Pinch Me, I'm Dreaming

Today turned out to be so wonderful. I went into the office today to hear a presentation by the brains of the new reading remediation system I'll be writing about. I was enthralled, just transfixed by Yossi as he explained all the science behind the process of reading. It just blows me away to think of the coincidences that led me to this great job.

Dov was doing odd jobs for Yossi, who was moving to a different neighborhood in my town. Dov just happened to ask Yossi what he did for a living, and when he discovered that Yossi was a scientist who had developed a remediation program for reading difficulties, Dov thought to ask if Yossi had a website and did he, by any chance need a content writer?

Yossi had just begun the process of building the company and was about to start developing a website. He did indeed, need a content writer; one like me who had experience in dumbing down for the layman, difficult technical concepts. All of us, Yossi, Dov, and I thought this was a clear-cut case of divine intervention (hashgacha pratis) bringing us together.

There were other factors that made this a good match. For instance, I had served as a reading teacher for eight years to 3-6 year-old boys on my former settlement. In certain Jewish communities, boys are expected to be reading by the time they enter first grade. This is fine in theory, but in practice, the boys aren't always quite at the stage of reading readiness at age 3 or even at age 6.

As a result, I had done a great deal of reading during the time I served as a teacher on the subject of reading: what are the processes involved in the act of reading and so forth. I needed to figure out how to get the kids who had difficulties, reading in time for first grade. So I had done some research on the topic.

All this means that I had more than just a fleeting intimacy with the subject of reading difficulties when this job landed in my lap, seeming, as it did, to arrive from the heavens.

But today was the first time I got a taste of what it is that Yossi has achieved with his work in the field. And I was impressed that it's not just some fraudulent trickery set up to dupe some poor unsuspecting, desperate parents out of their money. Gosh, I was impressed!

I didn't want to voice this earlier, but I'd been so afraid I would be forced to work for a bunch of charlatans and trust me, there are a lot of them in this (unregulated) field. But this is the furthest thing from the facts of this situation. This is science, not some gimmick pretending to be a miracle worker nor is it a silly gadget with unfounded claims .

I can't spill the beans here—I have to save this for my job. I'll share the website address once we get everything launched. But this is such KEWL science. It made me get goose-flesh. I listened to Yossi hold forth for almost three hours and never once felt the least bit of boredom. That never--well, almost never--happens to me.

I have always tuned out lectures, long classes, cassette tapes of classes, and teachers of almost any stripe. There have been rare instances in which I felt engaged for lengthy periods of time in a classroom situation. In my former neighborhood, there was a woman named Chaya Horowitz who held classes in Navi (Prophets) every Shabbos afternoon for the neighborhood women. Chaya was one of the very few teachers who have ever been able to hold my attention.

Yossi is another one.

I am so excited to be working with this company and so grateful for the chance to do some really good work in something that I believe in—something that fascinates me and can help people, too. Wow. Pinch me. I'm dreaming.

Wednesday, I go in to the office again for another presentation, and today I came home with a stack of reading material to go through. I also took voluminous notes during Yossi's presentation and asked numerous questions. I am totally sucked into the charm and energy of this company. I love the office space, too. It's almost a shame I said I'd work mostly from home.

"A" Student

I was a bit wild during my high school years and ended up going to a great many schools until I finally managed to earn that elusive high school diploma. More about that another time, perhaps, but for today, I want to talk about my favorite teacher at the last school I attended, The University School, which was located in Shadyside, in my hometown of Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania.

The name of the school is loftier than it sounds. I was told by the school's secretary that one year, the students were asked to submit their choice of name for the school, and this name, The University School, was chosen as the name most likely to lend academic cachet to the school. Not that it deserved any as such, serving as it did to provide a modicum of education to kids who were the dregs of society. The students at the school were kids who had been kicked out of every high school system known to man and then some.

By the time I was enrolled there, I didn't have much choice in the matter of which school I would attend. My poor beleaguered mommy was at her wits' end with me, for getting kicked out of school after school. Since three of the schools I had attended were Orthodox Jewish parochial schools, my mother decided that the culprit wasn't me so much as those schools and their particular brand of religion which became more and more odious to her as I became wilder and wilder.

In retrospect, I think the trouble with me came down to one or two learning disabilities, but they didn't know about ADD or discalculia in those days--what I think was wrong. My mother pooh-poohs this idea and I respect her a great deal, so who knows? But going to The University School was a scary experience for me. Even though I was wild compared to Orthodox Jewish parochial school kids, I was as innocent as the driven snow compared to the kids who attended The University school. Those kids were BAD. They'd spent time in court rooms and in "Juvie."

I tried to keep to myself as much as possible, which was pretty easy. The school was different in that all classes were taught one on one, teacher to student. The school was an old home that had been chopped up into cubicles. The kids traveled from cube to cube for classes.

At the time I attended the school, I was trying very hard to conform to traditional Halachic Judaism in terms of my dress code and actions. If that sounds contradictory, so be it. I was wild at heart, but spiritual in my soul, and Yiddishkeit spoke to me. It wasn't easy getting the two to listen to each other and is still at times a great struggle for me.

At any rate, the kids thought I was pretty strange coming to school in skirts and long-sleeved tops, ritually washing my hands in the water fountain before partaking of my sandwich, while they were all snorting coke and doing "'ludes" during lunch break. I think I enjoyed being different and that this was just my particular brand of weird adolescent rebellion. Not that I was as pure as the driven snow, but to those kids, I represented something like those television Evangelists and was a laughable figure.

At any rate, on my first day at the school, following the schedule I had been issued, I walked into Dr. Prine's classroom. Dr. Prine was a very old man. He must have been in his 80's at the time I attended his classes. In fact, I know he was, because he talked once about his memories of WWI. The public school system would never have allowed him to teach at that age, but The University School, was private.

All I know is that when I saw that my teacher was elderly, I remembered the Torah precept about honoring the elderly, including the non-Jewish elderly. I determined then and there, that I would honor this man, no matter what.

Dr. Prine was my math and physics teacher. These are subjects at which I do not acquit myself well (scroll back up--I still think I have discalculia--an inability to relate to numbers and math). But bless me, I tried. Even though my performance was dismal, Dr. Prine never became frustrated with my work. He was kind, soft-spoken, and very patient.

My reward for being polite and for being a failure at math and science was found in being Dr. Prine's audience at the end of what he deemed was enough learning for that particular hour. He would tell me about the old days and his achievements, about a bridge he designed in the 1930's that was still standing. He called me "Barbie," a nickname for my English name which I detested, but I never protested. He told me that he had a granddaughter named Barbie.

My test scores were low, so I was surprised when I received my report card and saw that Dr. Prine had given me an "A." He knew I was puzzled and so he explained, "You may not be so talented at math or science, but as far as I'm concerned, you are the best student in this school."

I realized then, what a trial it must have been for this quiet, brilliant old man to have to teach the ruffian student body at that school. I imagined them ignoring him as he taught, putting their shoes up on the desk, being rude, coming to classes stoned out of their gourds. It hurt me to the core on his behalf. I really liked this man, more than just about any teacher I'd ever had in school. Maybe that's because I had worked so hard at listening and being polite, so that I got a taste of the human being inside the teacher's clothing.

I married my husband less than a year after my graduation and soon found myself expecting my first child. When my little girl was about half a year old, my mother sent me a newspaper clipping. It was an obituary for Dr. Prine. I saw that the obituary was about a year old. I asked my mother about the delay and she told me she didn't want to distress me with news of Dr. Prine's death during my pregnancy, because she knew how much I had cared for the old man.

I think that learning to be still and listen to Dr. Prine held me in good stead in all my relationships until now, and especially with the elderly. I learned not to speak about myself and to really listen and learn from other people. Perhaps I really did earn that perfect grade.