Multiculturalism: The Art of the Crayon

I'm taking an excellent class on Multicultural Approaches for Teaching Young Children. The idea is that no matter how diverse, or not, your classroom is each child should be proud of their own culture and appreciate those of others. It's beyond tolerance or just celebrating one holiday for each group a year. It's often called anti-bias ed or multicultural ed (which I prefer because it sounds more proactive). Today we watched a video of a anti-bias curriculum school in Seattle. The teacher presented a really interesting lesson plan that I can't stop thinking about...

Her class was pretty diverse. She had all the kids gather around and using Crayola® Multicultural Paint, each child tried to match his/ her skin color to the paint. What was great is that the kids realized that no one is "white" or "black" and that they often had to mix the pain colors to reach their own. Even amongst the Caucasian kids there was a great deal of skin color diversity. (Pictured: the multicultural markers)

I checked out the Crayola® website as well as a blog (Racalicious) that had a few comments about it. Here's what I found really interesting:

• The crayon currently known as "Peach" was called "Flesh" until 1962. Crayola® says the change was partially a result of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.
  
• "Indian Red" was not renamed "Chestnut" until 1999! And this was only in response to educators who demanded the change. Crayola® says the slur was not intended, but rather the crayon "name originated from a reddish-brown pigment found near India commonly used in fine artist oil paint."


• The current Multicultural Pack has 10 colors: Golden Beige, Beige, Tan, Tawny, Bronze, Terra Cotta, Mahogany, and Sienna. (Pictured: Multicultural paint, as see in the film)

Buxbaum-ing!

Oooooooooooh baby it was a good weekend.

Friday night I checked out Shalel Lounge with Leann. She is so funny and sweet, and always throwing great little parties with her roommate Marion. I was hoping Shalel would be a little bit more fun than it was however. It's advertised as a Moroccan bar, but besides a few metal tables and lamps, the Moroccan theme was a stretch. It was a cute romantic place for a date; very dark, cozy little nooks, a waterfall in the back. What really killed it was the bartender spilled alcohol on my purse and our little niche was taken over by three very loud and smelly men. So we enjoyed our conversation, and then moved on out.

Saturday around noon Rachel Buxbaum came over for a visit. We had planned on going to a museum, but the weather was so nice we decided to run around Greenwich Village and SOHO instead. We started off with an Israeli lunch at the Hummus Place; ful, dolma, salatim, incredible harif, topped off with limonana and turkish coffee. Absolutely dreamy. We then ran around, stopping in stores way too expensive for us as well as super cheap ones. There was even one that really reminded us of shanti-shanti places in Israel. Towards the end of our spree we stopped by the Aroma to take pictures (we're holding off eating there until my birthday weekend). (Pictured: Rachel at Aroma, oh sweet Aroma)
After stopping back briefly home, we got dressed and headed out for dinner. It was all good and plenty, until I sucked more than a soy bean out of my edamame. Oh yes, it was a caterpillar. I give myself applause for not freaking out, and quickly called over a manager. After every other waitress had come over to check out the worm and say "Ooooo, is gross" the manager finally arrived. Something in the translation though didn't seem to carry over, and instead of comping us (as any self respecting restaurant would have offered) they decided to just take off the edamame and give us a 10% discount (a whole $2). So, although I love it, I must advise against Swish until I have gotten over this grudge. (Pictured: Rachel andMe, post worm)

Rachel and I then went over to my friend Debra's apartment for a little get together in honor of Ari Bronstein. Ari was on WUJS with us, though not in our machzor (semester) so we spent three months with him in Arad and then would periodically meet up with him in Jerusalem. He's a sweetie who's made Aliyah and he had just come into NY for some family events. I actually met Debra through him when she joined a small group of us for a week in Jordan. Debra and I had shared a very bumpy jeep ride and we kill ourselves remembering the times we thought we would surely die as the Jordanian police man screamed "10 Gas!" and our driver floored it through the dunes. It was a treat to see both Debra and Ari, as well as meeting their eclectic friends. So this is a special shout out, thank you Ari for being a loyal reader of my blog!

(Pictured: Me, Ari, and Rachel in Debra's apartment)
Next up was Melinda's birthday at the Katwalk Bar and Lounge. Melinda and I had gone to OSRUI (Jew camp) together back in high school. She is just great and I love getting to reconnect with her now that we're both in grad school in NY. Once we got to the club it was a bit hard to find her and her group. We ended up partying with a group of Indians celebrating their own birthday girl for awhile by mistake. When we finally found her it was perfect. She was a very happy b-day girl and was very welcoming of Rachel. Rachel and I just had the greatest time, as we always do. Rachel is always up for introducing me to new things, especially drinks. (Pictured: a sassy Melinda and myself)

Somehow we woke up this morning. Rachel invited me to go to Brooklyn for lunch with her family, and I was happy for some Jewish safta (grandma) time. We stopped by Russel's and Sam's apartment to pick up her car and got a chance to give a very sleepy Russel a hug. Once we got to her grandma's we were plied with bagels and lox before Rachel's adorable 5 year-old cousin, Moshe, joined us with his parents. This kid is not only cute, he's a smarty. We played a game where he either acted out animals or contorted himself into the shapes of foods. Whereas most kids would be a banana, he was a cashew, a loaf of french bread, and acted out a Basiliscus (Jesus lizard).

(Pictured: Rachel and Moshe, he wasn't normally this scary looking)

So now I'm enjoying a little rest before the Oscars...

Valentine's Day (belated)

On Valentine's Day I celebrated with conscience! I'm helping to re-start the Peace Education Network at Teachers College (PEN) which we tried to name Peace Organizers for Research and Networking (PORN) but it didn't go over as well with the authorities. As one of our goals is to bring issues of oppression and activism to the TC campus, on V-Day Michelle and Brittany had an excellent idea. We bagged Fair Trade Chololate chips with dried cranberries and handed them out with info sheets on why everyone should buy Fair Trade. Some info:

• Very little of the profit goes to the farmers who grow the cocoa beans. Cocoa farmers receive about a penny for a candy bar selling for 60 cents.
• The difficulty in making a living at cocoa farming has spawned an increase in child and even slave labor drawn from poor neighboring countries
• The Fair Trade Certified production criteria guarantee a minimum price and insure that no child or forced labor is used

Valentine's Ball

Michael, Me, Anmol

Conflict Resolution, making me more angry by the day

This little lady is Conflict Resolute-ed out. I took the course in CR for two weekends, that's 4-8 on Friday and 9-5 on Saturday and Sunday. FOR TWO WEEKENDS. Have you ever heard of anything crazier? Now, this time might have been warranted had it been used up with lectures and activities that furthered the goals of CR. But, in a stroke of genius, the majority of our time was spent repeating our names and making strange dance moves in a circle, making and re-making name tags, and, of course, trying to navigate the treacherous waters of our facilitators' moods. Truly. You would think that two women trained in conflict resolution and mediation would not resort to teasing and putting-down their participants. Nor should they have treated us, grad students and returning mature students, like the kindergartners many of us hope to teach. So, while the pedagogy was in question, what is the funniest part is that they make it all about The Process yet their own process was rather weak. (Key words will be bolded)

Let me tell you about The Process and save you about $3,000. (The following will be for a negotiation, inclusion of a mediator is a big step later)

First off, before beginning this process you must accept that conflict is inevitable, and that you should face it without fear but with the determination to make the conflict constructive and not destructive.

1. Decide if the matter is worth pursuing. Do you care about the other person, and yourself, enough to make the conflict an issue to be discussed? If you care about your own needs much more than the other person's, you are aggressive, if you care more about the other person you are accommodating. If you care about both yourself and the other person (meaning the relationship is important to you, then you will want to proceed...
2. Choose a setting for The Process: make sure that it's a neutral and convenient spot, pay careful attention that everyone's chairs, cups, pencils, etc. are exactly the same.
3. Greet each other, set a tone of openness and caring
4. Each state what you want from this situation (stop doing..., I want you to..., etc.), this is your position
5. Begin asking probing questions like "How did that action impact you?" and "How does that make you feel?"
6. You have now addressed their needs, be sure you also get yours out there
7. Now it's time for the reframe, where you make a statement that addressed the mutual needs, not positions of each party
8. You can now brainstorm, be sure to be creative and reserve all judgement until you have at least 10 possible solutions on your list. You can then whittle away to the most reasonable solutions.
9. Come to a conclusion, decide if you will document the outcomes and and chose a ritual to formally end the session (handshake, happy dance, kissing, etc.)

In the case of mediation, the mediator will do the facilitating (the question probing) and otherwise will sit back and watch the conflict like it's WWF wrestling.

I do have to say, I really enjoyed a great deal of the activities we participated in (back-to-back fake phone calls, resolutions of our own conflict situations, mediating over a homophobic parent and a gay teacher) and I truly loved meeting such nice people who I could commiserate with. They were all lovely!

Birthday a Month away

When Liat told me she was sending me something in the mail, I was nervous. This is Liat of http://www.thecuntshop.com/. I asked that whatever she sent would be wrapped in plain paper packaging. Despite my rudeness, she went ahead and sent me a very sweet small envelope (too small for a vagina pillow). I was shocked to find inside pictures from EIE, my high school in Israel experience. I'm transported back to my 17th birthday, my incredibly short stint in the Israeli army, the lake Kinneret party boat, the halls of Beit Shmuel, the kibbutz and hikes. The people.

Facing my 23rd birthday, I'm wishing I was 17 again.

Back then, when I pictured being 23, I probably saw myself living in Israel, married with at least one kid, working on a date-palm kibbutz or running a co-op school. Something ridiculous like that. I didn't imagine I would have graduated from OSU and moved on to TC for my masters. Maybe I'd be impressed with myself for finding a "peace ed" department. I would definitely be excited about all the travelling I've done in the past 6 years. I would be upset that I haven't kept up those EIE relationships. 6 years! I say that and even with everything I just wrote I wonder what I've been doing with myself.

And where do I see myself in 6 years (29)? Living in Israel (half the year), married, with at least 3 kids, definitely not working on a kibbutz but perhaps in a peace school. Something ridiculous like that. Will I sit back at 29 and feel like I do now? God birthdays are depressing.

Le Sigh

The past few weeks have been absolutely overwhelming. Classes began, fiascoes were had, family visited, and ridiculous situations occurred. I would honestly rather not get into the classes and the horrible group presentation I had to be a part of. So lets skip those and just move onwards...

My mom, Aunt Linda, and close family friend Patty all came to town. Along with Shira and Mike we went out for some very nice dinners and all the ladies attended a NY expo on everything ever made and sold in shops. So, with my mom, we hunted down Judaica while trying to sidestep the incredible amounts of crap that people consume in our country. At one of our dinners my mom told me a scary story. This is highly unusual since my mom never tells stories, and even when she does they're are so many pauses and tangent-taking that they aren't very captivating. So, by her telling this story incredibly well I absolutely believed is was true and freaked out. FREAKED OUT. I had to call Yohoshua in Israel at 3 am and sleep with the lights on. The weekend also had its charming moments: I saw Shira in her bridal gown (gorgeous, and somewhat sentimental since I flashed back to her dress-up days of childhood), Patty and my mom and I went on a freezing tour of the Lower East Side, and I fell in love with home furnishings from a Middle Eastern store.

Thursday night I went out with a group of men to celebrate Honza's birthday. We went to a gay bar called Xes (pronounced excess) and I was the first to notice that it cleverly spells "sex" backwards, how subtle. The bar was not as trashy as it might sound, and we all took over a couch in the corner and drank cosmo shots while watching their special mix of Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, and Beyonce music videos interspersed with coming-of-age films. Though I didn't know most of the guys, I was with good friends Anmol and Michael (the only other straight person in the entire bar) which is always a party. I'm quite proud to say that all my drinks were paid for, I think gay is the way to go on dates.

I had a really low day on Saturday, so I was excited to join Michael and Anmol for dinner with a larger group of friends including Paul, visiting German Jan, and about 5 others. Michael chose the place, a little African restaurant (and by restaurant I mean the kind of place where there are 3 regulars who look as though they live there) promising the flavors of Ghana. It was... interesting. I ordered a peanut chicken soup and what I got was an archaeological dig in a peanut bog for skeletal remains of ancient chicken. It was successful, I found the spine! After spending time with Clucker, my new skeletal friend, Anmol and Michael got their vegetarian dishes of Red Red which was actually blue paste with oil (oh so tricky). We only ate the fried plantains that came as a side.

I took a weekend course on conflict resolution and felt far more feisty and aggravated than normal. In doing the ginormous amounts of reading that were totally unnecessary to the actual course, I found out that one of my objectives was to foster "the ability to communicate the desire to engage in the process of mutual need satisfaction." Now doesn't the make peace education and conflict resolution just a little bit more interesting than 5 minutes ago? I'm considering getting a diploma made specific to the course to prove that I have mastered not only having the desire to, and communicating that desire, but the ability to engage in such a process. This is the sort of practical skills a girl needs to graduate with to get a job in today's market. I would type more, but I have skills to go learn!

Hess my Nemesis

So, it's not the neighbors. This morning, at 6 am, on a Saturday, a crazy jack-hammering noise began. For about 40 minutes I lay in bed half-asleep trying to imagine what could possibly be happening; a small child had fallen down a sewer grate and a section of the street had to be lifted, or perhaps a flood has taken out all of lower Manhattan and up here at 122nd they needed to start building barricades or we'd all need to learn to swim real fast. Finally my annoyance level rose above my complete exhaustion and I leaned out my window to see.... a Hess Fuel Oils truck idling. The idling itself wasn't making the bulk of the noise, that was coming from a little steam-smoke stack on the top of the cab which was clattering for it's little life, for no apparent reason.

Certainly, this is a issues for I-House security, is it not? So I called down to the security manager and he said "Yes, we've gotten a lot of calls about the noise and we'll be going up soon to solve the problem" this raised me suspicion, up? "What do you mean," I asked, "It's a truck outside." And he responded with "Oh, I thought ti was on the 7th floor. A truck outside isn't my problem, you should call the police if it bothers you so much." A bit taken aback I reminded him that he had gotten other calls, it certainly wasn't me being temperamental, and wasn't it his job. The phone call ended with me hanging up while sounded sugary sweet, and I just took a conflict resolution course yesterday (but really, it's the first day of 6, and it's early yet for me to be putting the stuff to use).

Remembering my earlier experience with calling the police when there was a disturbance on the level of a gang showdown over a prostitute (nothing) I decided I would have to take matter into my own hands. I entertained the thought of going down stairs, around the block (there's no door open this early on the North side), into the cold and having a face-to-face with a trucker on a deserted street who at best was just insensitive but at worst a crazy man with violent dementia. Putting that idea behind me, I decided to take it to the highest level. I contacted 411 and spoke with a Hess Fuel Oils operator and told him one of his trucks was doing him no PR service. He promised to call the truck I identified, and sure enough in a few minutes the truck driver (I was watching him all this time from my window as he fiddled with papers) pulled out his cell phone, looked up at me, and then turned off his truck!

There is a moral here: Fuel Oil Corporations Are Evil. EVIL. Not only are they helping to promote right wing governments, wars in the Middle East, and global warming, but they are also waking me up a full two hours before my alarm goes off for me to go to a 9-5 class on conflict resolution. EVIL.

And this is funny I realized, on a level, because yesterday in class the instructor was discussing situations in which to employ different forms of collaboration vs. compromising, and she said that in certain situations you simply cannot allow anything amoral to win even a part of its goals. And then, straight on, she said "Evil does exist in this world, pure evil." How ominous is that? Michelle, my friend in class, and I stared at each other waiting for either lightening to strike or the room to go dark of its own accord. Well, I know the face ov evil, and it is Hess.