perspective – Laurel Felt, PhD

Ruth

By laurelfelt | December 18, 2012 - 4:54 pm | Asset appreciation, Blog, Child's play, Family dynamics, Narrative

Ruth Feldman, circa 1922

On May 27, 2012, my family celebrated the 90th birthday of the one and only Ruth Feldman Marcus, aka Gramma. My mom and uncle — Ruth’s two children — set this simcha at Max and Benny’s Deli in Northbrook, IL.

The invitation to this party nodded to Ruth’s past, proclaiming, “you can take the girl out of the deli but you can’t take the deli out of the girl.” Ruth’s mother and brother, Sarah Rich Feldman and Maury Feldman, had co-owned and operated a Jewish deli on Chicago’s West Side during Ruth’s teen years. Ruth’s college dreams were denied when Sarah broke her wrist and needed Ruth to fill in for her, slicing cold cuts and carrying trays, among other things. Here at this family deli, Ruth’s future husband (and my grandfather) Ray Marcus took a shine to the cute blonde waitress and endearingly chose to eat far more meals there than strictly necessary.

My uncle Dick welcomed the group of approximately 50 family members and friends, explaining the significance of delis to our family.

Rick Felt, Ruth Marcus, Dick Marcus

Ruth Marcus, Dick Marcus, Barbara Marcus Felt

Later, Uncle Dick revealed his wonderfully creative, hilarious, participatory party game. What if contemporary folks, ignorant of Jewish customs, wandered into an old school Jewish deli? And what if they all spoke Yiddish? (By the way, Uncle Dick’s premise isn’t as random as it may sound; see Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.)

The following three videos feature Uncle Dick’s funny and articulate explanation of the concept. Because my brother recorded the speech on his cell phone, the image resolution is poor but the audio quality is good. He broke the footage up into three segments in order to make each file small enough to send. The beginning of each film includes the end of the last, just to provide context and ensure that no part of the talk was accidentally lopped off.

Dick and Delis: Part 1

Dick and Delis: Part 2

Dick and Delis: Part 3

While the crowd laughed at the prospect of performing (and Uncle Dick’s improbable math), 11 brave, corned beef-sated family members later accepted Uncle Dick’s scripts and embodied the roles of meshuggeneh customers and exasperated servers, first in Yiddish and then in English.

Ashley and me

CUSTOMER 1 – YIDDISH

Customer: Vilt du zine azay goot oz tsu helfin mir?

Waitress (Waiter): Yeh. Vous vilst due?

Customer: Ich vill habn ah sendvich fun pastrami.

Waitress: Mit rye broit?

Customer: No. Mit veisse broit.

Waitress: Veisse? Feh!

CUSTOMER 1 – ENGLISH

Customer: Will you be so good as to help me?

Waitress (Waiter): Yes. What do you want?

Customer: I will have a pastrami sandwich.

Waitress: With rye bread?

Customer: No. With white bread.

Waitress: White?! Feh!

Dick Marcus, Kenneth Marcus, Ina Goldberg

CUSTOMER 2 – YIDDISH

Waitress: Ken ich helfin der?

Customer: Ich vill habn ah sendvich fun pecklfleisch mit rye broit.

Waitress: Rye broit. Zeier goot.

Customer: Und mit a shmeer mayonnaise.

Waitress: Feh!

CUSTOMER 2 – ENGLISH

Waitress: Can I help you?

Customer: I will have a corned beef sandwich on rye bread.

Waitress: Rye bread. Very good.

Customer: And a shmear of mayonnaise.

Waitress: Feh!

Bev Copeland and Bryan Savitsky

CUSTOMER 3 – YIDDISH

Waitress: Ken ich helfin der?

Customer: Yeh, danken. Ich vill habn ah hot dog, mit pomidor und pickle.

Waitress: Mmm! Geshmak.

Customer: Und mit ketchup.

Waitress: Feh!

CUSTOMER 3 – ENGLISH

Waitress: Can I help you?

Customer: Yes, thanks. I will have a hot dog with tomato and pickle.

Waitress: Mmm! Delicious.

Customer: And with ketchup.

Waitress: Feh!

Doug Hoffman and Benjy Felt

CUSTOMER 4 – YIDDISH

Waitress: Arain! Zetz zach ah nitter. Ken ich helfin der?

Customer: Yeh. Nemn a salami sendvich.

Waitress: Hart oder zachtig?

Customer: Hart.

Waitress: Broit?

Customer: Tsibbleh bulke.

Waitress: Zeier goot.

Customer: Und a slice Swiss cheese.

Waitress: Vous?! Salami mit cheese?! Feh! Bist meshugah? Milchik un fleishik?! Nit gedacht! Feh!

CUSTOMER 4 – ENGLISH

Waitress: Come in! Sit down here. Can I help you?

Customer: Yes. I’ll take a salami sandwich.

Waitress: Hard or soft?

Customer: Hard.

Waitress: Bread?

Customer: Onion roll.

Waitress: Very good.

Customer: And a slice of Swiss cheese.

Waitress: What?! Salami with cheese?! Feh! Are you crazy? Dairy and meat?! God forbid! Feh!

Leanne Marcus, Sarah Felt, and Someone

CUSTOMER 5 – YIDDISH

Waitress1: Ken ich helfin der?

Customer: Ich vill haben a BLT.

Waitress1 (aside to Waitress2): Vos a BLT?

Waitress2: A sendvich.

Waitress1: Und vos iz in dos sendvich?

Waitress2: Pomidor, salat, und, ummm, bacon.

Waitress1: Vos iz dus bacon?

Waitress2: Bacon iz…. well bacon iz….

Waitress1: Bacon iz vos?

Waitress2: Well, uh, well bacon seh kumpt foon ah chahzer

Waitress1: FOON AH CHAHZER! Feh!

Waitress1 to Customer: Gai avek! Gai! Gai! Gai tsu Howard Johnson far chahzerfleisch! Meshiggoner!

CUSTOMER 5 – ENGLISH

Waitress1: Can I help you?

Customer: I will have a BLT.

Waitress1 (aside to Waitress2): What is a BLT?

Waitress2: A sandwich.

Waitress1: And what is in this sandwich?

Waitress2: Tomato, lettuce, and, ummm, bacon.

Waitress1: What is bacon?

Waitress2: Bacon is…. well bacon is….

Waitress1: Bacon is what?

Waitress2: Well, uh, well bacon comes from a pig.

Waitress1: FROM A PIG! Feh!

Waitress1 to Customer: Go away! Go! Go! You go to Howard Johnson for pig meat! Crazy person!

Needless to say, a great time was had by all!

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My gramma and I have always been close. I had the good fortune of staying nearby for college, so during those years Gramma and I got even closer. I wrote my first column for The Daily Northwestern about a particularly memorable experience together.

Since graduating from college 10.5 years ago, I’ve only lived near Gramma (and the rest of my immediate family) for 2.5 of them. Boston was a lean time, family-wise, but luckily Gramma’s niece Helena Feldman Erlich and her daughter and her daughters live in the Los Angeles area. This means that, even though I’m far away from the heartland, I’m not without my family. We all gathered together last Saturday to celebrate the last night of Hanukkah, and Helena insisted that I share this video with Gramma. You were with us in spirit, Gramma!

Erlich Hanukkah 2012

Mike and I also threw a Hanukkah party, complete with high-stakes dreidel.

And I wrangled two rounds of latke-making, clad in a fabulously garish dreidel apron. As I jokingly explained to Gramma the next day, a 12-year-old girl does not truly come of age at her Bat Mitzvah — she joins the ranks of Jewish womanhood when she cooks up her first batch of latkes. :)

See you in March, Gramma! I love you!

The Day Has Come

By laurelfelt | September 25, 2012 - 2:55 pm | Asset appreciation, Blog, Family dynamics, Gender and sexuality, Narrative, Social and emotional learning

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Yom Kippur begins tonight at sundown. This means that, for Jews, it’s time for us to reflect on our lives over the past year and, hopefully, wipe the slate clean and start fresh.

Three years ago, I found this poem/self-reflection tool that so eloquently invites us to think/act towards enriching ourselves and our lives. I share it because I care.

——————-

The day has come
To take an accounting of my life.

Have I dreamed of late
Of the person I want to be,
Of the changes I would make
In my daily habits,
In the way I am with others,
In the friendship I show companions,
Woman friends, man friends, my partner,
In the regard I show my father and mother,
Who brought me out of childhood?

I have remained enchained too often to less than what I am.
But the day has come to take an accounting of my life.

Have I renewed of late
My vision of the world I want to live in,
Of the changes I would make
In the way my friends are with each other
In the way we find out whom we love
The way we grow to educated people
The way in which the many kinds of needy people
Grope their way to justice?

I, who am my own kind of needy person, have been afraid of visions.
But the day has come to take accounting of my life.

Have I faced up of late
To the needs I really have –
Not for the comforts which shelter my unsureness
Not for honors which paper over my (really tawdry) self,
Not for handsome beauty in which my weakness masquerades,
Not for unattractiveness in which my strengths hide out –

I need to be loved.
Do I deserve to be?
I need to love another.
Can I commit my love?
Perhaps its object will be less than my visions
(And then I would be less)
Perhaps I am not brave enough
To find new vision
Through a real and breathing person.

I need to come in touch with my own power,
Not with titles,
Not possessions, money, high praise,
But with the power that it is mine
As a child of the Power that is the universe
To be a comfort, a source of honor,
Handsome and beautiful from the moment I awoke this morning
So strong
That I can risk the love of someone else
So sure
That I can risk to change the world
And know that even if it all comes crashing down
I shall survive it all—
Saddened a bit, shaken perhaps,
Not unvisited by tears
But my dreams shall not crash down
My visions not go glimmering.
So long as I have breath
I know I have the strength
To transform what I can be
To what I am.

The day has come
To take an accounting of my life.

Levy, R.D. (Ed.) (1985). On Wings of Awe: A Machzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Hillel Foundations. pp. 104-106.

Buried treasure

By laurelfelt | February 12, 2012 - 6:21 pm | Asset appreciation, Blog, Child's play, Family dynamics, New media literacies, Participatory culture & learning, Social and emotional learning

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In 1990, when my older brother Benjy was 14 years old, he interviewed our Grandpa Ray and wrote a short essay about his life. Last year my mom unearthed it, squirreled away in some nook of Benjy’s bedroom for more than two decades, and Benjy read parts aloud at the unveiling of Grandpa’s headstone in May 2011. Earlier this morning, Dad scanned these seven pages. I’m grateful for this essay’s multiple windows into history. Not only does it depict the Depression and post-WWII eras that marked Grandpa’s life, but it also reminds us of Benjy’s world then — a world where he, as a high school freshman, had to laboriously and neatly handwrite multi-paged essays; a world where spellcheck wasn’t built into the platform upon which he was writing. (How could it be? It was a piece of ruled paper!)

This morning I told my young cousins, a 10-year-old and a 6-year-old who had awoken at 6:30 am in order to jump on my head, that I knew we were watching the NEW Scooby Doo (as opposed to the classic Scooby Doo) because Velma didn’t consult laptops back in my day — they hadn’t been invented yet. Last night, I told them a bedtime story that my Grandma Elly had imagined and related when my sister Sarah and I were little girls. All I could recall was the premise — there once were three Hawaiian sisters named Oola, Moola, and Leela — and I proceeded from there, making up as I went along and regularly asking the girls to fill in blanks. What do you think happened next? I would ask. Molly, a precocious first-grader, contributed a storyline in which baby Leela continued fishing while her older sisters built up the fire for cooking. In addition to netting fish after giant fish, she also attracted a shark! Leela had to bonk him on the head with her little fishing pole to keep him back. When the sisters returned home with fish and tales, no one believed Leela’s story. Personally, that’s where I thought Molly would leave it. But she threw in a detail: “Here’s a video!” Leela said. “See!” And she showed the footage to her parents.

I smiled. When we were Molly’s and Sadie’s ages, Sarah and I never would have thought to suggest such corroborating evidence — videography wasn’t ubiquitous back then. Moreover, Oola, Moola, and Leela were indigenous peasant girls who lived in Hawaii. I’m not sure if Sarah and I would have granted them the technology of even the fork… I also thought that Oola, Moola, and Leela were from the past. I don’t know if Grandma stipulated that, or if I’d assumed that since their life seemed so tranquil and tied to the earth, or if Grandma’s age and the classic quality of her warm voice (I loved my grandma’s voice) led me to associate all of her stories with days of yore.

It doesn’t matter. It’s interesting but it doesn’t matter. What matters is love and family and creativity and storytelling. I’ve always mourned the fact that my grandma, who had been an elementary school teacher and children’s librarian, never got to realize her aspiration of publishing children’s books. I dreamed of getting them published posthumously — I wanted to do her that service. But I realize now that both the stories our grandparents lived and the stories they told live on. I thank my brother and sister, our parents, and the rest of our family for facilitating that beautiful truth.

NOTE: As I scrutinize the date of this essay, I realize the context in which Benjy wrote it. Grandpa Justin had passed away unexpectedly, the result of a stroke tragically mistreated, in January of 1990. Grandma Elly, who’d been struggling against breast cancer for years, moved in with us immediately after. Her older sister Pearl, whose voice to this day sounds just like my grandma’s and moves me nearly to tears every time I talk to her on the phone, also took up residency in our house. But despite these efforts and my grandmother’s powerful will, we lost her a few months later, in June of 1990. This essay’s date: October 1990.

After Dad’s parents could no longer testify, Benjy made sure that we heard from Mom’s.

NOTE: Benjy got his wish — partially. His older daughter, Lyla, was a baby when Grandpa Ray died. Benjy’s younger daughter, Violet, never got to meet her great-grandpa. But maybe someday, if we keep telling these stories, she will.

Dating scripts

By laurelfelt | October 12, 2011 - 10:11 pm | Blog, Gender and sexuality, Participatory culture & learning

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Who should pay on a first date? Why?

This question emerged organically, in a conversation with a male friend about our heterosexual dating expectations. I thought it’s always the man who pays on the first date. Period. A girl can offer tip if she’s feeling generous. The weight of this financial burden is alleviated by the inexpensiveness of the encounter — a cup of coffee or an ice cream or appetizers or two drinks max. My male friend thought this was “retrograde,” both in general and in relation to the dating scene he frequented 10 years ago. He doesn’t assume that anyone will pay for him, and he assumes that other adults feel the same — women included.

So I brought the question to Facebook, where brilliant friends (all of whom happen to be female and, because they hail from different parts of my life (PhD, MA, BA, high school, junior high school, elementary school), are mostly strangers to one another) shared their thoughts and built a fascinating dialogue. We discussed chivalry and wooing, the gender wage gap and gender norms, investment and obligation, politesse and evaluation metrics, hetero vs. GLBTQ cultural expectations…

I was hooked. This issue is too rich to abandon, I thought; it is the site for articulating and negotiating values around cultural norms, gender relations, romantic appropriateness, financial responsibility, and more.

So I set up an informal straw poll today and 39 people have weighed in thus far. My colleague Rhea and I might explore this in a more formal fashion later. But until that day comes, h ere is the initial, anonymous data. Please note, I modified the survey after receiving the first 36 responses by adding demographic questions (gender, sexual orientation, relationship status, age).

Most participants thought that the man should pay (assuming this was a heterosexual encounter), but also added interesting caveats. Here are some key quotes that represent the range (but not the frequency) of responses:

“Always the guy… ALWAYS!”

“It depends. As a female, I always offer to split. However, I’m more impressed by a man who declines and pays for the first date.”

“It depends on a range of scenarios, but I’ll just use the simplest ones. If the guy asked the girl out then he should pay. If she asked him out, they will probably go dutch.”

“The person who asked for the date, regardless of gender.”

“Split the bill. It shows both parties respect each other and if the relationship grows it sets the trend that they are both equal partners in it.”

A whole-hearted thank you to all who have participated! And it’s not too late to share your thoughts. The survey is still open!

Failure

By laurelfelt | September 24, 2011 - 5:26 pm | Blog, Participatory culture & learning, Social and emotional learning

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Is there anything more provocative than failure?

By definition, we can’t have success without failure. How could we recognize either if there were no standard against which to pit them? “You wouldn’t appreciate the sun if we didn’t have the rain!” a belligerent character in a Weather Channel commercial once shouted. Yin and yang. Of course, this situates success and failure as binaries when a continuum is probably more productive and accurate. Still, the poles are out there. And like Harry and Voldemort, without the one, the other can’t survive (unless one sacrifices himself to kill the other and then comes back to life because he isn’t a gross baby in a train station. But anyway…).

According to research from resilience and positive psychology, in order to realize success, individuals don’t just need failure to exist conceptually — they need to experience it personally. Failure delivers a context for developing coping mechanisms, such as self-regulation, grit, and innovativeness. Too much success might set us up for failure for, when an all-mighty challenge rears its ugly (I mean, opportunity-studded) head, we gifted coasters will be tool-less, sans skills for managing. And down we will tumble (activating our panic attacks, eating disorders, and control issues along the way…).

How do we establish space for failure when the stakes are getting higher, the margins for error slimmer? How, then, with this pressure and such a narrow definition of success, can we expect anything BUT failure? We set the conditions for failure — then punitively disallow it. Yet we demand innovation!

I read a book last year, Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss. This interesting albeit somewhat superficial text was part travelogue, part treatise on cultural definitions and strivings for happiness. From its New York Times book review:

“Icelanders relish personal failure and “indulge in ‘enjoyment of misery,’ ” while “Moldovans derive more pleasure from their neighbor’s failure than their own success.” … Denmark’s key to happiness is lowered expectations” (Paul, 2007).

How do we rationalize failure? And how do we go about developing the character traits necessary for surviving its visitation and ultimately enjoying our lives?

The New York Times Magazine recently featured an article by Paul Tough entitled What if the secret to success is failure?. I highlighted the text, pasted it into a GoogleDoc, highlighted sentence fragments and passages that resonated, and inserted my comments. This document is open for you to edit and I would love it if you would do so. What are your thoughts on this (admittedly lengthy) piece? What resources can you point me towards, as I have added in for you?

[Seligman] “…identified a set of strengths that were, according to his research, especially likely to predict life satisfaction and high achievement. After a few small adjustments (Levin and Randolph opted to drop love in favor of curiosity), they settled on a final list: zest, grit, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism and curiosity” (Tough, 2011, emphasis added).

What do you think about the items on this list? What, if anything, does it say about our culture and/or the culture of our schools that these principals chose to replace “love” with “curiosity”? Isn’t what the world needs now love, sweet love?

Looking forward to our dialogue!

P.S. I’d also like to point you towards an online conversation amongst students on the topic of character. Fascinating!
P.P.S. I’d also like to welcome you to read my notes from Thursday’s Ken Auletta talk. In addition to exploring Google and the digital age, he talked a lot about what makes people tick…

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BFkTxCdgS3ElU3TUhHlf5JlgTgMB8aXwg8ozBu4_1Mo/edit?hl=en_US