Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic writes, addressing Israeli soldiers,
[W]hen you operate, operate with the children in mind. It’s a burden Hamas has placed on you — it’s no joy to fight an enemy who hides behind his children. But that’s what you’re facing. (Source)
The Girl is learning to golf.
1/60, f/5, 10 mm, flash off ceiling
The crocadile sits at the end of the rug, patiently awaiting its feeding, but the Girl is more interested in directing everyone else to shoot. And of course Baby gets pointers, too.
More than four hundred years separate us from Shakespeare’s time — four centuries’ worth of linguistic change. I was curious what might happen in the course of 24 eighth-graders’ first true encounter with Shakespeare.
We began Romeo and Juliet today, and students acted out the opening quarrel scene. After class, one student came up to me.
“You know how pirates say ‘argh’ and such?” he began, hesitantly.
“Yes,” I replied, wondering where this was leading.
“Well, when Lord Capulet was trying to get Lady Capulet to hand him the sword, was he just, like, saying something pirate-like, or was he degrading her?”
“No,” I answered, smiling. “No, he wasn’t degrading her. He was just being enthusiastic.”
The line in question, of course, is, “What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!”
I was always a pack-rat growing up. I think it’s genetic, or maybe not. I do know Nana saved a lot of my toys through the year, and the Girl has finally started playing with some of them. My old animal collection.
1/60, f/5, 55 mm, flash off ceiling
She’s excited about being able to recognize animals — sometimes in Polish, sometimes in English — and she enjoys telling us what various animals say.
This is also a “sometimes in Polish, sometimes in English” thing, for Polish dogs say “how how” (spelled phonetically in English) whereas American dogs say “woof-woof.” Pigs here say “oink oink” whereas their Polish counterparts say “kwee kwee” (again, spelled phonetically in English). When we ask her, “Co mowi swinka?” she replies “kwee kwee!”; to “What does a pig say?” she’ll respond “oink oink.” That differentiation is a recent development, and it’s only one of many little linguistic markers she’s passing. She’s connected “kupic” (“buy”) and stores, so every time we pass a store, she says, in her wonderful mixed-up fashion, “Tata, mamma, kupi clementine.” Now she’s branching out: “Mama, kupi malinki i grapes.”
In short, she’s really coming to the understanding that she’s learning two languages. The other day, she said to K, “Mamma, bug!” K, not making out what she said, asked, “Co?” (“What”). “Pajak,” she replied, specifying not only animal but genus: spider.
The last two weeks, I’ve been on Christmas break — one of the great advantages of being a teacher. Teaching a new course (English I Honors), I wasn’t planning on having much time to myself as I was planning to, well, plan. Starting Monday, I’ll be leading the class through Romeo and Juliet, and I’ve never taught that particular selection. I did Macbeth when I was student teaching, but “Double, double toil and trouble; / Fire burn, and caldron bubble.” with twelfth graders is a far cry from “What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?” with gifted eighth graders.
I had high hopes for a productive time, especially during the second week, with Christmas behind us. And then L got sick: a moist, lingering cough that kept her out of day care for a week. But one thing you learn having a two year old is that she can imitate anything, including Tata working.
1/5, f/4, 18 mm, slow-sync flash off ceiling
Very quickly, it became a favorite, though I’m not sure how. The name’s origin was simple enough: unable to say “jacket,” L turned it into a shorter “jack.” The rest, though, is mystery.
Jack came to be for L what blankets and teddies are for other toddlers: her grounding. She had to have it with her, and when she was not wearing it (which was rare, if she had her way, even in summer), she was carrying it. Getting to her to agree to hang it in the closet was a Herculean task, and we simply decided that there was no reason why it should hang in the closet if it caused much turmoil in her life.
One parting was inevitable, though, and it happened soon enough. She outgrew it, and we introduced a new jack. She liked the new jack just as much as the old one, and quickly developed the same bond. Red jack was stowed away and quickly forgotten.
Until K decided to do some rearranging and repacking. And then, this morning, L discovered red jack. The original jack, the mother of all jacks.
Fast as her little increasingly nimble fingers could manage, she unzipped the plastic storage back that held jack, pulled it out, and held it close and tight, crying, “Jack!” as if she’d encountered a friend she hadn’t seen since school days.
“Oh, no, sweetie,” I said. “This jack is entirely too small.”
The prospect of losing jack a second time — “I’ve been looking everywhere for you” her babbling seemed to say — was too much for her. L fell in the floor, distraught and screaming.
“But you have another jack,” I reminded her. “Do you want to get it?”
The fussing quickly subsided and she meekly answered, “Tak.”
That jack was held close for the rest of the morning.
I do this on a daily basis: in my teaching, with my interpersonal skills, in my parenting. The old seems to be so comfortable that, even when something new is working better, the old slips up and takes hold before I know it.
Perhaps L’s rediscovery of the original jack suggests a goal for the year: to be more conscious about slipping into old, comfortable habits.
Muslims in America generally are considered to be integrated and not suffering the same issues as European Muslims allegedly suffer (discrimination, bigotry, etc.). You aren’t supposed to see calls from American Muslims to wipe Israel off the map.
I guess “generally” “aren’t supposed to” are the key terms.