We had a school meeting yesterday about next year which gathered all the teachers in my school (about 120). We were divided into four commissions:
– school rules
– helping the freshmen (or secondes)
– helping the juniors (or premières)
– working in teams
We were supposed to have chosen before the meeting. I had hesitated between the first and fourth commisson but in the end chose to revise the school rules.
Unfortunately this was the largest one. I find that big numbers don’t encourage sharing; some will just hide behind the “crowd” while more reserved people will find it difficult to express their views. What’s more about half the people present had not read the draft making the rest of us wonder how they thought they would discuss something they hadn’t read.
So once everybody had acquired a copy, and read it, the discussion started. Understandably enough school rules are suposed to comply with French law. It makes sense; or so I thought. Yet quite a number of people got inflamed when they realized this or rather when they wanted to add things into the new set of rules and were told it was illegal. It was quite incredible to see those, otherwise law-abiding, folks trying to say that maybe it didn’t matter if our regulations were not quite in accordance with the law.
Let me take an example: in French law, a penalty is personal consequently two different people might commit the same offence and yet receive a different sentence. A maths colleague wanted to write in the regulations that somebody who did not bring in their books would be expelled from the lesson. When he was told we couldn’t do that because of the principle I’ve just mentioned, he over-reacted and said he would not utter another word. Likewise other people made similar suggestions and got the same answer. They got really passionate whenever it happened.
This led me to wonder if being Jewish made me see things differently. As Jews our lives are shaped by Halakhah ( (Jewish law) and this law regulates most (if not all) aspects of our lives. In Judaism there is a set way to do things and if we don’t do things that way we know we are breaching the law. There are sometimes alternatives- Halakhah allows a certain amount of flexibility – but in the end, the law is the law.
Thus carrying from the private domain (home) to the public domain (the street for instance) is forbidden during Shabbat; as a result we are forbidden to carry even our keys. Yet nowadays nobody can leave home and not lock the door or go without keys (with the notable exception of teenage boys who seem to be always forgetting their keys, but I’m digressing). Therefore people have devised Shabbat belts which allow us to hold our keys and leave the house while respecting the law against carrying on Shabbat.
I feel that thinking about what I do, and how I do it, on numerous ocasions during the day has given me a more accute perception of what is law and what isn’t. Nevertheless I wonder if it has to do with my being Jewish or if this is just a personal trait.
The end of the school year is great for projects. We now know more or less what classes we’ll teach and even sometimes with whom. So today I was approached by a History teacher who wil teach the Humanities section next year. He told me about an exhibition which will take place in 
Hannah's Nook 