The Kid Who Ran Away from School and Children Books' Justice

This school year, twice a week, I have been reading together with a young friend. He is  9-year-old, very curious and intelligent, and has his own ideas about everything. He is also a new immigrant from Russia who needs some help with his Hebrew.

Since reading, even in a foreign language, is supposed to be fun we choose together enjoyable books and  take turns reading aloud. My friend reads one page and I read the next. We usually read like that for half an hour (about six or seven pages), and then as a reward, I read to him till the end of the chapter.

My young friend is resourceful and always looks for the shorter pages to read out loud. So we negotiate and exchange a long page, which I read, with a shorter one which he reads.

Reading together is not only about improving his reading skills or his vocabulary. Of course we talk about concepts and unfamiliar words that appear in the text, but it is mainly a  great opportunity to think of and develop ideas. We discuss our opinions and to share personal stories. This is how I learnt about a trouble in my young friends’ life.

Apparently, during the recess another boy hit him, and when my friend reported the incident to the principal, nothing was done. He was frustrated and the next morning, when it happened again, he literally jumped the high fence and ran away from school.

This is a classic children book story: in order to get the attention of the adult world, a child does something extreme. In real life it usually doesn't happen. Thus, my young  friend was punished for running away, his mother was called into the principal office, and he was suspended for one day. That was the arbitrary law

In books the outcome would have certainly been different, after the child was found he was reproached for making every one worried. Then the grownups involved, the principal, the teacher and the parents, apologized to him and asked forgiveness for not paying attention to his plight. This is poetic justice.

When we met to read again my friend was  troubled by what had happened. Children know instinctively what is fair, and as literature is a great training for understanding concepts, he understood very well the difference between justice and the law.

Poetic justice is important to everyone, but it is extremely crucial for  children in order to form a confident and positive outlook of the word. I am sorry that in this case the school chose to ignore it. Moreover, how is it possible that no one asked what made a little boy feel that the outside world was safer than the school, which is supposed to be the safest place for our children.

Reading literature is a great preparation for life, as it is made of examples, stories with characters and situations, it enriches the repertoire of responses and provides tools to analyze the world. Perhaps the grownups in the school: the principal and the teachers, should reread children literature in order to remember to treat children more fairly.

The essay appeared in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-kid-who-ran-away-from-school-and-children-books-justice/

Black/Israeli/Palestinian Lives Matter

Soon after the murder of the two African Americans, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, at the hands of the police, we were walking one night in New York City and came across a demonstration. The protesters were chanting “Black Lives Matter.” At that time, December 2014, there were many similar street protests, against police brutality toward black people, especially young black men.

Black Lives Matter started on social media, in 2013, with the use of the hashtag  #BlackLivesMatter. It has turned into an international activist movement which campaigns against violence toward black people.

That motto became so powerful that in 2014 the American Dialect Society chose “Black Lives Matter” as “the words of the year.”

In spite of the grim circumstances, which brought about the demonstrations, and led to the emergence of this grassroots movement, the words Black Lives Matter have a constructive and hopeful message.

This motto does not choose to dwell on the past, it doesn’t seek revenge for crimes which were committed against the black community. Moreover, it doesn't speak against police aggression or elaborate on the plight of the black victims.

Instead, this brilliant slogan, with only 3 simple words, focuses on life itself and emphasizes its value. But, it doesn't refer only to the life of the individual, the existence of the Black collective depends on cherishing and saving those lives

If such a short motto chooses to emphasize that Black lives matter, it should remind everyone how fragile, even endangered, those lives are, and therefore should  be filled with significance and handled with care.

The frustration and despair following the incidents of police brutality, and the general feeling that justice was not served, caused activists, within the black community, who had lost faith in the system, to look for another direction. Thus they came up with this message that could appeal to everyone inside and outside the black community.

This universal truth in this motto made me think that such a movement with a similar message could work in the Israeli Palestinian conflict as well.

Recently in the middle of the knives Intifada when we met with Palestinian people through the Narratives Projects of the Parents Circle, one of the Palestinian women, a mother in her thirties, admitted that the most she could do at this point was to make sure that her teenage son stayed at home, so he wouldn’t throw stones at soldiers and of course wouldn’t carry a knife.

It sounded familiar, I had heard it often before, on American radio, and on television, from mothers of kids growing up in poor areas in the US. They too professed that their ability to control or supervise their kids’ actions was limited and often they felt powerless.

But this motto Black Lives Matter could remind the kids, their parents, their families, teachers and the adults around them that they should be careful and cherish their lives.

Within Israeli society we also hear from Israeli parents about their inability to control their kids. One  example is the extreme case of the Hill-Top Youth in the settlements. Only recently we were shocked  to hear, from parents, the inside story of those youth who live outside society on the hills of the occupied territories and are engaged in risky behaviors and commit serious crimes against Palestinian.

Whether they are Black, Israelis or Palestinians young people would benefit from internalizing the message that life matters. Moreover, it is time to replace the old heroic motto with a new one which insists that it is preferable to live for our country than to die for it.

The essay appeared  in the Times of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/blackisraelipalestinian-lives-matter/