When Teaching Goes Well

Classes this morning were fine, but not thrilling, we had a lunch meeting introducing some stuff about internships for 4th year (since we'll be out of the country next year), and then I was running late in the afternoon, finishing getting ready for teaching. Then teaching went brilliantly, for some unknown reason- our topic was Purim, and I did finally find a really Good story book of the Purim story in the library at school (called Queen Esther Saves Her People, retold by Rita Golden Gelman), which had lots of pictures, which even my 3rd grader loves (this is my class with a few kindergarteners, 2, I think in first grade, 2 in second grade, one in 3rd, and one in 4th). She also tends to move to sit next to me when she can, so she can read along, which I find really adorable. We talked about practices for the holiday, and practiced drowning out Haman's name with a game modeled after Simon Says, where they were supposed to bang on the table when I said Haman, but not any other name or noun. Finally, we made masks, which went over surprisingly well. I thought it was a fairly silly craft, but easy enough, and involved less weird clean-up than making paper-plate graggers- but they really enjoyed it. I'm definitely going to use this lesson plan again when this lesson comes around for my other class with the same curriculum (but a very different schedule). They were just so excited about it- it left me in a really good mood too.

Speaking of good moods, Interseminary Dialogue last night was a small crowd, but a really good one. My group, at least, had really good conversation, and before that, during the shmoozing time, I got to talk about Bible with a Franciscan monk and a student from General Theological, and when we got into demonstrating our points with verses, I could actually think of relevant examples, And flip to the verses that I wanted quickly and easily, which was just really exciting, because so often I know what pasuk I want, and just don't know where it is in enough specifics to find it without very long, awkward pauses.

I also promised one of the monks that I'd find some suggestions for an introductory Hebrew textbook. I need to figure out/remember what it was that I used as a kid/as a teacher, but I'm not sure how wonderful those books were- they weren't bad, but I don't have much to compare with. Do any of you have suggestions of texts that you've liked using on either side of the table, as it were? (The one thing about communicating with monks, it seems, is that they don't have email- so I have a genuine excuse to use snail mail for something other than bills out of the deal...)