Teaching New Books

When you're starting new units, especially new books, you sometimes have to give history lessons to provide context for the story.

Both seventh and ninth grade are starting new books next week. So this week was even more academically strenuous than your typical five days, because I had to use my non-strength of teaching history in order to get us off the ground. Not only that, but the books we're reading require extra-special attention to not being a jackass: the Israel-Palestine conflict for seventh grade's book, Habibi; and slavery and racism in the United States for ninth grade's book, To Kill a Mockingbird.

I got home by 5:15 pm, and slept until 7:15 pm.

And now I'm off to bed at 9:35 pm, because tomorrow is another day with lists and classes.

Tomorrow is also Moroccan dress day, and I'll be sporting a piece given to me today by an extraordinarily kind student.

Update:

I'm on the left, roommate Stacey on the right.

Such a Relief

I wish I enjoyed the intensity of a difficult moment, but I don't. The moment after the tension, that's what I like, when we can have peace again.

1. As soon as D period is over, and my ninth graders are about to leave the room, I celebrate that I've gone through my three different classes, and all that's left of the teaching day is a double reprise of seventh grade. It is such a relief.

2. As soon as I finish the allotted studying I have given myself for the night, and I remember that I need to eat and sleep, it is such a relief.

3. Every time President Bartlet entered a room in the show The West Wing, the lights were already on. And when he left it, they remained burning. In season two, an episode ends with him leaving the oval office at the end of the night. An aid comes into the oval office, and extinguishes each light. It is such a relief.

To the Injured Men Walking Down Yacoub Mansour on Sunday Morning

I left to catch the tram for church at 8 am on Sunday morning. Just before crossing Yacoub Mansour, the busy street nearby, here is what I saw:

One man, then another passing a few meters in front of me, walking up Yacoub toward Ghandi (the next perpendicular main road). These two young men were carrying a heaviness that held my attention. They were solemn, silent, sub-Saharan. Just behind them limped another such man with no shoes, holding a blanket around himself, tattered cape for an exile. But where was he going with no shoes?

I crossed Yacoub, and noticed that in front of these three men walked a long, flimsy line of young men with a similar, slow plod. I followed them with my eyes, and couldn't see the beginning of their sad train: maybe 50, maybe 70 men. And then I began to notice their bandages and dried blood. At least every other person walking had sustained visible injuries. But where were they going, so many?

I was walking faster than they on the other side of the street, and saw several men with no shoes; some carrying blankets, one carrying another man, but most carrying nothing. Not even a bag. Their clothes were in tatters. They looked like they had escaped a battle with only their lives. But where were they going, with nothing?

The men in the cafes I was passing were craning to get a better look. Shopkeepers were standing on their stoops, men cleaning the street were standing with mouths open, brooms suspended in air. I saw two police cars driving slowly, keeping an eye on the strange march. I didn't stop to ask. I don't remember seeing another woman in the whole of the walk, and it feels inappropriate to approach men.

I called a friend who might know what was going on, but she said the situation I described was extremely strange in some ways, and then, rather common in other ways. Sub-Saharan Africans are treated very poorly in this country. I will probably never read why or how these men were wounded on Sunday morning, or was it Saturday evening? And they walked kilometer after kilometer to find a safe place to lie down? Maybe the whole way past Casablanca, to another place? Where will you go?

To those men,

I tried to think of how I might help, and could think of nothing in the moment. But I did see you. I don't think it's worth hardly anything at all. But you are not invisible to me. Where did you go?

Eid al-Adha

This week we had a five-day vacation, including the weekend, to celebrate Eid al-Adha. The holiday celebrates when Abraham was spared killing his son because God stayed his hand and provided a ram instead. People celebrate the holiday by buying and killing a sheep for a big feast with family and guests.

A city full of sheep for a week, all making their sounds and smells, and suddenly, Monday afternoon, things get very quiet. (I have heard people refer to it as the silence of the lambs, but I don’t know if they were joking.) After the slaughter, the streets are littered with sheep remains, next to dumpsters or smoldering in small fires. I walked past a few burning sheep heads, and accidentally kicked a smoking ram’s horn. You know how in the middle of the night, you go downstairs for something, and step on a Lego brick? Well, this was way weirder than that. Bad comparison.

This story of Abraham and Ishmael (Abraham and Isaac in Judeo-Christian tradition) is not an atonement story in Islam. Like most of my life right now, I don't understand. I don't understand how atonement doesn't enter into it. [What I think I understand is that] Islam says the story is about Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice even that which was precious to him*, and how we all should be willing to give what Allah asks, like the sheep gives its own life to God.

To me, the story of Abraham and his son is largely about foreshadowing the coming of Jesus’ sacrifice, the sacrifice of the lamb and Son, who would take away the sins of the world. I got to be reminded of that with every bleating of sheep from over the wall.

*Islam is no closer than Christianity to condoning, let alone promoting child sacrifice, so we agree on that big time.

Touchstone

There was a moment last week when I looked around and could not believe how beautiful were the people in my classroom. They were their best selves, and it was stunning. I thought, "This is love."

It was not naiveté; it was one reality. They are lovely and loveable.

I will see them in far worse times, and they'll see me there, too. In fact, I already have. They're capable of being rather unpleasant. But I will keep coming back to that moment, because they are also full of wonder, affection, and so many many more days.