The day after winter vacation, and the kids are all in the classroom, one of the later periods of the day. I understand it's hard for the kids to be back in school, and you want them to settle down, forty five minutes until dismissal.
But there has to be a better way to do that, then asking everyone what they did on winter vacation. The teacher has been there for many, many years. She knows there are varying degrees of economic and social
status amongst her students. She knows that some kids had major vacations, some were busy everyday, and some, literally did nothing. or close to it.
I am not really sure why, in 7th grade, this is something that needs to be formally discussed in a "go around the classroom" sort of way.
Now I am not one of those "trophies for everyone" kind of people, but this is different. This solidifies the status of certain girls in the class, and puts others in the realm of just wanting. I do not expect the school or teachers to advise the kids not to discuss it. I do expect the teachers to be more sensitive.
The girls were given the opportunity to "not answer," but that's not really better. Because mostly, most times, it's the kids who did nothing or not too much who will defer. Those who partied in the sun are likely to be thrilled to answer.
The whole thing makes me sad.
2 comments:
In the frum world, we have an unusual social structure in which the very rich live with the poor and/or struggling. In the frum world, social status is not supposed to be based on money, rather on piety, holiness etc. The interesting thing is that money does matter in the community, a lot, whether we want it to or not.
In other communities, you see more stratification, and the poor and the rich don't really interact.
actually that was done years ago, too. and we all looked forward to it. because back then we pretty much all did (or didn't do) the same things. there was one girl in my class who went to arizona cuz she had family there (I think). if this is an old school teacher, perhaps she isn't sensitive to the fact that economic differences amongst families is more pronounced now than it was 20-30 years ago
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