All posts by Rebecca Michelle

Educator, traveler, reader, blogger. Loves learning, black coffee, and friendly people.
On My Mind

Yom HaShoah

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Yom HaShoah is Israel’s commemoration of the Holocaust. Shoah, the Hebrew word to describe the Holocaust, literally means “catastrophe.” Most Jewish communities follow suit and also hold ceremonies of remembrance on the 27th of Nissan. The Jewish calendar (and Muslim calendar!) is a lunar calendar so the Gregorian date changes each year. According to the Gregorian calendar, a new day begins at midnight. On the Jewish calendar, however, a new day begins at sundown. In 2016, Yom HaShoah began at sundown on May 4 and will end at sundown on May 5.

This has always been a day that leads me to think about the state of the present world. Today’s world is violent, full of anger and fear and hate, and in desperate need of peace. There are surely a million and one reasons why we are where we are, but I prefer to think about moving forward. Dwelling on the past has brought us our present. I have bigger dreams for the future.

Whenever I’ve taught about the Holocaust, I’ve focused heavily on the roles of bystanders and upstanders (rescuers). Writer Cynthia Ozick highlights the issue of indifference, which I address with my students.

“Indifference is not so much a gesture of looking away – of choosing to be passive – as it is an active disinclination to feel. Indifference shuts down the humane, and does it deliberately, with all the strength deliberateness demands. Indifference is as determined – and as forcefully muscular – as any blow.”

We need to care. We need to care about everyone in the world simply because they are human. We all are human.

I don’t write poetry anymore, but I wrote a poem last night.

I Remember

Today is Yom HaShoah.
Holocaust Remembrance Day.

We must remember because if we do not
who will?

On this day when we choose to remember
let us not talk
of numbers
but instead commemorate
lives.

I remember the people
lost
the dreams
whispered
the hope
undeterred.

I remember the people with stories
songs
books
picture frames.

I remember the people who
helped
hid
harbored.

I remember
Armenia
Bosnia
Cambodia
Darfur
Rwanda.

I remember pain
and anguish.
I remember hate
and horror.

I remember the tears.
I remember the countless trails of tears.

I remember the lives
while I mourn the deaths.
I honor the lives
while I lay the victims to rest.

I remember the lives they cherished.
I remember their fight to preserve
those lives.

Let us talk not only of the past
but of the hope for the future.
Let us not talk of wishes
but let us take action.

For on this day
on every day
it is not enough to remember.

We’ve promised never again
and we’ve remembered
again
and again
and again.

So let us not only talk of the past.
Let us embrace, build, demand
peace
for the future.

There is clearly work to be done.

Education

A Good Teacher

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I recently solicited feedback from friends about this blog and how I can improve it. Sure, taking travel photos is fun and I love writing about where I’ve been and what I’ve seen, but there’s a lot more to me than weekends out of town.

Most of my hours are spent teaching and learning, thinking about teaching and learning, and reading about teaching and learning. I do quite a lot of personal writing about it as well, so a friend’s recommendation to blog about education seems only natural. There is now an education category up in the menu bar. The posts currently there are old, but I think still relevant to my constantly evolving thoughts on what education is and should be.

Now that I’m making a concerted effort to write publicly about education, I think it makes sense to begin by discussing what I see as being a good teacher. This will also help you, my wonderful readers, understand who and what I strive to be. I do acknowledge that good is a tricky word, and it is precisely for that reason that I want to explain how I define “good” in terms of teachers and teaching.

The way I see it, good teachers possess deep content knowledge and pedagogical understanding. They take risks by trying new ideas that are not crafted out of nowhere, but constructed out of research and sound practice. This means that teachers should make a point to remain current in research and actively seek out discussion with colleagues. Good teachers constantly reflect on their practice and make changes in their instruction based on students’ successes, failures, and needs.

Ultimately, good teachers act as role models for students, both in teaching and learning. Good teachers learn along with their students and are explicit in doing so. It is crucial that students see their teachers as actively and deliberately working to improve and accomplish relevant, meaningful goals. Learning is a process, and we need to spend substantial time addressing that process in our classrooms.

Additionally, I believe that good teachers establish a strong rapport with their students based on trust, genuine caring, a shared vision for the classroom community, and mutual respect. They need to value the unique experiences, backgrounds, and needs of their students to create environments that are inclusive for all. This means that good teachers and their students actively work for social justice.

Good teachers build their classrooms around what is best for students. To do so, teachers need to hear and listen to (yes, those are different!) the voices of their students. Good teachers believe that students have agency and they need to provide space for students to act and make choices.

This does not mean, however, that any individual should be all-powerful or completely powerless in a good teacher’s classroom. I am coming to believe that the central element of good teaching is to approach education with the goal of building peace in the classroom, in the community, and in the world. With that in mind, good teachers should work with their students and schools to develop environments in which dialogue, discussion, and consensus-building are the norm. Whenever possible, the emphasis in curricula should highlight the key concepts of peace and social justice.

Twenty-first century education is complicated because society has not come to a conclusion about education’s purpose. For fun, I typed “purpose of education” into Google’s search bar and got “about 975,000,000 results.” (By contrast, “why is the sky blue” yields only “about 179,000,000 results.” We have clearly come to a decision on that one.) While I don’t advocate a step-by-step formula for education, quite the opposite, I do think it’s important to be aware that education means a lot of things to a lot of people. Every single person on this planet is a stakeholder in terms of education. That’s a lot of people, and therefore a lot of ideas.

I’m looking forward to sharing my ideas and would really love to hear yours! Dialogue only works if people are willing to talk and that’s what the comments section is for! I’m always looking to grow and develop as both a teacher and a learner. Therefore, I hope that this blog, in addition to providing a platform for communication, will help me (and you!) in efforts to do so.

 

On My Mind, Singapore

On the Move

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Lots of travel updates lately, so here’s a quick life update:

I recently signed for a job in New York at a Jewish private school just outside the city and I have a flight home. Mitch and I don’t yet have a place to live, but that’ll happen all in good time. Moving to New York City is now a real thing!

I’m feeling a lot better about the move now that work is settled. It’s a middle school social studies job, which will be new for me, but I’m pretty confident in my pedagogy and I’m excited about the school. I wouldn’t have taken the job if I didn’t think it was a good fit but too many factors aligned for it to be anything else. As it happens, I attended a Jewish school for kindergarten through grade eight, overlapped with my new head of department when I was an undergrad in the program in which she was a grad student, went to my new principal’s alma mater for grad school, and – here’s the part that sealed the deal – grew up in the town where my new head of school’s relatives live and was a member of the middle school youth group that his sister and brother ran when they were in college.

That last part, friends, is called playing Jewish Geography. Fun game. I’ve made lots of acquaintances and even friends that way, which probably makes us a rather insular group. I’d argue, though, that it’s fair to say that about every minority ethnic group. 🙂

I’ve written before about my excitement to be with Mitch again and that’s still true. If not for him, there’s no reason to leave Singapore.

And that’s what is making this so hard.

I went out for coffee with my friend Jamie this afternoon and we started talking about all the things we need to do before I leave in (gulp) just over two months. Two months and three days. Time flies. As Jamie and I chatted and planned where in the world we could meet up in the coming years (compatible teacher schedules help!) I decided that I’m ready to go, but I’m not ready to leave.

I felt such a cold sense of finality when I clicked “confirm” on my flight payment tonight. The hard part is that I feel that I have unfinished business here. I have such wonderful friends who I love and who, in some ways, I’m still getting to know. I’m not done with that.

There are students to teach, inquiry questions to address, and curricula to plan. They can get along without me just fine, but I don’t know how I’ll do without them – both the students and the teachers!

There are neighborhoods of Singapore I haven’t seen, cafes and restaurants I haven’t tried, parks I haven’t explored, and hawker food I haven’t tasted. There are amazing countries to visit that I’m closer to now than I’ll likely ever be again.

Ever is a long time.

Even after a year, plus six trips to Singapore before I moved, I feel like I’ve just arrived. I’m still learning and I’m still excited. I was so ready to leave Malaysia by the time that finally happened and I could not feel more differently now.

I also feel like I have a home here but homes are portable. Home has come to mean people, not places. I already have a lot of people in New York City and I am looking forward to being much more present in their lives. So, I’m ready to go.

Leaving? Not so much.

As Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack Dawson said in one of my favorite scenes in Titanic, “To making it count.”

I have 63 more days here. And I intend to make them all count.