I am relieved of parental duty.
I never learn his name, even later when we shake hands,
so I think of him as Frank.
He points to the figure of Jean d’Aire, the second burgher to volunteer
for death. d’Aire stands wide, jaw set, holding
one of the keys to the city, a noose about his head.
“That’s my guy. He’s got that thousand-yard stare.”
I cannot see his eyes. Rodin’s figure is looking beyond death.
“You were in ‘Nam.”
“Thirty-nine months.”
d’Aire stands outsized with enlarged hands and feet,
a paradox of emotions on his face: proud but overcome, hollowed
yet living fully in this last moment of breath.
Frank is here every Saturday, working a few hours at the information desk. After his shift, he tours one of the galleries, piecing together the art and history, but he always ends his day in front of “Les Bourgeois de Calais”—“it’s a French sculpture for the French people, but they didn’t like it because it wasn’t heroic.”
Frank has burn scars on both arms, a twitch in his right eye. After he’s told us everything he must know about the sculpture, I tell him about my friend Irving Roth, a death camp survivor. When the Allies liberated Auschwitz, Irving was 15 years old. “Now, you may have pondered the Messiah, but I saw him—one was black and one was white, they were strong and healthy, and gave us pork beans, and when they saw us, they broke down and cried. Never seen walking skeletons.”
Frank’s eyes well up, but not from the obvious.
“My dad told that story. He was there, too. We could never really talk—we both served, but our wars were different. That’s the only time I ever saw him cry, when he told that story.”
I listen as d’Aire as Rodin as Irving Roth as Frank as Frank’s father
talk through death,
breathing a museum to life.
1.Lower East Side Tenement Museum, 90 & 97 Orchard Street
2. Holocaust Resource Center, http://eev.liu.edu/holocaustrectr
3. The Burghers of Calais (Les Bourgeois de Calais) is one of the most famous sculptures by Auguste Rodin, completed in 1888. It serves as a monument to an event in 1347 during the Hundred Years’ War, when Calais, an important French port on the English Channel was under siege by the English for over a year. England's Edward III, after a victory in the Battle of Crécy, laid siege to Calais and Philip VI of France ordered the city to hold out at all costs. Philip failed to lift the siege and starvation eventually forced the city to parley for surrender. Edward offered to spare the people of the city if any six of its top leaders would surrender themselves to him, presumably to be executed. Edward demanded that they walk out almost naked and wearing nooses around their necks and be carrying the keys to the city and castle. One of the wealthiest of the town leaders, Eustache de Saint Pierre, volunteered first and five other burghers soon followed suit. They stripped down to their breeches and Saint Pierre led this envoy of emaciated volunteers to the city gates. It is this moment and this poignant mix of defeat, heroic self-sacrifice and the facing of imminent death that Rodin captures in his figures. In history, though the burghers expected to be executed, their lives were spared by the intervention of England's Queen, Philippa of Hainault, who persuaded her husband by saying it would be a bad omen for her unborn child. The original work is in Calais, while several sites own a casting, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. (adapted from Wikipedia)
Bits of My Reflection
In the end, I feel an extreme sense of possibility. My mind runs over and over – how can I make a difference? How can I look at the world in a new way while also engaging my students to do the same? It is no secret that I find poetry as the vehicle for many of my thoughts and emotions. The following poem speaks to our power as educators. To steal a commonly used quote, we must be the change we want to see in the world. We have the power to affect generations to come – to educate the minds of the unborn.
Possibility
I stand upon the threshold of possibility.
The door is ajar – the door
I can only pass through
as an individual.
It is easy, really, to be in a group
seeking to alter
common perception,
prejudice,
and pedagogy.
In a group we are fearless.
As individuals, what will we be?
Taking the passion,
spiraling outward –
ripples on the pond.
Throw a stone,
watch it splash,
sink – long gone by the
final ripple’s calm.
Sleeping, alone, on a riverbed of stones
forgotten.
But that ripple – the stone’s legacy –
does not remember the splash.
Throw a stone, watch it splash.
Sink deep with the memory of the moment.
Say the word,
cry the tears,
be fearless of the splash.
Look above, see a generation of ripples,
created from understanding.
Gratitude is unspoken, often unknown.
Stand on the threshold, take hold of the stone,
look at the water.
Cross through the door and
sink deep in the river – look up
to the surface.
Watch the ripples – feel the
gratitude of understanding taught
as the result of
one stone,
one thought,
one spoken word.
Profound legacy of the stone –
fearlessness not forgotten
but passed on.
If not now, when?
If every small act of indifference is allowed, tolerated, where will it lead? We all like to think that true evil is large and well defined. But in fact, it’s the tiny pin-prick – the first rain drop. Negativity and evil spread like cancer – consuming the healthy cells and sucking their life.
I must set out to bear witness to the small acts of indifference, to take notice when another’s prejudices are brought to the surface. This seminar has been my call to action. The people I’ve come to know and love will be my network of possibility. I will never be the same teacher, woman, mother, or human as a result of this experience and for that I will always be thankful.
To my fellow seminar members and facilitators –
Voices.
This experience.
This learning.
This loss.
It’s about voices.
Like thread weaving a cloth –
the voices tell their stories to weave a picture
of what was,
what was lost,
and what must be.
I never want to forget the stories, the tears, the words, the tones, and the moments. We have come together in this beautiful city to share our understanding and confusion. I leave here with all of you – fingerprints on my heart. We came, we saw, we learned, we loved, and we spoke with our voices.
Twelve days ago we had not met and today you will never leave me. I love you all and am a better person for knowing you.
Thank you for an amazing experience!
~Danielle
Possibility
I stand upon the threshold of possibility.
The door is ajar – the door
I can only pass through
as an individual.
It is easy, really, to be in a group
seeking to alter
common perception,
prejudice,
and pedagogy.
In a group we are fearless.
As individuals, what will we be?
Taking the passion,
spiraling outward –
ripples on the pond.
Throw a stone,
watch it splash,
sink – long gone by the
final ripple’s calm.
Sleeping, alone, on a riverbed of stones
forgotten.
But that ripple – the stone’s legacy –
does not remember the splash.
Throw a stone, watch it splash.
Sink deep with the memory of the moment.
Say the word,
cry the tears,
be fearless of the splash.
Look above, see a generation of ripples,
created from understanding.
Gratitude is unspoken, often unknown.
Stand on the threshold, take hold of the stone,
look at the water.
Cross through the door and
sink deep in the river – look up
to the surface.
Watch the ripples – feel the
gratitude of understanding taught
as the result of
one stone,
one thought,
one spoken word.
Profound legacy of the stone –
fearlessness not forgotten
but passed on.
If not now, when?
If every small act of indifference is allowed, tolerated, where will it lead? We all like to think that true evil is large and well defined. But in fact, it’s the tiny pin-prick – the first rain drop. Negativity and evil spread like cancer – consuming the healthy cells and sucking their life.
I must set out to bear witness to the small acts of indifference, to take notice when another’s prejudices are brought to the surface. This seminar has been my call to action. The people I’ve come to know and love will be my network of possibility. I will never be the same teacher, woman, mother, or human as a result of this experience and for that I will always be thankful.
To my fellow seminar members and facilitators –
Voices.
This experience.
This learning.
This loss.
It’s about voices.
Like thread weaving a cloth –
the voices tell their stories to weave a picture
of what was,
what was lost,
and what must be.
I never want to forget the stories, the tears, the words, the tones, and the moments. We have come together in this beautiful city to share our understanding and confusion. I leave here with all of you – fingerprints on my heart. We came, we saw, we learned, we loved, and we spoke with our voices.
Twelve days ago we had not met and today you will never leave me. I love you all and am a better person for knowing you.
Thank you for an amazing experience!
~Danielle
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Final Reflection: Poem
I Never Want to Forget Any of You
(In Remembrance and Celebration of “Reading, Writing, and Teaching the Holocaust,”
(In Remembrance and Celebration of “Reading, Writing, and Teaching the Holocaust,”
July 7 – 18, 2008)
By Valerie Diane Bolling
I never want to forget …
Sue’s tears which display her deep sensitivity for all living things and her desire to preserve beauty in the world as she does in her monolithic rock gardens
Tom’s strong sense of Catholicism, slow, easy smile, and poetic words from one who didn’t think he could write poetry
Beth as an inspiration to all young people that you can be born to a teenage mother, cope with family loss and personal illness, and still emerge with a Ph.D.
Thomas’ love for sports and music, and his remembrance of addresses and awareness of the kind of superiority competitive sports can breed
Steve’s ability to find poetry in the streets of New York and how wonderful it was that he could share this with his wife (his “passion and inspiration”) and valedictorian daughter
Jan’s ability to recognize that combating prejudice must start at home -- we must not only look at the atrocities committed on others’ soil but also on our own
Risha’s beauty, strapless dress or not, gorgeous singing and spoken voice, and love of shopping; I’ll also remember to keep Clay in my prayers
Danielle – Risha’s partner in crime -- if shopping for purses and cashminas is a crime, and her vast knowledge of technology and ability to weave words into magic
Billie’s spirit, knowledge and love of literature and plays -- oh to be a student in her classroom
Wendy’s melodic voice, coming from a place of wisdom and questioning and figuring out where she -- and we all -- might fit into this world
Ilka’s never-ending thinking, reflecting, and analyzing, and always her love of Gabryella and the color purple
Gail’s impressive knowledge of technology and of best practices for bringing it into the classroom
Debi’s energy and vitality, effervescence when sharing stories of Lucca, and “self-enrollment” in Jewish society
Leslie’s positive personality, knowledge and scrutiny of politics, and love of walking – thanks for the walking tour of SoHo and SoNo on a rainy evening
Pam’s caring about social justice, the relationships she’s cultivated for herself and her students with the children of Rwanda
Deanne’s cuteness, beautiful brown skin, enjoyment of Larry, and shouts of “Whoo-who!”
Larry’s sense of humor, beer drinking, and role as the creator of our blog -- a way for us to keep in touch and share ideas and writing
Angela’s initial exhilaration at being a part of the group -- a thrill that continued to grow throughout the seminar and ended in tears at the thought of leaving
Alice’s “hostess with the mostest” presence -- making sure we knew exactly how to get to where we were headed -- thank you for that wonderful day in Brooklyn, culminating in a pleasurable time spent at your home
Sondra’s sweet calm, even when she was forced to keep on us a tight schedule, and her openness about her teaching, writing, and personal identities -- thanks for sharing your children with us
Jennifer’s perfect teeth, reflective manner, and willingness to let me borrow her cashmina in the name of comfort and “fashion”
Gatsinzi’s honesty and emotion when apologizing to Gisa for not knowing there had been a genocide “worse” than the one that had claimed his family members in Rwanda
Pat’s decision to be a part of our group, despite family situations at home … and then having to depart suddenly when her family needed her more than we did
I never want to forget ...
By Valerie Diane Bolling
I never want to forget …
Sue’s tears which display her deep sensitivity for all living things and her desire to preserve beauty in the world as she does in her monolithic rock gardens
Tom’s strong sense of Catholicism, slow, easy smile, and poetic words from one who didn’t think he could write poetry
Beth as an inspiration to all young people that you can be born to a teenage mother, cope with family loss and personal illness, and still emerge with a Ph.D.
Thomas’ love for sports and music, and his remembrance of addresses and awareness of the kind of superiority competitive sports can breed
Steve’s ability to find poetry in the streets of New York and how wonderful it was that he could share this with his wife (his “passion and inspiration”) and valedictorian daughter
Jan’s ability to recognize that combating prejudice must start at home -- we must not only look at the atrocities committed on others’ soil but also on our own
Risha’s beauty, strapless dress or not, gorgeous singing and spoken voice, and love of shopping; I’ll also remember to keep Clay in my prayers
Danielle – Risha’s partner in crime -- if shopping for purses and cashminas is a crime, and her vast knowledge of technology and ability to weave words into magic
Billie’s spirit, knowledge and love of literature and plays -- oh to be a student in her classroom
Wendy’s melodic voice, coming from a place of wisdom and questioning and figuring out where she -- and we all -- might fit into this world
Ilka’s never-ending thinking, reflecting, and analyzing, and always her love of Gabryella and the color purple
Gail’s impressive knowledge of technology and of best practices for bringing it into the classroom
Debi’s energy and vitality, effervescence when sharing stories of Lucca, and “self-enrollment” in Jewish society
Leslie’s positive personality, knowledge and scrutiny of politics, and love of walking – thanks for the walking tour of SoHo and SoNo on a rainy evening
Pam’s caring about social justice, the relationships she’s cultivated for herself and her students with the children of Rwanda
Deanne’s cuteness, beautiful brown skin, enjoyment of Larry, and shouts of “Whoo-who!”
Larry’s sense of humor, beer drinking, and role as the creator of our blog -- a way for us to keep in touch and share ideas and writing
Angela’s initial exhilaration at being a part of the group -- a thrill that continued to grow throughout the seminar and ended in tears at the thought of leaving
Alice’s “hostess with the mostest” presence -- making sure we knew exactly how to get to where we were headed -- thank you for that wonderful day in Brooklyn, culminating in a pleasurable time spent at your home
Sondra’s sweet calm, even when she was forced to keep on us a tight schedule, and her openness about her teaching, writing, and personal identities -- thanks for sharing your children with us
Jennifer’s perfect teeth, reflective manner, and willingness to let me borrow her cashmina in the name of comfort and “fashion”
Gatsinzi’s honesty and emotion when apologizing to Gisa for not knowing there had been a genocide “worse” than the one that had claimed his family members in Rwanda
Pat’s decision to be a part of our group, despite family situations at home … and then having to depart suddenly when her family needed her more than we did
I never want to forget ...
How different, similar, and wonderful we all are
We are African, African-American, Native American, Filipino, Finnish, German, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Southern, Northern, Midwestern
We are mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, grandparents, grandchildren, friends, readers, writers, thinkers, questioners, researchers
We are teachers
Striving to break the cycle of hate in our classrooms, student by student
And ultimately, the world
Educating not only our students but also family members and friends
So that they know there is no home for prejudice and genocide
In a civilized world
In a world in which we want ALL of our children to live
We are African, African-American, Native American, Filipino, Finnish, German, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Southern, Northern, Midwestern
We are mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, grandparents, grandchildren, friends, readers, writers, thinkers, questioners, researchers
We are teachers
Striving to break the cycle of hate in our classrooms, student by student
And ultimately, the world
Educating not only our students but also family members and friends
So that they know there is no home for prejudice and genocide
In a civilized world
In a world in which we want ALL of our children to live
Monday, July 21, 2008
Simply Amazed!
I am simply amazed at all that is on this blog. There is no way I could view it all. I miss all of you -- our work together and fun times spent together. I will plan to post soon my final reflection -- where I celebrate each of you. Enjoy these weeks of summer.
: ) Valerie
P.S. I want to share two book titles with you -- not Holocaust-specific but related. The first is one I was reading while in NYC, Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, an Irish immigrant who, because of jaw cancer, undergoes surgery at age nine, which removes part of her face. What is more painful for her than the radiation, chemo, and numerous attempts at reconstructive surgery is how she's viewed, teased, ignored because of her looks. Unsurprisingly,Lucy internalizes this suffering as well.
The other book I'm currently reading is When She Was White by Judith Stone. This book really delves into the whole issue of race classification. One of the presenters talked about this at the Jewish Heritage Museum, and Gatsinzi talked about this with the Tutsis and Hutus. This book deals with this in the context of apartheid South Africa when a "coloured" child is born to a white couple. The racism, that supposedly isn't racism -- just protection of the child and her needs, is incredible. She is thrown out of her white boarding school, and her parents fight to keep her classification as "white," even when she is reclassified as "coloured." Of course, the obvious irony is that none of this would even be problematic if race classification were a non-issue.
: ) Valerie
P.S. I want to share two book titles with you -- not Holocaust-specific but related. The first is one I was reading while in NYC, Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, an Irish immigrant who, because of jaw cancer, undergoes surgery at age nine, which removes part of her face. What is more painful for her than the radiation, chemo, and numerous attempts at reconstructive surgery is how she's viewed, teased, ignored because of her looks. Unsurprisingly,Lucy internalizes this suffering as well.
The other book I'm currently reading is When She Was White by Judith Stone. This book really delves into the whole issue of race classification. One of the presenters talked about this at the Jewish Heritage Museum, and Gatsinzi talked about this with the Tutsis and Hutus. This book deals with this in the context of apartheid South Africa when a "coloured" child is born to a white couple. The racism, that supposedly isn't racism -- just protection of the child and her needs, is incredible. She is thrown out of her white boarding school, and her parents fight to keep her classification as "white," even when she is reclassified as "coloured." Of course, the obvious irony is that none of this would even be problematic if race classification were a non-issue.
Empty Space
I too feel a big empty space in my life, even though I am so glad to be back with my family. I finished Five Chimneys last night (I slept almost all the way home on Saturday), and like Night, and Survival in Auschwitz, Olga's story is hard to read and hard to put down. I am going to read Salvaged Pages next, on Thomas' recommendation, to try to find some primary texts for my students to read.
Our last evening together, full of singing and laughter, will remain with me always. Check out the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum website for updates on Sudan and Darfur. You can sign up for emails that keep you up to date on that and other situations.
Our last evening together, full of singing and laughter, will remain with me always. Check out the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum website for updates on Sudan and Darfur. You can sign up for emails that keep you up to date on that and other situations.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
The Holy Fire
from Wendie Marks
I wonder where everyone is. It does not seem quite correct that we have all gone our separate ways. There is so much that we have experienced and so much still to be said. Be well all.
The Holy Fire
Eyes burning for days; tears washing my face
If only one person could quench their thirst
and survive from my tears.
But no
It is too late
I have arrived too late
My heart swells aches cracks and seems to break
When will we the world recover?
How can we ask?
Hope to?
Dare to?
When so many have been lost?
Extinguished.
There must be some meaning
We must make something of this
This raging fire hot blazes of combustion
Burnings, shootings, slaughterings, and so much more.
The annihilation of entire civilizations, a race.
But no! There are eighteen leafy green oaks pushing through stones.
Growing out of blue grey multi-colored boulders.
Something is surviving. Some have survived.
"These few these happy few?"
If Christ died for the peoples sin
Then is it possible that the holocaust
And the many other cruelties of mankind
May be a payment an exchange in the name of a higher good?
How might one understand the actions of murderers?
How might one transform all that we have seen
And all that we have remembered?
Is it the remembering that is the transformation?
Under crystal chandeliers we emerge
To higher forms of civilization: philosophy, art, music, poetry
Understanding.
Purification through fire gives birth to a refined humanity
An uplifted humanity.
Would you jump into the fire for a greater cause?
To transform all that you have seen and remember
Jump into the holy fire.
That is our great work.
There are bystanders and will be bystanders.
I am one of these too paralyzed and frozen
To be effective - to care about anything except ones own precious safety.
What if we stepped out?
What if we emerged from the grey stone
What if we were part of the rebirth of civilization.
Something passionate - yes
If only we could look through our eyes and not with them.
Will you come with me?
Let us jump into the holy fire.
To transform not once not twice but again and again
Let us join hands and jump together!
I wonder where everyone is. It does not seem quite correct that we have all gone our separate ways. There is so much that we have experienced and so much still to be said. Be well all.
The Holy Fire
Eyes burning for days; tears washing my face
If only one person could quench their thirst
and survive from my tears.
But no
It is too late
I have arrived too late
My heart swells aches cracks and seems to break
When will we the world recover?
How can we ask?
Hope to?
Dare to?
When so many have been lost?
Extinguished.
There must be some meaning
We must make something of this
This raging fire hot blazes of combustion
Burnings, shootings, slaughterings, and so much more.
The annihilation of entire civilizations, a race.
But no! There are eighteen leafy green oaks pushing through stones.
Growing out of blue grey multi-colored boulders.
Something is surviving. Some have survived.
"These few these happy few?"
If Christ died for the peoples sin
Then is it possible that the holocaust
And the many other cruelties of mankind
May be a payment an exchange in the name of a higher good?
How might one understand the actions of murderers?
How might one transform all that we have seen
And all that we have remembered?
Is it the remembering that is the transformation?
Under crystal chandeliers we emerge
To higher forms of civilization: philosophy, art, music, poetry
Understanding.
Purification through fire gives birth to a refined humanity
An uplifted humanity.
Would you jump into the fire for a greater cause?
To transform all that you have seen and remember
Jump into the holy fire.
That is our great work.
There are bystanders and will be bystanders.
I am one of these too paralyzed and frozen
To be effective - to care about anything except ones own precious safety.
What if we stepped out?
What if we emerged from the grey stone
What if we were part of the rebirth of civilization.
Something passionate - yes
If only we could look through our eyes and not with them.
Will you come with me?
Let us jump into the holy fire.
To transform not once not twice but again and again
Let us join hands and jump together!
Friday, July 18, 2008
Eavesdropping
Ladies and Gents,
Most of you know I have been recording lines that I found amusing, inspirational, and somehow reflected our journey this past week. Some will be clear to all of you. Some will be clear to a few. A few of us thought some of the lines would make great prompts in our classrooms, especially the most profound. Read them. Enjoy them.
As you will...
Where does curiosity come from?
This was not just a workshop. This was a life experience.
I am in the process of becoming human.
Since I feel powerless, should I be relegated to garbage?
What are the conversations we don't have?
Romanticizing the past...
(Through clenched teeth) Take the [freakin'] picture, Larry.
Donna Reed was on.
Excuse ME!!!!!
Help me! I'm a [freaking] tourist.
I'm gonna talk about her even though she's here.
That's my shower song.
For posterity...
Maybe we can be with you when you get discovered.
We are going to be the dynamic duo.
I teach at this very exotic place called the lower east side.
It's biblical. That means from the bible.
Well, aren't I Captain Obvious?
Don't lick the bull's balls in Winter. (The one on Wall Street.)
What's the point? Is the point to gawk?
Christians wouldn't do this.
I know my parents did the best they could, but it wasn't enough.
Hot and taut.
What is it to be alive without spirituality?
Auswitch.
Some trees gave their lives so they could be here.
I want to blow people's minds.
For two years, I was an illegal alien.
Close your legs, woman. (Bystander on subway)
What is this?.......It's a camera.
I invented gum.
If not now, when?
So, it's not a booze cruise.
She's got black-tipped fingertoes.
Where is freakin' Larry?
Boy, this chicken is really dry. (It's not chicken. LOL)
We all have an Alex.
If I have to lie, I do it.
But you look normal.
I have a Zach, not an Alex.
The most important thing is the conversation.
It's like water dropping on a stone.
There are certain people who you just feel you swim with.
Establish that line and give them that choice.
In your class, everyone gets the home court advantage.
Teachers who are closet Alexes???
Diarrhea is no cure for constipation.
A Jew is someone who bends rules and creates laws.
How do you define a race?
It's a question of time.
I'm guarding the door.
Maybe they should relocate.
To me, you need to ask for forgiveness to get forgiveness.
That's why I go to therapy.
Anger is the best anti-depressant I know.
Is there a book, Judaism for Dummies?
The Almighty Loophole
Oh, the food.
Surviving. Reviving.
This is Dr. Billy.
Put that in the blog.
My drag name is Dangling Participle.
Yeah, but you're an ignorant (un-knowing) hypocrite.
Mommy, Daddy sad at you.
What kind of pill did you need?
Sometimes you just gotta hide the ugly.
At the time, you cannot be that person.
Out of the tension comes the creativity. ~Jung
Any teacher can be a sanctuary.
It has been a blessing to spend this time with all of you.
Much love...Ilka
Most of you know I have been recording lines that I found amusing, inspirational, and somehow reflected our journey this past week. Some will be clear to all of you. Some will be clear to a few. A few of us thought some of the lines would make great prompts in our classrooms, especially the most profound. Read them. Enjoy them.
As you will...
Where does curiosity come from?
This was not just a workshop. This was a life experience.
I am in the process of becoming human.
Since I feel powerless, should I be relegated to garbage?
What are the conversations we don't have?
Romanticizing the past...
(Through clenched teeth) Take the [freakin'] picture, Larry.
Donna Reed was on.
Excuse ME!!!!!
Help me! I'm a [freaking] tourist.
I'm gonna talk about her even though she's here.
That's my shower song.
For posterity...
Maybe we can be with you when you get discovered.
We are going to be the dynamic duo.
I teach at this very exotic place called the lower east side.
It's biblical. That means from the bible.
Well, aren't I Captain Obvious?
Don't lick the bull's balls in Winter. (The one on Wall Street.)
What's the point? Is the point to gawk?
Christians wouldn't do this.
I know my parents did the best they could, but it wasn't enough.
Hot and taut.
What is it to be alive without spirituality?
Auswitch.
Some trees gave their lives so they could be here.
I want to blow people's minds.
For two years, I was an illegal alien.
Close your legs, woman. (Bystander on subway)
What is this?.......It's a camera.
I invented gum.
If not now, when?
So, it's not a booze cruise.
She's got black-tipped fingertoes.
Where is freakin' Larry?
Boy, this chicken is really dry. (It's not chicken. LOL)
We all have an Alex.
If I have to lie, I do it.
But you look normal.
I have a Zach, not an Alex.
The most important thing is the conversation.
It's like water dropping on a stone.
There are certain people who you just feel you swim with.
Establish that line and give them that choice.
In your class, everyone gets the home court advantage.
Teachers who are closet Alexes???
Diarrhea is no cure for constipation.
A Jew is someone who bends rules and creates laws.
How do you define a race?
It's a question of time.
I'm guarding the door.
Maybe they should relocate.
To me, you need to ask for forgiveness to get forgiveness.
That's why I go to therapy.
Anger is the best anti-depressant I know.
Is there a book, Judaism for Dummies?
The Almighty Loophole
Oh, the food.
Surviving. Reviving.
This is Dr. Billy.
Put that in the blog.
My drag name is Dangling Participle.
Yeah, but you're an ignorant (un-knowing) hypocrite.
Mommy, Daddy sad at you.
What kind of pill did you need?
Sometimes you just gotta hide the ugly.
At the time, you cannot be that person.
Out of the tension comes the creativity. ~Jung
Any teacher can be a sanctuary.
It has been a blessing to spend this time with all of you.
Much love...Ilka
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