Hebrew school and the neurofeedback open house.

[xiphias]

Teaching Hebrew school went well today. We made little models of the Ark (y'know, the thing in Raiders) because the parsha this week was about the building of it.

Remember how I said that, last week, one of the kids was devastated by finding out that writing on the backside of a piece of paper with a prayer on it was taking G-d's name in vain? His mother mentioned to me that, this past week, in regular school, he told the teacher that the Israeli astronaut who was killed on the Shuttle had done a bad thing by taking a Torah with him, which was also destroyed, which was desecration of G-d's name.

Mind you, he sorta blurted this out of nowhere to his teacher some point during the middle of the week, absolutely baffling her. . . I told the mother that I could see the kid's point perfectly well, and, while there were other opinions, I tended to agree with him. I think I'm going to have to email her though, and say that most authorities seem to be of the opinion that this action, because it was undertaken with respect, has been judged to be a case of glorifying G-d's name.


Despite my earlier, somewhat panicky entry, lots of people showed up at the neurofeedback open house. Mostly parents there on behalf of their kids. I talked to one of the women there for a while about her son, who sounds like a wonderful person: sounds like a typical thirteen-year-old geek. Okay, there's no such thing as a typical geek, but he sounded like someone who'd benefit from "geek socialization" -- which is to say, being put into a situation in which he can discover that people like him tend to grow up to be happy, fulfilled adults. So I gave her the info for Boskone Arisia would have been better, I think (more kids his age), but still. . .

As the evening was finishing up, we realized that we know each other; she's from the community of which Mom was the spiritual leader for a while. And I've met, and like, her son.

I hope he shows up at Boskone and we meet.

I also mentioned, in passing, my description of Joe Crane, one of the people who does the neurofeedback: he's a personality geek.

My one sentence definition of a "geek" is that a geek is someone who is passionately interested in some field of intellectual endeavor. There's more to it than just that, of course, but that's a lot of it. And Joe is passionately interested in personalities, and in theories of personality. He's fascinated by any system by which people have tried to describe, define, categorize, or influence personality throughout history. This means that his face will just light up if he's talking about Jungian analysis, or neurofeedback, or Greek philosophy, or phrenology, or the four humors theory, or any theory, no mater how bizarre or discredited, by which people tried to describe why a person was like he or she was.

Isn't that a neat thing to be a geek about? And a rather useful geekery for a therapist.

Comments

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Zorinth's going to be at Boskone, not that Zorinth has problems with cons where he's the only one under eighteen, but if you wanted to introduce them so they can be geeky kids together.

The logistics shouldn't be as challenging as all that.

dual duty reply

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Xiphias, I'm glad people came to the open house, and you are as ever an awesome teacher, and do you forgive me for hijacking your journal? ;)

Papersky: You *and* Zorinth will be at Boskone! Yay! I very much want to make sure I meet you, and I managed to lose your email address. Can you drop me a line at my livejournal address so we can plot and plan?

A.