Today was the first day with the kids at Lauder.
But first we heard an orientation about the school overall. Fascinating, especially the founder, Anna. I think what struck me most of all though was the presentation about Hungarian Jews. I had never thought before about the factors that induce identity, and Andres pointed out the switch that occurred after World War One when language was replaced by new nationalistic borders. Countries, borders, nationalities, they all seem like such malleable fiction to me. Just because some treaty delineates lines of latitude into separate sections means nothing in reality. In fact, it seems it is these fictions that create the illusions of “us” and “them.” Clearly, the need to mark the Other fills some political and psychological need, but can’t we eventually see it’s all pretend?
I’ve been watching Game of Thrones and I think about how factions swear oaths of loyalty to various factions. It’s not so hard to extrapolate that to modern day sensibilities and our own willingness to fight the Other all for something so ephemeral.
The Lauder School itself was quite nice. The students are clearly happy there and apparently thriving. I was most impressed with the elementary school’s practice of having students create a meta-cognitive piece after every project so that the teachers can know what was and what was not effective. It will take some courage, I think, but I am going to try to incorporate this on both the high school and university level.
My Lauder school partner Judith Markos already feels like an old friend despite the fact that I just met her less than 24 hours ago.
Biggest take-away today: these kids are incredibly similar to their American counterparts. I think interchangeable.
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