Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing that is come to pass (Luke 2:15)

Just in time for Christmas, Tim and I headed to the West Bank, the occupied territories of Jesus's birth. The main attraction, of course, is the Church of the Nativity, and even I had to admit that it seemed pretty holy upon first approach, what with the streaming light and all:

And it was pretty awe-inspiring to see how the events of this place sparked a faith that spread throughout the world. On this day, there were hundreds of what appeared to be Indians and Pakistanis worshipping at the church, including these two lighting candles for prayer:

But the serenity of this sanctuary was soon shattered as we descended into the cave that makes the city famous. It hardly seemed pious to be so pushy at this holy site:

The cause for the crowding was the Star of Bethlehem, an ornate plaque dating from the fourth century that marks the presumed place that Mary delivered Jesus before he was set in the manger nearby. The people in line knelt to kiss the spot, probably not thinking, like me, about the fact that afterbirth likely landed here, too:

After birth inevitably comes breastfeeding, so we continued on to the Milk Grotto, where legend holds that a drop of Mary's milk, which dropped as she stopped to nurse Jesus as they fled from King Herod's baby-killing soldiers, turned the rock unnaturally white. The custom today is for women to chip off some of the shrine's wall to give them luck in fertility. I kept my hands in my pockets, but I did see a member of this party scrape some off, for what reason I'll never know:

No Christmas visit would be complete without some consumerism, so our guide took us to a olive wood-carving factory and store, where we bought requisite souvenirs (a candlestick and a bell). I was able to refrain from splurging on this impulse buy:

After blowing our cash, we stand-shopped through the Palestinian souk, which intermittently included blow-up Santas and hand-knitted stockings. The most eye-catching store, though, had to be this one, smack dab in the middle of Manger Square:

Besides this sign, very little else about Bethlehem aroused the Christmas spirit. Workers were only just putting lights on the trees, to prepare for the Christmas Eve concert. Perhaps it would've been more festive when they were turned on at night. But we didn't stick around that late, because we had to get back for a true Christian tradition: the staff holiday party. So I settled for staring up at this one sad, small, strung-out collection of ornaments:

No one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him (1 Thessalonians 4:6)

The first word you learn in Hebrew is "balagan," which means chaos. A close second is "frier," which means sucker or pushover. Whereas the former is acceptable, said in witty jest, the latter is unacceptable, spoken as a staid insult. This reveals a lot about Israeli culture: They can deal with progressing amid chaos, but not being taken advantage of or taken for granted. Some natives have told me that the obsession with not being a frier comes from persecution in the past, especially the resignation during the Holocaust and the prorogation of the Israeli state, two things Jewish people have vowed to never let happen again.

However, the manifestations of the frier mentality seem much more banal. Not being a frier means weaving through lanes of heavy traffic just to get two car spaces ahead. Not being a frier means leaving your stuff on the checkout counter to keep your place while you finish shopping. Not being a frier means refusing to put up with foreigners' feeble attempts to speak Hebrew. Me, I'm a frier. I am not aggressive enough to nose up so another car can't merge in, to hold my spot with a gallon of milk, to continue to speak stilted Hebrew even when people respond in English.

Despite how hard the frier mentality is to cope with sometimes, I can accept most of these displays as the cultural differences they are. However, I find it hard to deal with others assuming that an honest mistake is an attempt to make someone look the frier. For example, my landlady has accused our dog of pooping on her lawn (which is really our lawn), even though he has never done so (and her mutt has). Just recently, she told Tim to make sure the newspaper was delivered on our driveway, not hers. We never had any intention of soiling her yard with turds or her driveway with ink, but she still issued a pre-emptive anti-frier strike. She wanted to win a battle of wills that we didn't even plan to enter.

I hate being accused of bad deeds I never even imagined (especially when true allegations of my villainy can be levied). I feel the two possible responses -- confrontation or oblivion -- are confining. I can barely call to order pizza, much tell someone face-to-face that their dog is the defecator, so confrontation is out. And unfortunately, my racing brain won't let me remain oblivious; seriously, I've lost sleep thinking about how I would have to call newspaper customer service (egad, a phone call!) to change the delivery location. So a third response, insecurity, results, sparking off a viscious circle of frierity (yes, I just made that word up).

Case in point, the other night, my landlady's boyfriend woke me up to move my car, which was blocking a neighbor from opening the gate to her driveway. I had no way of knowing that my car was in the way; there was no sign and therefore certainly no malintent. But after I backed up my car three inches so she could get in, she shouted from her car window: "Aren't you going to apologize?" Startled, I could only reply with a lame, "I'm sorry," sealing myself as the frier in this situation.

As with many similar cases, I later thought of better comebacks that would have made her the frier, and strangely, I wanted to seek some revenge so I could end up with the "win." Because I knew the former was impossible and the latter was immature, I vowed to not let the next person get the best of me. It was then I realized: My neighbor's insecurity about losing her last dispute had migrated to me, and I would pass the torch when I tried to win my next showdown; I was only a single stop in the spread of the frier mentality. And so it goes.

The water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life (John 4:14)

Here's the biggest thing I learned from my photos from Prague: I don't like to take pictures when it's cold outside. Even when I took outdoor landscape photos, I did it from indoors. For example, this shot of the famous Charles Bridge is from a window in Prague Castle:

Prague Castle was about the only obligatory tourist site we visited. Mainly, we hunted down train stations and outdoor markets, sometimes in vain; we missed the Holesovice Market, over 100,000 square meters full of flea market and fake designer goodness, by a day. But the castle was worth it, if only for Vladislav Hall of the Old Royal Palace, where I caught this picture of Tim, indoors of course:

I couldn't avoid the outside as we walked from the castle to our hotel, which was a bit of a hike. Tim was stopping about every minute to take a picture, so I got in on the act to keep myself warm. These swans didn't seem as concerned as I was about the cold:

By this time, I was getting pretty hungry and thirsty, so the taverns started looking pretty appealing, especially this cozy, packed one with the sign for Gambrinus, which Tim and I agree was one of our favorites of the many available Czech brews:

The day before, our first day in the Czech Republic, we tracked down the warm interior of U Flecku, one of the oldest beer halls in Prague. The waiters were forceful with the drinks, thrusting lager pints and Becherovka shots onto your table without request. But the entertainment was accommodating, even playing Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called to Say 'I Love You'" so the Asian tourists could sing along karaoke-style:

We were thankful for Becherovka the day we took a day trip to Karlovy Vary, also known as Carlsbad (yes, it is the California burg's sister city), a high-end spa city known for its healing hot springs. You can drink from many of them as you walk through the city, but they are so sulfuric that the liquor is needed to drown out the chemical taste:

Unfortunately, you are not allowed to bathe in the springs, which would have been nice to cut the cold bite of the valley wind, so we settled for toasting our insides with sips from the springs instead, although not at the main one, which shoots up like a geyser:

We took a remedy of a different kind when we took the bus on to Plzen, home of the Pilsner Urquell brewery, where drinking is allowed, even encouraged. The Brewery Museum admission included a coin voucher for a draft at the restaurant next door. The museum itself was a bit hokey, but I like that it gave me the opportunity to take this cheesy photo of Tim:

Our last night, back in Prague, we did the real-life version of the painting in Plzen, drinking the original Budweiser, Budvar, at U Medvidku, one of the oldest beer halls in Prague. We also ate traditional dishes: a potato pancake full of bacon for Tim, and sirloin stew with dumplings for me:

We started with the oldest hall and ended with the biggest one, a nice way to bookend a beer-filled trip that provided many good excuses to get out of the cold and to the bottom of a glass.

Your sons and your daughters whom ye have left behind shall fall by the sword (Ezekiel 24:21)

I can't believe I am about to do this. I am going to point out something good in the "No Child Left Behind" act. As a teacher at an international private school, my current position is not governed by any federal legislation regarding testing and funding, so I have spent six months on the flip side, and I am beginning to see why this law came about.

First, let me say that I am not going to defend the testing of students in an inconsistent and unattainable way, in my opinion. But I am going to praise one of the intended side effects of such testing: a focused curriculum. Without standards-based testing like in the States, the teachers at my school are left to create their own curricula without any overarching guiding force.

Basically, my school's English curriculum is a map by each teacher explaining what NCTE standards she (they're all women) meets with what assessment. However, since these standards are so broad (see for yourself at NCTE's Web site), teachers must break them down into more specific benchmarks. But because of the generalized standards and individualized control, these benchmarks end up being whatever the teacher can cook up to match what they want to teach, not an identification of skills that students should learn. At my school this means the education has become content-driven, based on what books or texts the teacher deems worthy, which to me is an outdated notion. And therefore, skills-based instruction is overlooked and definitely not aligned from grade to grade.

This, in part, is why my English students are freaking out by my arrival. All of sudden, I am asking them to exhibit skills, without emphasis on knowledge of a book. In no high-school English classroom before my own did they examine nonfiction in any way. So as should be no surprise, my students are frustrated by trying to analyze essays and speeches at the same level they can with literature. Likewise, they are not used to having to write in a nonfiction style that focuses on synthesis instead of reader response. Now, I'm not claiming that nonfiction is something that should be a benchmark necessarily, but I think it's something an objective group has to determine without the influence of subjective preferences. And if the school is going to revere Advanced Placement, then the tenets of that program should be reflected throughout the high school curriculum, not just in a single class.

So, you ask, what are you doing about it, Ms. English department chair? Well, smarty pants, I am starting by merely introducing the idea of a holistic writing rubric based on skills. Many teachers still use rubrics giving points for the inclusion of particular formulaic writing pieces, say 1-10 points for a thesis based on how effective it is. Once again, there is no problem with that, but the only way to start aligning instruction across the grades is to identify the skills that all of us hope to see in our students' writing, without breaking it down into parts, some of which might not be relevant for specific writing assignments. The translation of that to numbers for the gradebook can stay individual.

It's not an easy change to make, considering the teachers are resistant to change their lessons and I feel like I might be inflicting my bias upon them. If there were an assessment, for example, that was developed from the outside and that governed what skills were most important, then we'd all be united under a common goal: making sure our students knew those skills so they could pass the test. "Teaching to the test" might not be fun, but it at least ensures an objective impetus for what happens in the classroom.

Now, now, now, don't start with the red herrings and non sequiturs. This is the ONLY good I find in the act. The tests themselves are often invalid, required passing rates are unreasonable, the consequences for failure are inexplicable. Indeed, one of my British colleagues was explaining to me about how schools in England are put on watch if they don't meet standards criteria, which by the way are based on more than just test scores, including in-house observations. But when this happens, schools aren't threatened with less funding; they are given money to help them improve. Still, she said this had a negative consequence: The diversion of funds to lower-performing schools prompted some borderline schools to lose money and fall into the watch category.

It seems, there is no easy calculation of school success (certainly not one that includes a 100 percent pass rate!). But a deeper look at the necessary variables to manipulate is valuable. Maybe those Impact Games people should make a simulation of running a school under "No Child Left Behind." After all, education isn't a bad place to start in making peace.

I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil (Isaiah 45:7)

So all those political muckety-mucks might have shipped off to Annapolis for negotiations, but just because I don't get free flights off public coffers doesn't mean I can't help make peace, too. Thanks to Pennsylvania-based Impact Games, I can "Play the News. Solve the Puzzle" with its interactive CD release, PeaceMaker. In conjunction with the summit, the company and the Peres Center for Peace sent 100,000 free copies to subscribers of the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. Unfortunately, I didn't get one, probably because I subscribe to the English-language edition, and there's already been enough worthless American and British intervention in many people's eyes. Luckily, one of my students brought the video game to school. This, my friends, is what educators call a teachable moment, otherwise known as "I'd rather not do my actual lesson plan," so I spent the first half of my first class installing and testing out the simulation.

Here's the setup: You can pick to be the Palestinian President or the Israeli Prime Minister (or let the game choose for you) in a calm, tense, or violent scenario level. You enter into a virtual Israel, where real incidents from the past reoccur, as shown through newspaper articles and television footage, but you get the option to try a different reaction. The main responses are political or security. One option under security was assassinating an opposition leader; one under political was giving a speech to the international media. As you react, you get input from public opinion polls, both in and out of the country, and from advisers, called The Hawk and The Dove. You win the game if you respond appropriately to achieve a "two-state solution."

It's this "solution" that I take issue with, not the typical criticism that this is oversimplifying a complicated issue. Indeed, a simplification could just be the ticket to a solution. But how does one come up with the way to win the game when the simulated outcome has never occurred in reality? In truth, you win the game if you figure out how the makers presume that peace could be established. Their presumption rests on a few assumptions about human nature, all listed on the game's Web site, www.peacemakergame.com: 1) "You can make a difference," 2) "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the possible," and 3) "The other side wants peace too." The real humans involved might be contrary to these assumptions: 1) They do not care to make a difference, 2) They are unable or unwilling to compromise, and 3) They do not want a solution. These variables, I think, would be more apt as level choices instead of those based on external conflict factors; they could be labeled apathetic, resolute, and antagonistic.

As a teacher, I do see this as a great conversation starter, a way to reveal some assumptions we ourselves make about the peace process. In fact, researchers at Carnegie Mellon are examining how prior vs. deeper knowledge impacts players' decisions. But until these human influences are taken into account, this game should never be examined as a way to solve the actual Mideast peace puzzle. The good news is, Impact Games says one of its next ventures will be to take the game online, so people from all over the world -- and from all perspectives, apathetic, resolute, antagonistic and beyond -- can play the fantasy football version of foreign relations. Now that's the kind of negotiations I can see President Bush getting into, even after office.

Until then, if you have access to this game in any way, please tell me if and how you manage to "beat" it. And I don't mean with any of those silly codes you find in gaming magazines. If there were a secret passage to ultimate peace, like getting three levels ahead in Mario Brothers, I would hope we would have found -- and taken -- it already. I don't believe this is a game where there is any pride or accomplishment in taking the longest path to rack up the most points.

O Israel, your prophets have been like foxes among ruins (Ezekiel 13:4)

I spoke too soon. One of my first posts on this blog was a rail against the CNN effect. This effect is nothing compared to Fox News fallout. Recently, my cable provider, HOT (yes, you actually have a choice here), took CNN off the air because the company rejected a hike in the news channel's subscription fee. At first, I was happy, cheering HOT on as it stuck it to the international "man." But that was before the the cable provider elected to replace CNN with Fox News.

If CNN gave a skewed perspective of global situations, Fox News gives a perverted one. Two of the first stories I saw gave proof for the assertions in "Outfoxed," the movie detailing the network's questionable journalistic practices. First, there was Fox News's version of "Fear Factor," in which anchors report the slightest inkling of a terrorist threat with a banner of something like "Malls targeted for attack" and a small disclaimer of "report says." This was a week ago, and I'm not aware of any suicide bombings at Sears. Next, there was the channel's version of "Rob & Big," except it was the "George & Dick" show, labeling even the most mundane appearances in the president's schedule "breaking news." The one I saw was Bush urging soldiers at an American military base to continue to "stay the course" in Iraq; obviously, such a speech had not been given in at least a month so it must garner full attention.

Two other phenomena emerged as I watched coverage from abroad. First, my boyfriend pointed out that a lot of the short spots called "Fox Spotlights" and "Fox Features" are actually underhanded attempts to make liberal segments of the population look foolish. The two topics I saw: people who stare at the sun to gain energy and a man who donated teddy bears to be distributed to child victims of traffic accidents. The weight of these acts was presented so straight-forwardly that they became sardonic. The channel's priorities obviously are out of whack, making the serious seem silly and the silly seem serious. Second, because I usually watch the news in the morning, the broadcast is what is on during the middle of the night in the States. This time slot includes a show called "Red Eye," which is basically "Inside Edition" and "eXtra" combined with a host conceited enough to call his online blog a "Greg-a-logue." Problem is, on the show, entertainment fluff stories about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears are presented in the same format as regular news. Not only does America come off paranoid of terrorist attacks but also servile to superficial celebrities.

I can only imagine what the overseas audience thinks of America when this late-night trash presents a panel discussion on Steven Colbert's presidential bid in South Carolina, on presumably the morning news. Don't we already have enough of a rep as a country with a puppet president? (Not that I think Colbert would be any more of a puppet than Bush; at least he's pulling his own strings along with our legs.) CNN, on the other hand, presented the same issue on its version of "The Daily Show." I know, I know, I criticized CNN for blurring the line between news and comedy before, but at least Jon Stewart's commentary was backed by obvious audience laughter.

In the end, I am, of course, just as hypocritical as Fox News. I don't like CNN, but I don't like the alternative, either. I'm whinier than Sean Hannity after a Clinton stump speech. But at least my criticism of the two channels is "fair and balanced": They both suck.

Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline (Revelation 3:19)

Up until now, I have not-so-subtlely rubbed the benefits of my school in your digital faces. But cynical skeptics like myself must find the bad in everything. And at my school it is this: lack of discipline. As the title of this post suggests, I only share my thoughts on this topic in an attempt to share my love for this school's students -- or I'm just annoyed.

I've never been one for enforcing rules, especially those that seem petty. It was a known fact that I was not a part of the flip-flop intifada at my last school, never reporting the wearing of said footwear to administrators and in fact flaunting my own during in-service days. But I have always agreed that some rules should be enacted to preserve the stability of a community. Even if people often don't like the rules, they sometimes like to know on which side of the law they stand.

In an hour I will leave on a three-day field trip with a group of high-schoolers. It has been clearly issued that every student MUST bring and wear a hat to avoid sunburn and/or sunstroke. But the powers that be have refused to issue a ruling that students MUST NOT smoke during the trip, even though it is not allowed on campus.

The first argument is that those old enough should be allowed to smoke because we are not on the smoke-free campus. I posit that the rules of a community should follow that community, even if they go "off campus." After all, the school rule against drinking, which supersedes the national legal age of 18 (the same as for smoking), remains in effect.

So the second argument arises: If you acknowledge smoking as an addiction, you don't want to bar students from a trip because of a "health condition." Of course, I can easily point out that alcoholism also is an addiction, so we should bend that rule as well. But more importantly (and yes, I would've been a hypocrite at one point in my life for saying this), if you can't go three days without tobacco to enjoy a get-out-of-school-free trip, then by all means, stay home and chain-smoke.

In the end, what is most bothersome is that there seems to be acknowledgment that both arguments are without validity, that this is to avoid confrontation with some students and parents. The school is bowing to a minority -- a small one, at that -- to assuage dissent. Which brings us to the third argument: Is it appropriate to enforce a don't ask-don't tell rule on smoking without informing the parents of all the nonsmokers that this will be the policy? I'm sure many parents are assuming that the same rules at school apply on school trips, which certainly isn't unthinkable. At least in the military, soldiers know that the GI Joe in the next bunk might be jonesing for the same sex.

But this is the way of this school -- and perhaps the country: smooth sailing is valued over rocky negotiation, perhaps because the latter hasn't often led to the former in the past. But man, does that rub my American sense of imposition wrong. Truly, I don't care if I catch a whiff of smoke, even during a lovely restaurant meal, but I don't want to have to play the heavy if the smokers overstep their bounds. It's just so much easier to blame the administration. Natch.