The first day at any new school (job for that matter) is always a little stressful and intimidating; today was no different. Of course none of my previous first days were in front of students who may not understand much of what I was saying.
It turned out that as the day went on, the level of students that I taught increased from the 10th grade through the 13th grade. As the levels increased so too did their fluency in English, which of course made my job easier as the day went along. My last two classes were with a class of three twelfth graders who were in a special history immersion course and who could not have been more engaged and welcoming.
If I were to use movies as my metaphor, the first class would have resonated with To Sir with Love, while the last class of the day was more Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Of course I ended each class the way I end every first day of school with a new class at Beth Tfiloh: I instruct them that the study of history is a labor of the intellect, but more importantly, it is a passion of the heart. If there is one absolute truth about the teaching of history it is that if students don’t engage the material on an emotional level, then I have very little chance to get them to connect to it on an intellectual level. In the same vein, if students don’t or can’t use empathy to relate to the material then making lasting connections is difficult.
And, just as the first day is always a leap into the unknown, the second day will be a little easier as I have a lay of the land of the school and the students. Tomorrow I will be continuing a lesson on the collision of Native American Culture with European Culture. In another class I will be exploring the rise of dictators that occurred in Europe after WWI; and, in the last course of tomorrow I will talk about the Civil Rights Movement in the US during the 1950s and 1960s.
Lastly, I am blown away with the beauty and vastness of Budapest. This city rivals Prague as the most beautiful I’ve seen. But, while the city of Prague is of average size, Budapest stretches out in every direction with no apparent boundaries. We learned about the two cities, Buda (apparently named after Atilla’s brother….I’m not kidding) and Pest, which were unified in 1873. And, unfortunately we also learned about the sometimes peaceful, but mostly horrible treatment of Jews during its history.
I’m looking forward to tomorrow.
