The weight of teaching
Jul. 14th, 2005 07:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
taylweaverOver the past few days, I have come to realize just how much responsibility teaching puts on my shoulders. On Monday, I had to grade papers for the first time. With math, this is not so difficult - the answer is either right or wrong, and the questions I asked did not really lend themselves to partial credit - though that will complicate things next time. But when grading essays, things get much harder. There is no objective way to say which paper is better than another. I tried to quantify it. I tried to use a rubric.
For those who don't know what a rubric is - I sometimes forget that it is not part of everyone's everyday vocabulary - just mine - it looks something like this:
Outline Organization
1 Missing Poor
2 Incomplete Getting there
3 Great Wonderful
But add a few more categories, and a better description for each number.
So I tried that system, but I realized it did not quite match with my idea of which students were writing "good" essays. And then I had to tweak the system. And I had to read each paper multiple times. And it took me hours.
After all that, I still end up feeling like some of my decisions were a bit arbitrary. And these possibly arbitrary decisions determine what grades some of my students got - the difference between an A and a B, a B and a C. This is a big responsibility.
But I have learned that teachers also bear a different kind of weight. Teachers get approached with many questions. Some of these questions reach beyond the realm of education.
Yesterday, a ten-year-old asked: "What's a suicide bomber?" She then added, "What's suicide? So-and-so told me I should know already."
Without really thinking, I answered something along the lines of: "Suicide is when a person kills themself. A suicide bomber is someone who wants to kill other people so badly that he is willing to kill himself along with them."
It was only afterward that I paused to think about whether or not I should have answered at all - though, upon reflection, I decided that if she was asking, I should answer. She knew the context - she asked me if I had heard about what happened in London - and she had read the phrase in a newspaper - I am guessing it was in a headline.
What to say after answering is an even tougher call. Do I reassure her? Do I tell her these are very bad people? I didn't say anything of substance. In retrospect, I think I should have asked how hearing the definition made her feel, what was going through her head. Maybe then I would have know what she needed to hear next.
I suppose teachers are not the only ones who face these questions and decisions. Parents do too, of course. But in some ways, it's more complicated as a teacher. For one thing, I have known my students for little more than a week. And then there are the parents themselves - if I make a bad decision, or a decision that they think is wrong, I have them to answer to.
For those who don't know what a rubric is - I sometimes forget that it is not part of everyone's everyday vocabulary - just mine - it looks something like this:
Outline Organization
1 Missing Poor
2 Incomplete Getting there
3 Great Wonderful
But add a few more categories, and a better description for each number.
So I tried that system, but I realized it did not quite match with my idea of which students were writing "good" essays. And then I had to tweak the system. And I had to read each paper multiple times. And it took me hours.
After all that, I still end up feeling like some of my decisions were a bit arbitrary. And these possibly arbitrary decisions determine what grades some of my students got - the difference between an A and a B, a B and a C. This is a big responsibility.
But I have learned that teachers also bear a different kind of weight. Teachers get approached with many questions. Some of these questions reach beyond the realm of education.
Yesterday, a ten-year-old asked: "What's a suicide bomber?" She then added, "What's suicide? So-and-so told me I should know already."
Without really thinking, I answered something along the lines of: "Suicide is when a person kills themself. A suicide bomber is someone who wants to kill other people so badly that he is willing to kill himself along with them."
It was only afterward that I paused to think about whether or not I should have answered at all - though, upon reflection, I decided that if she was asking, I should answer. She knew the context - she asked me if I had heard about what happened in London - and she had read the phrase in a newspaper - I am guessing it was in a headline.
What to say after answering is an even tougher call. Do I reassure her? Do I tell her these are very bad people? I didn't say anything of substance. In retrospect, I think I should have asked how hearing the definition made her feel, what was going through her head. Maybe then I would have know what she needed to hear next.
I suppose teachers are not the only ones who face these questions and decisions. Parents do too, of course. But in some ways, it's more complicated as a teacher. For one thing, I have known my students for little more than a week. And then there are the parents themselves - if I make a bad decision, or a decision that they think is wrong, I have them to answer to.
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Suicide Bombers, & Suicide
Date: 2005-07-14 12:58 pm (UTC)I think that's a really good answer. It's simple, but it explains a lot.
>Do I reassure her? Do I tell her these are very bad people?
Well, if it comes up again, make sure that you make the distinction - suicide bombers are always evil because they're killing other people. But people who commit suicide do so for a variety of reasons, by far the most common being mental illness, and I think it's important to emphasize that that's not evil, it's an illness. Because I know of elementary school teachers who spoke of suicide as evil, and really hurt a little girl in their class whose close relative died after a long battle with depression.
Re: Suicide Bombers, & Suicide
The Mystical Engineer wrote:
Well, if it comes up again, make sure that you make the distinction - suicide bombers are always evil because they're killing other people. But people who commit suicide do so for a variety of reasons, by far the most common being mental illness, and I think it's important to emphasize that that's not evil, it's an illness.
Hmmm. Suicide bombers are always evil, whereas stam suicides are most commonly mentally ill? Are suicide bombers never mentally ill? (In other words, would you include mental competence in your definition of suicide bomber?) Or do you believe that since they harm others in the process of their suicide, they are evil even if they are mentally ill, because they are judged by their actions, not by their motives?
These are not easy questions, even for adults. And yet we must explain them to children....
Taylweaver-- does the girl who asked the question know about September 11? If she's ten now, she would have been about six then.
Also, Taylweaver, you never followed up on your last e-mail to me.
Re: Suicide Bombers, & Suicide
Date: 2005-07-14 05:17 pm (UTC)There's a movement today to get rid of the term 'mental' from 'mental illness' because illnesses like schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder are diseases like diabetes and cancer - there's no reason to stigmatize them by putting them in a separate category. And then people won't equate 'illness' with 'competence'.
While I think that suicide bombers are not 'mentally competent' (that's not quite the right term either - I would say 'morally competent'), I don't think that the majority of them suffer from bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.
Re: Suicide Bombers, & Suicide
Date: 2005-07-14 05:46 pm (UTC)You (whoever you are) wrote:
While I think that suicide bombers are not 'mentally competent' (that's not quite the right term either - I would say 'morally competent'....
You see how hard it is to define these things? Try explaining them to a ten-yea-old, or even to an adult.
Re: Suicide Bombers, & Suicide
Date: 2005-07-15 11:27 am (UTC)Re: Suicide Bombers, & Suicide
Wait, so let me get this straight-- according to your analysis, people who kill themselves in order to perpetuate life and the Tree of Life are evil, but people who kill themselves in order to end life and bring on death are not evil. Oh, wait, no-- evil was
And with regard to religious fervor: it is often very difficult to tell the difference between mental illness and religious fervor. To take a benign example, when Rav Scheinberg wears 300 pairs of tzitzis at a time (which, for some reason, he does every day), people say that is incredibly holy and spiritual. If I were to do it (which I wouldn't), people would say that I was mentally ill. Is Rav Scheinberg mentally ill? I don't know the man, and know very little about him; however, from what I have heard, it sounds like he is fully mentally competent. This whole issue of insanity vs. religious fervor becomes much more complicated when we add the third factor of harming others (or possibly oneself).
I realize that in this post, I have not really answered any questions coherently, but only raised further questions. Let this be food for thought, which we can ponder over Shabbos.
Until then, have fun teaching.
Mental Illness
Date: 2005-07-15 05:38 pm (UTC)The contexts in which you use the term 'mental illness' bother me - I think you may not really understand the term. You're not alone in this - I think most of the world's population is in the same boat as yourself.
For a clearer picture on what mental illness is, see the book
"Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide" by Kay Redfield Jamison
Get book from Amazon
Get book from NY Public Library
Re: Suicide Bombers, & Suicide
Date: 2005-07-15 09:19 pm (UTC)That having been said, I don't have any respect for suicide bombers. And I disgusted by the people who talk them into it.
As a whole, I have a respect for other religions and for their devoted practitioners - but only as far as those practices involve doing no harm to other people.
Even if a person's religious practices cause harm to him/herself or to others, I would not call that person mentally ill. If I did, I would need to label entire cultures as mentally ill - such as those that practice female genital mutilation. This is something I disapprove of, but it is a cultural/religious issue, not one of mental illness.
As for Rav Scheinberg, I would not call him mentally ill, not would I call you mentally ill just for wearing that many layers of clothing. (though I am not sure what I would say if this were to occur in 95 degree weather in a place without air conditioning, etc.) I might call such a person eccentric, and I might even say they were crazy, but by crazy, I would not mean mentally ill - I would mean one or two steps beyond eccentric.
That having been said, I do know of at least one form of mental illness that is connected to religion. I believe it is called scrupulosity. It is one specific type of obsessive compulsive disorder, in which the obsessive compulsive thoughts/behaviors are connected to religious practice. (I don't know much about it, but my sense is that such a person might, for example, be constantly worried that a single hair would poke out from under her head covering, or would do damage to the kitchen by cleaning way too thoroughly for Pesach - and still be up all night worrying about whether he missed a speck of Chametz.) Actually, come to think of it, depending upon Rav Scheinberg's reasons for wearing so many layers of tzitzit, he might fit into this category. (I know absolutely nothing about him.) If he does it because he wants to feel holier, and do the mitzvah many times, or something like that, then I stick with my first opinion. If, however, he is worried that each set of tzitzit is not kosher, and that he will not fulful the mitzvah, so he must wear this many sets just to be absolutely certain that one set is kosher, I think would consider that a form of mental illness.
Re: Evil, Mental Illness, and OCD
Date: 2005-07-15 10:06 pm (UTC)I. It occurs to me that I would not want to call anyone evil - or bad or any word like that. Deeds are good and evil. People are people.
I'm not sure whether or not I have ever heard such a distinction (between moral charged actions vs. morally neutral people) made before. But I ask: would you actually not call anyone evil, or would you just "not want to call anyone evil" (as you wrote).
II. If I did, I would need to label entire cultures as mentally ill - such as those that practice female genital mutilation.
When you say that you would label whole cultures as "mentally ill", do you mean this as a metaphor (after all, cultures do not have literal minds), or do you literally believe in Carl Jung's idea of a collective unconscious?
And on the topic of genital mutilation: while we Westerners feel that female genital mutilation is disgusting and cruel, there are many people out there who believe that the (minor) genital mutilation that we Jews perform on newborn males is disgusting and evil. In fact, many of the anti-circumcision people might say that Judaism is a mentally ill culture. (And perhaps it is, at least some branches of it-- see below.)
By the way, I hope that Fuzzy Pink isn't reading this. Fortunately, there is no link to this blog from Fresh Samantha, and FS has told me that she doesn't follow this blog.
III. That having been said, I do know of at least one form of mental illness that is connected to religion. I believe it is called scrupulosity. It is one specific type of obsessive compulsive disorder, in which the obsessive compulsive thoughts/behaviors are connected to religious practice.
Hmmm (as you would say). If we are talkiŋ about illness of the "collective mind" of a culture, one might say that the entire of Ashkenazic Jewry, or at least Orthodox Ashkenazic Jewry, has this collective mental illness. Look all over the Mishna Verurah (yes, that beis/bet is supposed to be soft, because the previous word ends in an open vowel): "ובעל נפש יחמיר" (one who has a soul will be stringent, said about matters that are technically permitted), and "וירא שמים יצא ידי כולם" (one who fears heaven will fulfil all the various opinions, said in a case like the one that you mentioned above about tzitzit, that one should be afraid that each pair doesn't count according to one medieval Rabbi, so one should wear 300 pairs, to make sure that one has fulfilled the mitzvoh.
This is all a far cry from suicide. But who knows what can lead to what?
(And to thiŋk that I have finally accepted the label Orthodox... See the entry in my blog entitled "Relativistic Orthodox": http://margavriel.blogspot.com.
By the way, I may have mentioned this before, but perhaps not: it is discussions like this one that make bloggiŋ worthwhile.
Re: Evil, Mental Illness, and OCD
Date: 2005-07-15 10:31 pm (UTC)And halachic stringency is not a mental illness. It's about the person's approach to it. Paying attention to every detail is fine. A constant fear that one is breaking a law, leading to an impairment of function? That is not fine.
Evil Deeds vs. Evil People
Date: 2005-07-18 04:02 pm (UTC)>It occurs to me that I would not want to call anyone evil - or bad or any word like that. Deeds are good and evil. People are people
Mar Gavriel responded,
>I'm not sure whether or not I have ever heard such a distinction (between moral charged actions vs. morally neutral people)
I've heard the distinction many times, and I make it myself. And it's not a distinction between moral deeds vs. moral people - it's a distinction between the judgements that we are able to make about deeds vs. the judgements that we are able to make about people. To wit, we cannot really make judgements about people. We cannot know what went into a person's decision to commit a particular act, or the struggle that went on in his mind and heart before he commited himself to that act. So I leave to God ("bochen kelayot valev" and various other quotes to that effect) the judgement of whether a person is good or evil.
Deeds, on the other hand, can be viewed more objectively.
To perhaps throw a wrench into this discussion, upon the aforementioned topic of God's ability to judge people, I'm fond of saying that God is the ultimate subjective judge, and hence is the only truly objective judge.
Re: Evil Deeds vs. Evil People
Date: 2005-07-18 04:57 pm (UTC)You wrote:
Deeds, on the other hand, can be viewed more objectively.
Can they, indeed? Do we really ever know all the facts of the case? If someone kills innocent children praying in a mosque, I might say that that action has been despicable and evil, whereas other people (most probably among the right-wingers, but let's not make sweeping generalizations here) might say: "How do you know that parents hadn't strapped bombs to the children?"
To perhaps throw a wrench into this discussion, upon the aforementioned topic of God's ability to judge people, I'm fond of saying that God is the ultimate subjective judge, and hence is the only truly objective judge.
Wonderfully poetic, but what does it mean? Do you feel that the only objective reality is God's subjective feeling? If so, I see that you view God very personally, almost anthropomorphically.
On this topic, I would like to relate something that NG (now a rabbi in Long Beach-- you know whom I mean) told me last summer:
NG: I have a great insight!
Me: Tell me about it.
[I think: I'm sure it's going to be something about halokho, like all of NG's other thoughts.]
NG: We're supposed to judge people justly, according to din. Yet rachamim is considered greater than din, and God is believed to be full of rachamim. [He then said something about Plato's Republic, which I don't remember.] Well, I've just figured out that din vs. rachamim is not a dichotomy. Rather, the greatest kind of din is rachamim. How so? We must judge people based on their situation. If you or I need money for food, we need to work for that money. However, if someone on the street needs food, this person may be mentally ill (there's that term again), or weak, or addicted to substances, or for whatever other reason may not be able to work. It is din that we should show rachamim to such a person, and give him/her food or money, even though we would not deserve for others to give it to us. HaQadosh Barukh Hu is the ultimate Dayyan, because his din is rachamim.
(If Taylweaver finds this comment relevant (רֶלֶוַונְטִי), she may choose to define our Hebrew/Jewish terms in her "glossary". Otherwise, she may choose to delete my comment. Of course, she may choose to do neither. None of these options bothers me terribly.)
Re: Suicide Bombers, & Suicide
Date: 2005-07-20 04:33 am (UTC)I was discussing this with a friend of mine over Shabbos. (In fact, I gave her the URL for this site, and indeed, she very well may be one of the anonymous posters below. I really have no idea.) She said that while anyone may do bad actions, an evil (or bad) person is someone who has no conscience. I objected that the only person I know who seems to have absolutely no conscience is a homeless guy on Broadway, the huge black guy with the snot running down from his nose, who shifts his weight from side to side. He seems to have no sense of self-respect, even to the extent that he doesn't think of wiping the snot off from his face. Yet I would hardly call him evil; he is probably mentally ill.
In fact, if you don't have a conscience, how can one be considered good or evil? In fact, I may have exactly the opposite criteria for evility ;-) than my friend who spoke about conscience. Perhaps this goes to show that
And perhaps this will open up another can of worms, but I shall mention that I don't know whether or not "conscience" should be identified with the Jewish concept of yetzer ha-ra`, or the Freudian concept of the Super-ego, or some combination of the three, or some mental lightbulb which should be telling me that if I no longer know how to count to two, it's probably time to go to sleep...
And why is it that as I write these final lines, I'm fading in and out of a dream about being in the synagogue of the Tahana HaMerkazit in Jerusalem? I guess it really is time to go to sl...
Re: Suicide Bombers, & Suicide
Date: 2005-07-20 11:16 am (UTC)And a conscience would be the opposite of a yetzer hara - one is a voice that tells you to do good; the other is a voice that tells you to do bad.
And remember the part about not going off on tangents? Your last line would be a tangent.
Re: Suicide Bombers, & Suicide
Date: 2005-07-20 01:44 pm (UTC)I'm not quite sure what you mean by "cognitively impaired" here? Would this not be a type of mental illness? (It sounds sort of like the kind of thing that could be a category in the DSM-III, or DSM-IV, or whatever number they're up to now.) Or do you mean something like "low IQ", or "mentally retarded"?
And a conscience would be the opposite of a yetzer hara - one is a voice that tells you to do good; the other is a voice that tells you to do bad.
I meant to write yetzer hattov. However, I was also thinking that the conscience could be a combination of the two "yetzarim". If you are interested, I could post more about this idea in a further post).
Re: Suicide Bombers, & Suicide
Date: 2005-07-21 11:23 am (UTC)Re: Suicide Bombers, & Suicide
Date: 2005-07-15 11:37 am (UTC)This is why we need more teachers like my high school chumash teacher - a rabbi with a doctorate in psychology, who considers Jewish text from both angles.
Re: Suicide Bombers, & Suicide
Date: 2005-07-15 05:50 pm (UTC)There are a lot of amazing rabbis out there who do understand this stuff, but there should be more.
I once heard Rabbi Dr. Zvi Weinreb say that he heard more serious problems as a rabbi than as a psychologist - some people who went to him as a rabbi were people who were unwilling to go to a psychologist, and they went to him (as a rabbi) only when the problem got really out of hand.
Impressive
Date: 2005-07-14 01:54 pm (UTC)Taylweaver wrote:
For those who don't know what a rubric is... it looks something like this:
...and I always thought that a rubric was a Rubik's cube in the shape of a brick... :-)
But in all seriousness, it sounds like you're doing a very impressive job. You have really hit the nail on the head in your point that in answering questions, you bear the responsibility of parents, though you have known your students for about a week. (And when, God willing, you get a permanent job, the turn-around rate will still be a year.)
In terms of the suicide question-- what do you mean when you say that it reaches beyond the realm of education? It sure sounds like education to me. Do you mean that you were not prepared for such questions at TC?
Furthermore, you wrote:
...the difference between an A and a B, a B and a C.
Hmm... When I was in elementary school (in the NYC public school system), they had a system of letter grades that was something like E (excellent), G (good), S (satisfactory), U (unsatisfactory). I think there was also something between G and S. Then, they tried changing it to something like A(rea of exceptional strength) - P(assing) - U(nsatisfactory). Now, it sounds like they're using As, Bs, and Cs-- unless, of course, your school is not a public school.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-14 04:10 pm (UTC)And I think you gave a reasonable answer to a tough question. I still remember my third-grade teacher explaining to the class (I forget the specific context) what stereotypes were and what they could cause. Teachers have to explain difficult things, sometimes, but they can (and you will be) be a good, reliable source of information, and provide a safe space for kids to ask those questions. And if another question is something you feel would be inappropriate to answer, you could always tell them that might be a better question for their parents to answer, or some such thing. the kids I used to mentor and tutor occasionally asked some... interesting things, jaded little middle schoolers that they were. And then there was the one who didn't like us so told her parents we were telling them about sex and abortions, which in that part of Indiana would have been an extra big no-no. Fortunately no one believed her...
Anyhoo, best of luck with the teaching. I have great confidence in you.
Re: Grading
Date: 2005-07-14 06:00 pm (UTC)But wait--
For more information, click on this link: http://www.saintanns.k12.ny.us/home.htm
Re: Grading
Date: 2005-07-18 12:53 pm (UTC)suicides and religion
Date: 2005-07-17 02:06 pm (UTC)I always wondered about this. According to the Torah, if you know someone is from amaleik, you must kill them - man, woman or child. Just now, too bad that we don't really know who they are, otherwise we'd have to slaughter them all. In a kind of jihad. And about suicide bombers, isn't there some story about Shimshon Hagibor who died while killing a bunch of plishtim ? How is it that "we" are different from "them" again ?
Re: suicides and religion
Date: 2005-07-17 04:54 pm (UTC)And yes, I have thought about Shimshon in that way. Not quite sure what my take is on it.
If anyone else has any thoughts, however...
Re: suicides and religion
Date: 2005-07-17 04:56 pm (UTC)Re: suicides and religion
Date: 2005-07-17 05:53 pm (UTC)Re: suicides and religion
Date: 2005-07-19 02:38 am (UTC)Re: suicides and religion
Date: 2005-07-19 11:21 am (UTC)Re: suicides and religion
Date: 2005-07-19 11:28 am (UTC)Also, I now have two consecutive anonymous posts here - and I am wondering who is posting.