Offense Intended

Speaking of Judaically-themed insults, the other day at work we participated in an intervention. A young man who works at the college bookstore has a tendency of too frequently dropping the "S-bomb": "Schmuck."

His boss was concerned: While not a member of the Yiddish-speaking tribe herself, she had a suspicion that "Schmuck" was too strong to be tossed about blithely in polite company. "I think that N____ thinks it basically means 'Jerk,'" she told us, "but isn't it stronger than that?"
Yes, in fact, it is.

For all our gentile Sloppists, we here provide a handy guide to Jewish insults. (We hope that FOS will chime in on this, as he is far more knowledgeable of Yiddish. Ours will be an extremely rudimentary list.)

If someone is a jerk, you have two basic choices that will be familiar to your non-Jewish audience: schmuck and putz. Interestingly, they share the same literal meaning: a slang term for a notable part of the male anatomy. 'Putz' is the more gentle remonstrance. Friends can call each other 'putz.' 'Schmuck,' on the other hand, is closer to 'asshole,' and should be reserved for people and occasions that warrant such condemnation.

Two other useful Yiddishisms are 'schlemiel' and 'schlamazel' (familiar to "Laverne and Shirley" enthusiasts). The simple definitions are a 'schlemiel' is someone who spills his soup, and a 'schlamazel' is the one the soup gets spilled on. (Disclaimer: We might have those backwards.)

So feel free to work these into your daily criticisms. Just make sure to use them properly.

Oh, and as for N______: When we explained the true meaning of 'Schmuck,' and that he was actually insulting people quite strongly when he used it, his response was, "Cool." What a putz.

Offense Intended?

The other evening, the Solipsist was helping a young lady--a former student--put together an essay. The main topic of the essay was this young lady's church. She had, however, gone off topic in one paragraph, wherein she discussed the animosity that exists between her congregation and some Catholics: She wrote something to the effect that Catholics didn't get along with Christians.

Now, even though she was going to strike this section, we felt it necessary to clarify for her that the statement didn't quite make sense: After all, Catholics ARE Christians. We thought she meant that Catholics didn't always get along with Protestants. She seemed confused--as in, What's a Protestant? Without going into a disquisition on Martin Luther, we explained that the general definition of a Protestant was a Christian--a believer in the divinity of Christ--who does not follow the Catholic Church (i.e., the Pope, the Vatican, etc.) This seemed to be a revelation to the young lady.

As we finished our explanation, we mentioned, by way of disclaimer, that she shouldn't take us as experts on Christianity. "After all, what do I know? I'm Jewish anyway."

Now this truly surprised her. "Really? I thought you had Spanish in you. I didn't know you were a Jew."

Pause.

How does that sentence make you feel? Do you find it jarring? Offensive?

Let us quickly point out, there is NO possibility that this young lady was trying to be insulting. As we mentioned, she's a former student who has come to see us frequently for writing help and is in no way a racist or anti-semite. (She is at worst a bit naive, as you might have gathered from the previously described conversation.) Still, we did find ourselves a bit taken aback when she dropped the "J-bomb."

But, why? It's not as if she said, "I didn't know you were a hebe/yid/kike/hook-nosed shylock," etc. And if she had simply said, "I didn't know you were Jewish," well, then you wouldn't be reading this post. So when did "Jew" become an emotionally fraught way of referring to members of the Jewish faith--which is to say, Jews?

Our theory--admittedly not backed up by anything resembling research--is that, if you call someone a "Jew," you are objectifying him--transforming him into some alternate life form that may or may not be human; whereas, calling someone "a Jewish person," acknowledges the fundamental humanity--the "personness"--of the one you are referring to. We suppose it is analogous to referring to an African-American as a "black," as opposed to a "black person" (which we understand is OK again).

So what do you think? Are we just being over-sensitive, or does our visceral reaction have any merit? And, if so, were we justified in pummeling our former student?

Just wondering.

Stop Bashing Teachers (Part III)

(Continued from December 2, 2009)

The hostility to unions is one cause of the enthusiasm for charter schools, the hottest educational innovation since co-ed schooling or chalk. The basic idea behind charter schools is that they are publically funded but "chartered" by individuals or groups who want to take a different approach to education. Fair enough, and there are certainly good charter schools out there, but we have yet to see comprehensive information that "proves" that charter schools work significantly better than regular schools. And even if we do see such information, it must be taken with a grain of salt. Charter schools don't always work with the same student population as their non-chartered peers. For example, charters often use some kind of lottery system for admissions. While any student can participate in the lottery, it takes highly motivated and savvy parents to know about the lottery in the first place. We're certainly not criticizing highly involved parents, but we wonder if those parents' children would have a leg up wherever they went to school. Similarly, charters may not have to serve as many "problem" students--those with disabilities, those with behavioral/emotional problems, those with limited English--as a regular public school might.

The charters also don't have to conform to union rules: They can hire non-union teachers, pay less than prevailing wages, demand longer hours. The trade-off, though, is that teachers may have more control over the curriculum. A charter school could conceivably demand nine hour days or summer classes or weekend programs. One of the most famous programs in the charter movement is the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP). These school have rigorous requirements for students and parents (and teachers). Students wear uniforms and are drilled in subject matter over the course of very long school days. And the results are often impressive. We can see why an observer might scoff at the "necessity" of unionized teachers when the non-union equivalent can get such strong results.

Maybe.

See, here's what we think: We think the charter movement is still fairly young. We suspect that many charter-school teachers are indeed fine educators, top graduates of education programs at elite colleges and the like. We're sure that the thought of being able to create something new, to try out new strategies, to really make a difference, is appealing to these idealistic young people. They probably question the necessity of membership in a hidebound, rule-obsessed union. They want to change the world.

What happens, though, ten years down the road when these idealistic young things are married, with children of their own to support? What happens when they get worn out by the crushing grind of 12 hour days? What happens when, having developed their own expertise in teaching, they want to try something different, something that doesn't conform to the curriculum of the charter school they call home?

Well, easy! The charter school can thank them for their service and send them on their way! There's always a new crop of ed-school grads waiting to take their place!

Either that, or these charter school teachers can think about unionizing, too. One wonders if that will turn them into slack-jawed incompetents in the eyes of the teacher-bashers.

Stop Bashing Teachers (Part II)

(Continued from November 30, 2009)

To take things one step further, the NEA, with its focus on collective bargaining and pay equity and all those "unimportant" things, actually facilitates education: The union allows teachers to focus on educating children by freeing teachers somewhat from concerns over labor issues.

We grow weary of the perennial conservative war-cry that teachers' unions--as opposed to poverty, overcrowding, inequitable funding streams, unfunded and ever-increasing mandates, etc., etc., etc.--are the primary cause of our educational system's shortcomings. Conservative critics claim that the NEA and its ilk are interested only in perpetuating power for its own sake. They claim that the purpose of the union is to protect the weak and unqualified at the expense of the helpless schoolchildren.

Realize, though, that these critics are not so much opposed to teachers unions as they are to unions period. A typical complaint is that unions, whether of teachers or teamsters, are a drain on the economy, a barrier to corporate efficiency. They're right, of course. If corporations don't have to worry about protecting workers' rights and providing living wages and ensuring safe working conditions, they will operate more efficiently (i.e., get more output per unit of input). See under: Bangladeshi sweatshops.

The logic goes something like this: What's good for General Motors--OK, bad example. What's good for, um, Nike is good for America; therefore, what's BAD for Nike must be bad for America; whereas unions are bad for Nike, they are also bad for America; thus, unions are bad for schoolchildren.

The number of faulty premises defies belief.

Let's assume for the moment that the majority of teachers' union members are NOT sub-standard teachers. We have no statistics at hand to prove this, but we will ask you to accept the premise if only under the reasonable (we think) assumption that the majority of members of any profession--particularly any profession that people CHOOSE to pursue (like teaching)--are at least COMPETENT. We must then ask what is the REAL reason that people are so opposed to teachers' unions?

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Heavy Questions (A Brief Post)

We'll get back to our disquisition on the parlous state of education tomorrow (we hope). For now, though, another of life's heavy mysteries:

Why is it that you never hear of people suffering from delusions of inadequacy?

Stop Bashing Teachers (Part 1)

NOTE: This series of posts calls for more polish than we're willing to give at this time. We put it out there as a work-in-progress. Feel free to comment and/or point out logical inconsistencies. Bear in mind, though, that the word "essay" comes from the French, d'essayer, literally "to try." We present these semi-random thoughts in the spirit of exploration.

Yesterday, WOS drew our attention to an editorial on the Chicago Tribune's website. In it, the editors take Bob Chanin to task. Chanin is the recently retired top lawyer for the National Education Association (NEA), one of the largest (if not the largest) teachers' unions in the country. At his retirement speech, Chanin discussed the importance of teachers' unions:

"This is not to say that the concern of NEA and its affiliates with closing achievement gaps, reducing dropout rates, improving teacher quality and the like are unimportant or inappropriate. To the contrary. These are the goals that guide the work we do. But they need not and must not be achieved at the expense of due process, employee rights and collective bargaining. That simply is too high a price to pay."

Now, unless we're completely misreading what Chanin is saying, we can paraphrase his comments as follows: Teachers' unions want to ensure quality education for schoolchildren, but they also want to protect the rights of teachers. Does that sound about right?

The editors of the Tribune, however, have a different spin: "We wanted to ask [NEA officials] if the rest of the union leadership believed that kids ranked behind collective bargaining on the teacher priority list."

First, Chanin was addressing a union audience in his capacity as that union's lawyer; he was articulating what may be considered his professional mission--one which he had been fulfilling for 40-plus years. He was not, in other words, expressing a teacher's mission, but a union representative's mission--and the mission of a union rep is to take care of the union members.

Second, the Tribune editors are engaging in what is known as a "straw man" argument: They attribute to their opponent an argument that he did not advance and then proceed to refute that argument. Nowhere does Chanin say that kids "ranked behind" collective bargaining. Rather, he said that teachers' rights cannot be sacrificed in the name of educating children.

By the way, he's right.

(TO BE CONTINUED)

If You've Got It, Flaunt It, Baby! Flaunt It!

In (belated) honor of Black Friday, we would like to share our recent conspicuous-consumption related experience:

In the drive-thru lane of our local coffee outlet, as we sat in our Prius, we noticed in front of us a shiny new Hummer. Said Hummer featured a personalized license plate--"BRNKS"--which we took to be a reference to the armored-car like qualities of the vehicle, as well as a none-too-subtle nod to the cold hard cash required to buy it. For good measure, the license plate was installed inside a novelty frame featuring a digital, cartoon-like series of flashing red lights.

As if determined to confirm a stereotype, the driver, after placing her order, tossed a crumpled napkin at the trash can next to the menu. We say "at" because her aim was less than Jordan-esque: The crumpled, filthy, for-all-we-know-germ-ridden paper dropped to the ground. Need we mention that the owner did not get out to pick it up?

There's something almost admirable about such behavioral consistency, don't you think?