"I'm teaching myself Hebrew"

[asakiyume]

The teacher I used to work with in Holyoke asked me back to give a talk on writing to her high school-aged students, who are working on personal narratives. These are all kids for whom regular high school hasn't worked out, but they are still fighting for an education and a future, and the teachers at this program are 100 percent dedicated to helping them with that.

This happened in front of the building housing the program. This is these kids' daily life.

We talked about what makes writing hard, and how you have to strive to write in a way that your readers will understand and feel what you're sharing--even if your reader is only your future self. It's too easy to be cryptic or use a sort of shorthand that speaks to you in the moment but not later. And of course if your audience is going to include people other than yourself, you have to work even harder. Learning what you need to improve is good--but we also need reassurance and praise for what we're doing.

I said we'd practice that. I took out this guy:



I handed out index cards, told them not to put their names on them, and asked them to write a couple of sentences based on one of these prompts about the guy:

"He saved my life when I--"
"He ruined my life by--"
"He has a secret. It's that--"
"He's not who he seems. Actually he's--"
"He gives me the creeps because--"
"In a dream I had, he--"
"I see him every day selling--"

Then I collected what they wrote, handed out the cards at random, and everyone read the card they ended up with and had to say something that they liked about what they'd read.

The stuff the kids had written ran the gamut. Unsurprisingly, one kid had written that the guy was selling drugs, but someone else had written that he was selling vegetables and that they'd gone home and made soup. Another wrote about a rescue that involved jumping off a motorcycle. Another said he seemed creepy and like he might kill you in your sleep. And so on. Wonderful tiny stories. And everyone got to hear their writing read anonymously and praised.

Afterward, I answered questions and the talk drifted to (among other things) languages. I think I maybe went overboard talking about how learning languages made me positively high, but it led to a touching conversation on my way out with a student who confided that he'd started teaching himself Hebrew.

"Oh wow, Hebrew!" I said. "How did you choose that? Is it part of your heritage?"

"No. It's because of ... You know. The news. I thought of doing Arabic, too, but the letters seemed too hard."

I felt so much love for that kid in that moment. What a profound response to what's going on. What an instinct for healing.

So take heart, everyone. You can be a kid growing up in a neighborhood where stray bullets kill babies, and yet you're teaching yourself language to Tikkun Olam the hell out of our broken world.

Comments

[kore]

This is just lovely on so many counts. Thank you so much for telling us about this.

[asakiyume]

You're very welcome. It's like hearing good things said about our writing. We need it.

[sartorias]

That's a terrific writing exercise.

And what a nifty young person.

[asakiyume]

Thank you--and yeah, he was. And his parents had given him a name from the Odyssey. God, I love when life puts people like this in my way--or me in theirs, however it goes.

[zdenka]

Aww, that's very cool!

[asakiyume]

Right?? A *good* morning.

[mallorys_camera]

I love your writing exercise.

I love you! ❤️

[asakiyume]

Thankee kindly--I had fun thinking it up.

And you know the feeling is 200 percent mutual. Love you too.

[minoanmiss]

Blessings upon that wonderful kid, and upon you. And healing to that young woman who had to endure such a horror.

[asakiyume]

Amen to all three prayers (I think maybe it's gauche of me to seize up blessings for myself, but I'm happy to have them!)

[amaebi]

No, no, *not* seizing up offered blessings (that *are* blessings and not curses to you, miscalled) might be gauche!

[asakiyume]

I like this way of thinking about it ^_^ Thank you!

[anna_wing]

What an excellent exercise!

And one wishes that boy learning Hebrew all the best.

[asakiyume]

Thank you!
And yes indeed.

[wayfaringwordhack]

What a joy you are to those who cross your path. Great exercise, and I am so happy you got to spread positivity into their lives and especially the young man teaching himself Hebrew.

[asakiyume]

If I am one, it's only fair, because man, everyone brings such joy to mine! I came away reeling--in a very happy way--from the morning together.

[wayfaringwordhack]

LOVE that! <3

[cmcmck]

And the next time someone tells you how awful teenagers are............

As a teacher I met so many fine young people!

[asakiyume]

Oh I absolutely let people know just how magnificent teenagers can be.

[amaebi]

Thank you so much.

For curiosity: As you talked about languages, did you talk at all about how illuminating their grammatical and etymological structures are in lighting up very different ways of framing reality, including those embedded in, say, Englishes? I ask because the structures of Hebrew are substantially different from those of English.

[asakiyume]

My pleasure--thanks for being here for me to share with.

I didn't really get into any details at all, except to say that it's funny/a problem when you start a sentence in one language, but with the word order of another language, and then you're stuck and have to go back and start again.

[amaebi]

:)

[yamamanama]

You could always go with Maltese, which is a) what happened when Sicilian Arabic finally broke from the rest of them and became its own language and b) uses the Latin alphabet with a few extra characters like ħ, ċ, ġ, and ż.

[asakiyume]

Oooh, now that sounds like an interesting one!

[athenais]

What an uplifting read! And I do love story prompts, everyone comes at them from such interesting angles. *Is suddenly nostalgic for the short story group I wrote weekly prompts for several years ago*

[asakiyume]

^_^

It's maybe even more fun to create prompts than it is to write to them--or at least *as* fun, I think. Definitely fun to see people respond to prompts you create!

[lokifan]

Oh my god <3 Rediscovered this old tab and was so, so touched by that kid <3

[asakiyume]

❤️❤️❤️