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Writer's Block and Blogging

August 20th 2009 21:31

There are few things more frustrating than Writer's Block, especially when you are new to blogging.

I think I faced the Blogging version of postpartum depression - I was so excited by my first meeting with my blog, with people admiring my offspring, with its potential, that I began to worry about how it could live up to all the compliments I had received. I also worried how *I* could live up to those compliments. Boom - Blogger's writer's block.

And then there were the criticisms. Or, not so much criticism as advice that I heard as criticism: You're doing that right, but you could do it better if you just did <this> or <that>. If you're a parent, you probably remember the experience of a hundred well-wishers telling you to hold the baby this way or that or explaining the benefits of some approach to parenting that was *just a little* different from what you were currently doing. Boom again - Blogger's writer's block.

So, I've been going back and forth on how to proceed. The best suggestions I received as a first-time blogger were:

Add pictures

Shorten the sentences.

Shorten the paragraphs

Your text goes here

But the ones that I really needed to hear were ones that I have often said to my students in a different context:

Write often

Write first, edit second

and (to quote a rather experienced writer)

"To thine own self be true"

Thank you to everybody: I learn from the criticism and I draw energy from the compliments. I'll look forward to your comments of every type and stripe!

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Posted By: Dov Nelkin - Category: No Category

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A Year "Off"?

August 12th 2009 11:49

The economy is showing weak signs of recovery or at least is beginning to collapse at a slower rate, but new college graduates are still facing a weak job market, to the point that one young woman felt desperate enough to sue her alma mater. Is this a good time to take a year off before entering college? Is it ever a good time to step out of the educational system after high school? If you are a high school junior or senior, what do you stand to gain? If you're a parent, why would you let your child go?

The rest of this post is about my personal experience with studying abroad. I've listed some general resources for studing abroad at the end.

I spent a year studying abroad before entering college. I didn't see it as a "gap year" nor as taking time off. After attending Jewish schools from pre-school through high school, I wanted to try my hand at independent advanced study of Jewish texts and spent a year at a yeshiva program in Jerusalem's old city. Of course, a good study abroad program provides ample opportunities for studying local history and touring, which mine did. My place of study was steeped in archeology, looking directly upon the Temple mount and built over chambers belonging to the priests of the Temple period.

And then there were life-changing experiences: by way of a personal connection made during high school, I met two future Prime Ministers and toured part of the country by helicopter. Also extraordinary (in the negative sense) was that part of my year in Israel was spent under partial lockdown as Saddam Hussein sent scud after scud into Israel in a bizarre response to the US's coming to Kuwait's defense after Iraq invaded that country. I saw missiles in the sky on the one occassion I was out of Jerusalem during the war, and I ran almost nightly to sealed rooms while putting on a gas mask. While a horrible experience, it provided me some insights into myself and others that I would not otherwise have had. You (or your children) will NOT experience anything like that, but you will have opportunities to experience the world in a way that you cannot while remaining at home or even in the United States.

Obviously, study abroad programs can be expensive, although there are times when they prove to be a bargain relative to college. A number of my colleagues ultimately went to colleges where they received undergraduate credits for their year. I knew going into my program that Brown University did not accept any yeshiva study for credit. For me, a student who more often read books on my own than when they were assigned, the feeling of being completely in control of my education and not answering to anyone else for it provided an opportunity for personal growth.

Whether that had anything to do with the fact that I usually stayed up to sometime between 1 and 3 am studying (not for tests, just for the intellectual pursuit), I can't be sure. I did make a commitment to myself to pursue my studies at university with a similar level of commitment and when I returned to the United States, I noticed that when I entered university I had much more focus than most of my classmates and significantly more than I had during my most of my years of high school. I found the break gave me a chance to think about education as my OWN pursuit, rather than something others told me I had to do.

I've spoken with many people who spent a year or two off between HS and college and even those who did little more than 'hang out' also found they were better students when they were back in school, since they had burned off whatever needs they had for bachanalia before that affected their education and GPA's. Since this post is an extended response toa post at Pop Culturalist, you can look there for a criticism of the idea of studying abroad as escape.

I know that I went from being a student who was happy to more-or-less 'get by' on my ability to breeze through most of my HS materials and score in the B range to being a student who briefly felt crushed by a B on my first college midterm because it meant I hadn't "really changed" and then redoubled my efforts and graduated both magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. I firmly believe that I would not have put nearly as much effort into my college studies had I not spent a year abroad.

Some good places to start your exploration of the possibilities involved in studying abroad
General Resources
CIEE : Council on International Educational Exchange resouces

If you like the idea of spending time abroad but spending additonal money beyond college tuition is not right for you, some universities allow students to begin their studies abroad. One former student of mine began her undergraduate studies at NYU in Italy, returning to the main campus at the end of the year. That program can be seen here.

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Posted By: Dov Nelkin - Category: No Category

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Amazing Resource on Jewish Women

August 11th 2009 13:21

"What do Gertrude Berg and Gertrude Stein have in common? Hannah Greenbaum Solomon and Hannah Arendt? The Biblical Ruth and Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

Here's one answer: They all appear in Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.

The Jewish Women's Archive recently launched an online version of this amazing resource (edited by Professors Paula E. Hyman of Yale University and Dalia Ofer of Hebrew University of Jerusalem). The articles are typically signed by their authors.

The encyclopedia is searchable, and contains a subject index ranging from activists to zoology. I was surprised not to see an entry for computers or technology, but the encyclopedia is regularly updated, so there's hope that more entries will be added. Like other online encyclopedias, the Jewish Women's Archive is browsable by time period and its front page contains featured articles to spark your interest.

As an example of the article quality, the following is the opening of the entry on Judith Resnik:

One of the seven crew members who died in the tragic explosion of the space shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986, Judith (“J.R.”) Resnik was a pioneer for women entering NASA’s space program, and the second American woman astronaut to travel in space.

A talented scientist and a private individual, Resnik gave her deepest loyalties to her father, her career, and her close friends. Although she avoided publicity whenever possible, she was fun-loving and spirited; her romantic crush on actor Tom Selleck was often a source of good-natured teasing among her coworkers.

Born Judith Arlene Resnik on April 5, 1949, in Akron, Ohio, to first-generation Jewish Russian parents, Judith was a bright, curious child who, by kindergarten, could both read and solve simple math problems. Her father, Marvin, was an optometrist and a part-time cantor when he married Sarah Polensky, a former legal secretary from Cleveland Heights. After Judith was born, the Resniks had a son, Charles.

The article continues quite a bit and has a (too) brief bibliography at its end. There's an option to post comments to entries, which is unfortunately underutilized.

I'd love to hear your thoughts about Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia ] . Do you find it more useful than Wikipedia? Do you like its specificity?

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Posted By: Dov Nelkin - Category: No Category

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Here Comes the Sun

August 11th 2009 11:43

At a conference on the negative and positive impact religions had on beliefs about the environment a few years back, I sat through several lecturers who emphasized that Judaism and Christianity had contributed a negative environmental ethos by emphasizing the idea that God handed the world over to humanity to do with it what they wanted. While there might be historical truth to that idea, the same biblical teaching was also understod to mean that humanity has an obligation to care for the land and steward its resources. I was thrilled therefore to come across the article mentioned below...

First some background: Every 28 years, the Jews have a custom of reciting a blessing over the Sun, as it completes its cycle of astrological rotation and returns to the location calculated as its "original one at the time of creation." In truth, the sun completes its cycle every four years, the 28 year cycle incorporating both the four-year transit and the day of the week of the sun's creation in Genesis

[ Click here to read more ]

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