Elie Wiesel wrote of the uniqueness of those who are now called the ...

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TEACHING TROUBLED KIDS continued from page 16
may need to actively downplay the
significance of what you’re doing
in order to ensure your own effectiveness.
Consequently, service
may not feel particularly life changing
at the time, but that doesn’t
mean the experience won’t end up
altering you in some profound way.
I did not intend to stay in education
when I became a New York Teaching
Fellow and while I cannot say with
any certainty how long I will remain
in the classroom, I have a hard time
picturing my life without education
playing a meaningful part.
The idealistic expectations
attached to teaching, the fantasies
of saving troubled students and the
soaring rhetoric of service are, in
the end, an exaggerated version of
what people expect service should
feel like. Such notions may inspire
action, but service itself is difficult,
often thankless, and almost by definition
demands more than you will
get in return. The differences
between expectation and reality can
be hard to reconcile and it takes a
certain amount of courage to let go
of fantasy, but only then does it
become possible to understand and
value the true meaning of service. ■
Daniel Magliocco is completing his third year as a New York
City Teaching Fellow. A graduate of Northwestern University,
he has been published in The Reading Room and has also
been associated with The Village Voice and The Bellevue
Literary Review. He is a member of Central Synagogue.
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24
HASHIUR A Journal of Ideas
is published twice a year by Central Synagogue,
123 East 55th Street, New York, NY 10022-3502
Editorial Committee:
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Steve Klausner, Rudi Wolff
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Picture References
Cover: Woodcut, Kaethe Kollwitz, 1923 H. Bittner & Co.
Publishers, Collection of E. Cohn.
Page 2: Photograph, Mark Bond
Page 3: “Mother Courage and The Children”, from a
Munich production 1951
Page 4-5: Photographs,The Jewish Agency
Page 7: Yad Vashem, Jerusalem
Page 9: Drawing,Young Woman in Profile, Raphael,
1504, Uffizi Gallery (Inv. N. 57 E, GDSU)
Page 10: Photo courtesy of The Boston Synagogue
Page 11: Medieval illumination
Page 12: Normandy Invasion, AP Newsphoto
Page 14: Medieval illumination showing Moses and
Pharaoh’s daughter
Page 15: Jacob and the Angel, Gustave Dore-Steel
Engraving 1855
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Page 22-23 Photographs of the Torah, Rudi Wolff
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