Reflections and Cluelessness

Day 63: Shabbat

This week has been really stressful (and I feel like I say this every week). I've been balancing homework and 7 college courses with preparing for Purim and all the Megillah readings. On top of this, there's everything going on socially to handle. College is never boring, and it's certainly been an interesting place to be pursuing this resolution. The values this week were certainly interesting. I liked the overarching theme of doing what's right and how to treat people.

• Love the Stranger: N/A
• The Torah on the Blind and the Deaf: N/A
• Standing Up for Justice: N/A
• Don't Buy Products Produced by Exploited Workers: N/A
• Everybody Deserves a "Tenk You": N/A
• The Need for Moral Imagination: I think as a teacher, this value will come in very useful. After all, it'll be up to me to help each student not just academically but also personally. 

Day 64: "One Who Learns from His Companion a Single Chapter"

 As a preservice teacher, this is something I feel very strongly about. I've been told multiple times, by people already in the field, that a teacher learns as much from his students as they learn from him.

Respect has always been attached to education. Respect has always been given to people who have been educated. The foundations of our society were built by wise men. Why should we stop giving people who have taught us something respect?

Tonight, I decided to take a night to relax and I had a double feature. I watched 13 Going on 30 and Clueless. I noticed an interesting trend in both movies.

In 13 Going on 30, the main character rejects her best friend because she's more interested in popularity. After taking a trip to the future and noticing that her adulthood has been built off blackmail, trickery, and a generally bad reputation, she realizes that she learned who she truly was from the best friend she rejected as a teenager.

In Clueless, the main character takes on a new student as her project. She decides that the new girl needs guidance on how to dress and how to act when she comes to the new school. The climax involves the new girl lashing out at the main character who made her into the girl she became. In the end, the girls become friends again because both of them begin to see the wonderful aspects of the other and realize they're better off being themselves than trying to be someone else.

In both of these chick-flicks, both of the main characters reject the people who teach them the most yet in the end come back to these people. Even the movies are teaching us about the importance of people who teach us! Teachers are people who teach you something. Teachers don't have to be in a classroom. Anyone can teach anyone anything. Vague? Yes. But everyone has someone to offer the world, whether we see it or not. If we learn something from anyone, be they poor or wealthy, like us or different from us, a teacher by trade or a person of any other profession, they deserve our respect.