Stan J. Beiner

I followed the first group in.  The tour guide’s English was excellent and she had a pleasant manner.  She was likable and relaxed.  Each room represents a different aspect of the Holocaust and she stopped to speak broadly about what is in that area.  By the second stop, some students were wandering off while keeping their headsets on to her talk.  And that is when I began noticing you.

You are fourteen. Baseball hat preferred; flipped up sunglasses even on a day that is cloudy and raining. You are really into sports as both an athlete and a spectator; never alone- always with your posse.  You’ve been to Israel already and been to Yad VaShem.

You started to stray. It was not boredom-that was clear.  You settled down in each room to watch whatever videotaped testimony was playing.  Your friends found you but you didn’t really talk to them. You walked through the exhibits alone.  What were you thinking? The guide came to me.  She was fine with the kids wandering and happy to give them some more time in rooms but not when we reached the area that focuses on extermination.

I called you and another classmate over and asked what you knew; what you had learned in your Holocaust class.  She did most of the talking; you listened.  You are bright but don’t often initiate. Were you even tracking?  I asked you directly for specifics and you matter of factly shared that there was an awareness of the mass killings and of the gas chambers but you had not seen footage.  The guide chose not to discuss the horror of Babi Yar; she focused on a mound of shoes and the group was quickly ushered from there to the Warsaw Ghetto exhibit.  You wanted to know why you were being hurried through and asked.  You were agitated and were now staying noticeably apart from your friends.

You were straying more; not wishing to move on as quickly as the group.  While others were whispering and some walked along with arms around each other, eyes welling; you shuffled on with your hands in your sweatshirt pocket- not speaking.  What was going through your head?

You are supposed to be our future.
Was this making an impact? In another fifteen years, there will be virtually no survivors alive to tell you their eyewitness accounts. They will no longer be at our Holocaust ceremony marching in behind a color guard.

Three thousand years ago, our people experienced the trauma of slavery and our leaders devised ways by which we would continue to relive the stories long after the last generation of slaves and children of slaves was gone. To this day, we strive to bring meaning to the Passover Seder so that we never forget.  It is embedded in the historical memory of our nation.  We talk about it, we taste it, we touch it, we remember.

And now something just as horrific has befallen our people and we are in the process of figuring out how to ensure that the Shoah never becomes just a page in a history book and that we become active agents in ensuring it does not happen again to us or any other people.

You seemed to stand there without emotion, shuffling through the museum.  You, who have to be one of our future storytellers.

We got on the bus and I motioned you to come back and sit with me.  I wanted to know what you thought of the experience.  You answered first by sharing your disappointment in the mechanics of the visit- not enough time, skipping sections, too much face time with a guide.  I was not satisfied. What was going through your mind when you saw what you did?

You started slowly.  It was horribly sad.  It can’t be forgotten.  You didn’t like Yad VaShem because it did not foster enough emotion. You had turned off your headset because you wanted to learn more on your own.  You wanted to connect with the stories.  You were fixated on the movie you saw about the ghetto uprising and were numbed by the sight of a bulldozer moving corpses.  It shouldn’t have happened.  It should not happen again.

I flipped the front of your hat and thanked you for spending the time with me.  I explained that I was just curious.  You scooted back to your seat and began bantering with your friends.

I sat back.  I was relieved.  You had been engaged.  You are only fourteen years old but you were thinking.  You get it on YOUR level.  You are our future and I feel good about it.

Footnote:  Each year, The Epstein School sends its graduating eighth grade class to Israel. This year, Spain was added to the itinerary.  It is our hope that they are connected by heart and soul to the land and that this “Taste of Israel” will encourage them to return for a longer stay.  Most do.

http://deerfield.patch.com/articles/cjhs-nips-mooseheart-in-sectional-makes-history

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Marketplace Vendors

Martin J. Gottlieb Day School
3662 Crown Point Rd
Jacksonville, FL 32257

on

April 28th- 30th 2013
Conference will begin with lunch at 12 pm on Sunday, April 28th and conclude at 12:00 noon (with an optional boxed lunch to go) on Tuesday, April 30th.

Click here for more information at the edJEWcon website &raquo:

Stan J. Beiner

With a deep sigh, we turn our innocent, middle school graduates over to high schools who will prepare them for colleges that don’t exist. You can translate that as heavy homework loads, AP courses, honors classes, multiple extra-curricular activities, and the stretch for the highest GPA possible. I have watched my own daughters stay up endless hours and fall asleep at their desks exhausted from their day of classes, extra-curriculars, and an occasional youth group event if time permits. Summertime is often filled with long lists of books to be consumed that are required reading prior to the beginning of the next school year. I have listened to countless teens talk about holding down jobs, padding their resumes, and trying to figure out HOW to get into their preferred STATE school. While many still strive to go to the Ivy’s and prestigious institutions, it has become a stress getting into the University of Georgia.

Flash forward to the ivory towers of university life. Most students try to plan their schedules to accommodate sleeping late, working out during the week, and if possible avoiding Friday courses. They take four, maybe five classes, a week and have time for Greek life, dorm life, and partying. What happened to the endless hours of work in preparation for college? The long list of books to be read over the summer for the coming semester? The eight to nine hard core subjects being taken concurrently? The sense that there is no time for themselves?

Well…as you can see from a chart prepared by the electronic magazine The Atlantic (9-3-12)… that is not what college is about and it has nothing to do with what happens in most undergraduate schools. Here is a big secret kept from students- they will get into college and most likely it is a college they are going to really like. Plus, they will get more sleep!

It would be disingenuous to say that college does not require hard effort and produce stress at times but it is disproportionate to what high schools purport to be preparing students to anticipate. A better focus might be on how to handle freedom while balancing leisure time and school work.

High schools are selling what they think parents are buying- a guarantee to the best college possible instead of helping children find the right match for who they are and what they want to do. And colleges are fanning the flames and promoting this pressure in order to get the best possible candidates.

The high school years should be about friends, sports, clubs, youth groups, summers off, and of course, school work. But these are different times. Last year, my wife and I were informed by the private school our youngest child attends, that tenth graders would now be invited to college orientation sessions. As parents, we responded politely that the only expectations we had for our 15 year old, was that she focus on her classes, play sports if she wanted to, engage and debate youth group politics, hang out with her friends and worry about boys. We asked to be removed from the invite list. The school honored the request and our daughter thanked us.

A few years ago, a film The Race to Nowhere made the rounds. Though it had its flaws, it highlighted some very important realities. I was most struck by what a high school girl shared with an audience gathered to hear about teen stress. She said that the most horrifying question high school students are asked is AND? You have a 4.0 GPA and? You are doing ten hours a week of community services AND?

There are high schools that are purposeful about the way they teach students to study, balance time, manage projects, and develop self-discipline. I wish that was the norm, but it is more likely that your child will attend a school that employs pressure and fear tactics to motivate its students less they be relegated to the dungeons of a two year college in rural Slovakia (okay- a slight exaggeration!)

We have to be careful about slinging around words like RIGOR, CHALLENGING, COMPETITIVE, and HEAVY COURSE LOAD when discussing college preparation. I am not sure that parents and educators quite understand the stress it causes. It is no wonder that cheating, eating disorders, and depression are more widespread than most can fathom.

As parents, we need to set boundaries for ourselves, our children, and our schools such as:

• Choose the right high school for your child’s needs which might be a deviation from your original plan.
• Actively review your child’s class load, sports, youth group, and work commitments.
• Monitor the language used in school environments.
• Continually take the pulse of your teenager’s outlook and perspective by having open conversations and listening to their concerns and frustrations.
• Become familiar with the signs of depression and eating disorders.
• Let them live their own lives and have their own dreams. The college or career path chosen by your child is not a badge of honor or shame that you wear.
• Assist them in developing time and cash management skills. Discuss the dangers of alcohol abuse and potential hazing brought about by lax college town and university oversight. These are the important life skills that that should be discussed in high school but are often overlooked.
• And finally, make sure you model that behavior by taking the time to show up at sporting events, programs, and plays without a cell phone in hand. Being available, being aware, and being an advocate are important ingredients for maintaining the sanity of a high school student.

If you can provide that perspective, your child will thank you when she is calling you from the college gym at 4pm before she heads off for a latte and her evening yoga class.  You can view this blog and many more of Stan Beiner’s writings by visiting him at  http://www.stanbeiner.blogspot.com

But every day, he certainly does — by almost never wearing the same combination twice through an entire school year. Click here to read more