Schools and Sabbaths

I'm dreadfully behind on the New Yorker (which is common enough, I admit). So I am still reading the January 15th issue. But here were a couple fun/interesting articles that I wanted to share:

"Expectations" by Katherine Boo. (it's not up on their site, but you may be able to read it here)
Since a lot of my work deals with "at-risk" youth, and since I am still mulling over teaching as a career, this article about Denver's Manual High School is especially compelling to me. MHS is mostly minority and poor, and rife with gangs. And... "for a decade, Manual High had been the object of aggressive and thoughtful reforms," none of which made any lasting improvements. In Boo's telling, along came new Superintendent Michael Bennet, whose plan to help the remaining student at Manual (which had dropped from 1100 students to about 600), was to close the school and transfer them elsewhere, offering extra mentoring and support. The students and community didn't buy it. I'm about halfway through the article, so not entirely sure where it's going to go. But I tend to have such conflicting thoughts about these kinds of articles: on the one hand, every time someone like a NYer reader is forced to face the ways we have failed public school students, that's a good thing. On the other, the wretchedness of the situation can become numbing, and I'm afraid that readers start seeing the students as symbols, rather than actual young men and women with dreams, aspirations, different skills and talents - they may not all be scholars, but that doesn't mean they're all failing.

"Playoffs" by Shalom Auslander (also maybe available here)
Auslander writes about the role of religion in his life, and how his childhood put literally the fear of God into him. Most poignantly for me, the crux of the story was whether God (hmm, since Auslander is Jewish, should I be writing G-d? He didn't in the article... but anyway, whether God) would allow his beloved Rangers to win their first Stanley Cup in 54 years. Playoff games kept happening after sundown on Friday or before sundown on Saturday; since finances had forced him and his wife out of Manhattan and into a Jewish suburb in New Jersey, he was under his neighbors' observant (pun, get it?) eyes all the time. The article catalogs Auslander's negotiations with God, which can be dizzying. He acknowledges that lighting a joint breaks two Shabbat taboos (Kindling a Fire and Baking, the latter of which made me chuckle); but also is keenly aware of God's (somewhat sadistic) onminpotence. Auslander has a great comedic voice (and hello? there's also hockey) so this was one of the more enjoyable NYer Personal Histories I've read in some time.

Also, during my search for online versions of the article, I can across this blog. Didn't read it much, but I'm quite intrigued.