Mrs. K's Blog

WHY?

Hi, I’m Melisa. I’m 13 and in 7th grade. When I was only 6 my parents died in a car accident on the way to pick me up from school on my birthday. I don’t remember them, but ever since then I’ve been moving from foster home to foster home. My life isn’t fair. Sometimes I feel so scared, lonely, and angry that I just want to run away to a different life. No one in my life cares about me; and everyone makes fun of me at school because my clothing has holes and my shoes are dirty.
Why me? Why can’t this happen to one of those mean kids at school? Sometimes I’m jealous of them, because they get to live in a stable home with people who care about them. They will sometimes tease me about that, also. A girl in the 8th grade will sometimes stand up for me, but she isn’t really my friend. The kids who don’t make fun of me, are too scared to stand up for me because they think if they do, people won’t want to be their friends because they stood up for me.
Now I am living in a small house with 5 other orphans like me and a mean foster mother named Viccy, who is supposed to be taking care of us. Why here? There was one foster house I did like . The foster mother taking care of us was named Sue. She was very nice and was like a mother to me. But she lost her job and and her house got foreclosed on when I was 10.  So,  me and the other children there – we had to be moved to other foster houses. But I always wonder why I couldn’t be moved to a house with a lady like Sue.
Why now? Why couldn’t my parents have died when I was over 18 so I wouldn’t have to live a life like this.  I would be able to have adult figures who wouldn’t just disappear when I needed them when I was a child. If my parents hadn’t died when I was young, I wouldn’t have to feel this great sadness and loneliness inside of me.
What should I do now? Should I try to get a job to buy clothes so I can make friends? Maybe I should try to make Viccy a mother to me. Maybe I should buy a dog, so I’m not so lonely. I should try to make life worth it!

Wake up early on the morning of testing

Eat a good breakfast, don’t be late

Your mind is blank-you wish you were resting

Will  you do well?  It’s all up to fate

You are sitting in the classroom

Your  pencils  must be #2

Time is limited, and  you must zoom

The test begins-the minutes are few

Have no fear

How will you do?

No pressure here

It’s all up to you

Wednesday, April 28, was Kaleidoscope Day. Our school celebrated by going to the Cummer Museum of Art. The day was filled with fun activities like sketching, painting, and sculpting. The beautiful museum contains a hands-on gallery and a magnificent garden with blossoming flowers throughout. The museum also has  a painting room where we painted abstract drawings. In the clay room, we sculpted  birds of our choice. We also sat with a very interesting man who played exotic instruments such as the thumb piano, the bongos, and a Cora.  After we ate lunch, we left. Then back at school, the PTA arranged an assembly with a magician. This entertainment capped off a great Kaleidoscope Day. Thanks to the PTA and Ms. Susan Dubow for arranging this wonderful day that all students very much enjoyed!

Have you ever wanted to keep track of how many books you read or are reading, online? Well, Shelfari is a perfect way to do that.  You can post your book on your Shelfari account and write a review about it. You rate the book and say  if you disliked, liked, or loved it. Also, you can add it as a favorite, if you thought the book was amazing. It is an incredible way to look back on what you read from earlier years instead of trying to remember, or writing it down. Technology, is getting more and more intense as the years pass by, so we should take advantage of it for education purposes;  it will be more fun for kids and easier for adults.

On Shelfari, you can join groups and add friends. When you make your account, you search for the book you read or are reading. Tell all about it (which is the review part) and tag it ( which is when you recommend the book for an  age group it is perfect for and the type of book it is.) The “tag part” is very helpful to other people to see if they might like it and think it is appropriate for them. It can also benefit you, because  on the home page there are the most popular books everybody is reading, and you could check it out.

The mitzvah program at the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School (MJGDS) has been an important aspect of our Jewish education. For the past three years, the entire middle school has spent every Friday morning, participating in the school’s mitzvah program. A mitzvah is the performance of a good deed, for someone generally less fortunate than one’s self, for no reward. The recipients of our mitzvoth are not the only ones that have benefited from this program. In addition to helping the less fortunate, the mitzvah program has enhanced our understanding of the world and taught us the value of giving back to society. These lessons could not have been learned in the classroom, but only through real world experiences. I will never forget, for the rest of my life, the feelings of joy we have brought to others in the community.
To perform mitzvot, we carried out various acts of kindness such as delivering food to the hungry, volunteering at a local animal shelter, visiting and entertaining the sick and elderly, assisting children in low-income neighborhoods learn to read and write, and cleaning up the environment. Every Friday morning at approximately nine o’clock, the school had a community project planned for that morning. The middle school students would divide into groups to travel in separate cars to the location of the project for that morning. The cars were driven by various parents who would volunteer their time to enable us to carry out mitzvot. Once we arrived at our location, we assisted the students, elderly, those in need, or other less fortunate with whatever they needed help with that day. Afterwards, we returned to school and later on, would discuss what we had accomplished.
The mitzvah program will have a long lasting impact upon our lives for many years to come. It taught us that not everyone is as fortunate as ourselves. We have many positive elements to our lives, for which we should be thankful. These include good health, the basic necessities in life such as food, clothing, and shelter, plus many of life’s luxuries. Also, the program has taught us the joy that one can receive from giving to others. For example, whenever we went to Beauclerc Elementary School to help the students with their  reading and writing,  I felt terrific upon seeing the faces of the children smile from the moment we arrived to the moment we left. This project and the others we performed proved to us that we can have an impact on changing and improving the world around us. Hopefully, the mitzvah program will help us to avoid becoming self-absorbed with our own lives and keep us focused on the larger problems of the world.
In addition, the mitzvah program helped complete our Jewish education at MJGDS. Our Jewish education has taught us many things including aspects of our religion, how to follow our religion, and how to make the world a better place through Judaism. As stated in the Torah, “ the world stands on three things; the Torah, prayer, and good deeds.” While the first two of these principles could be learned in the classroom, the third could not and required real world experience. Our experiences gained in the mitzvah program showed us that one can continue to practice Judaism outside the synagogue. Without the mitzvah program, our Jewish education would not have been complete.
As we prepare to graduate and leave MJGDS, I have begun to reflect upon the nine years I spent at the school. When I do so, the mitzvah program is the first thing I think about. When I first began the mitzvah program in sixth grade, I did not see the significance of what we were doing. It was merely a field trip outside of school and a stop at the Gate Station for a snack on the way back to school. It is only now, that I recognize the lessons that I have learned from the mitzvah program. I believe these important lessons will enable me to make further contributions to the world throughout my lifetime.

Throughout world history, one factor has influenced, if not caused, many a country to fall. This factor is money. Wars have been fought over it and world superpowers have been crumbled by it. “Money is power” is truly one of the most true expressions of all known to man.

When our country was founded, our fledgling nation was at risk of falling apart. Debts from the American Revolution threatened to cripple us. Non-uniform paper money from the American Revolution had caused many problems with its rapid deflation. Two opinions emerged from within the Washington cabinet to solve these issues. In 1790, Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton submitted a proposal to Congress that would create a “Bank of the United States” that would pay off foreign and domestic debts. This bank would issue new federal loans to pay for these debts. The National Bank would be owned by private citizens, and had the ability to issue money, something that it should not be able to do under the Constitution. Additionally, the federal government had no Constitutional authority to create such a bank in the first place. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, among others, was fiercely opposed to this bill. President George Washington grudgingly signed the bill due to the desperate debt situation.

This whole bill really did not help us get rid of our debt. It only created a means to borrow money almost indefinitely. We still owed the same amount of money, if not more in interest. We just had a way to get a loan guaranteed from a central bank, it’s main purpose being to loan the federal government money and issue currency.

This entire system did not last forever; it has changed several times during our country’s history. You can see how we had problems with money even at the beginning of our history, and how conflicting opinions emerged that are still somewhat prevalent today. In following posts, I will describe the gold standard and our debt and its dangers today.

Rodney L. Hurst, Sr. came to our school on Thursday, April 22, 2010. He arrived at about 2:20 p.m. and began speaking immediately. He spoke for at least an hour and a half. Most people would assume that it would be boring and long. Those were my first assumptions, as well. But I was wrong. I sat there the entire time, intrigued by the words coming out of Mr. Hurst’s mouth.

In 1960, Mr. Hurst was the president of the youth division of the NAACP at the age of 16 and during the time of Ax Handle Saturday. If you would have asked me a week ago what Ax Handle Saturday was, I would have shrugged and said, “I have no idea.” After researching Mr. Hurst and Ax Handle Saturday (for schoolwork), I knew nothing more than the general facts about what happened on that day.

From Mr. Hurst, I learned that the youth division of the NAACP participated in sit-ins at white lunch counters. They figured that since they were denied their rights, then the lunch counters should lose some money. On August 27, 1960, they were just sitting at another white lunch counter, protesting in another sit-in; but this time, while leaving they were surrounded by 200 white men with ax handles and baseball bats. Some of the men were Ku Klux Klan. The members of the youth group ran as fast as they could to safety. Some were more hurt than others, but I do not think anyone was killed.

Before last Thursday, I had assumed that Jacksonville, Florida was just another city in the South. I was aware that there was racism and segregation here, but I thought that was a “classic” description of any southern city. By 3:45 p.m., however, I learned how wrong I was. Jacksonville, Florida was extremely segregated and was home to many racist people. The papers covered it up; the city didn’t want the world to know what they had done. The only people who heard about it were other Blacks. It was vaguely mentioned in the part of the newspaper called “News for and About the Colored People”, a section of the Florida Times Union that was only delivered to the homes of ‘colored people’.Although he did not go into extreme detail, we were still able to ‘get the picture’.

But by the time Mr. Hurst left, I not only knew more details of the events of 1960, but I  had a personal perspective of what it was like. Rodney L. Hurst, Sr. was there; he wasn’t a by-stander. If he hadn’t run, he would have been seriously injured or worse.

Listening to Rodney L. Hurst, Sr. really made me open my eyes. I knew about racism and anti-Semitism, but I never knew how bad it was, especially in my home city. I know to be open minded and care for others- through learning about Jewish history-but now I have “seen” the result of what happens when people choose to be cruel to others. I don’t understand why people just can’t except each other’s beliefs or see past the color of their skin. When everyone learns to accept people for the person on the inside, not judge the outside, then our world will be in much better shape!

Out on your own

Cold and alone… again

Now it’s slowly tearing me apart

Grey would be the color if I had a heart.

This place where I sought out to hide

Screaming outward to shoot me back inside

Where death is all I see

It’s just a fading reminder of how I used to be.