Our Jewish Teacher

Back in Tehran, school year of 1970-1973, I hadBack in their time paper was a luxury itself, if
an elementary teacher known as Mrs. Jewishnow note books were for us. They meant to say
teacher. This teacher was obviously Jewish andthat we were getting spoiled while going to school
she was called by her religion. It is incredible howwas a battle in their time.
we recall labels and not names. I guess dividingI knew implicitly that not all children could afford
people due to race, religion, and ethnicity hasthose fancy 40 pages or 60 pages note books.
always been around in my home country. WithoutMy own cousins living in a small village south of
a doubt we never called our teachers by theirIran could not even attend school, because school
name, only with a title: Mr. or Mrs. Teacher.was itself an extravagance is small rural villages.
In the hierarchy of power, teachers had their ownThinking back now, those note books did not cost
ladder in that top to down human relationship.more than a penny still the culture of recycling
Respecting teachers was not only encouraged butwas dynamic aspect of our school work.
it was part of the package that enforced a moreIn the commencement of school year we would
fearbased respect. Blind obedience was definitelyreceive a long list of specifically required school
part of this package.materials such as books, paper packs, pencils,
Our Mrs. Jewish teacher happened to be living inerasers, pencil sharpeners, and even uniforms.
the same neighbourhood as I did, in fact just aThe note books we had to have, been sold in the
couple of houses away from mine. Walking by herstores in form of 40, 60, and 100 pages lined
house I always wondered how she lived her life.note books. I recall how the list was exciting for
In school we used to fanaticize about ourus children, yet, not for our parents.
teachers a lot, whether they disciplined their ownOur Jewish teacher would tell us that we could
children or whether they eat the same kind oferase all the scribbles in our old note books from
food as we did. Our childish imaginations had noprevious years and reuse those papers. Even she
borders.would give us ideas that we could use the extra
Our Mrs. Jewish teacher was really a nice lady. Ipages left at the end of the note books that
guess I recall her because I used to feel good tobelonged to either us or our siblings. For those
be in her neighbourhood. She used to encouragechildren who did not want to take the extra work
her students to write neatly and to keep theirof erasing pages and pages of pencil scribbled
school books clutter free. Although our parentspapers, she would ask them to donate the
paid for the school books, this teacher frequentlynotebooks to her.
asked us to donate the books at the end of theI guess she would think that some other children
school year to the school. The contributed bookswhose parents were poor might want to do that
would be given to the next year students fromextra effort in order to have access to some
less income families.school martial, although second hand. I am not
At some point, our Jewish teacher did encouragesure how she would approach those parents
us to look beyond that little donation. She taughtabout her genius ideas on recycling note books,
us to recycle our note books. In those days notehowever she did teach us that we could always
books and writing materials in general were realbe considering others who are less privileged. I
commodity, a type of luxury that our parents didguess I recall this story now because recycling is
not have in their childhood. My parents used toa big issue for our overpopulated world. We have
make statements about how they were unableto learn to reuse and to use our resources
to imagine having those fancy writing material.carefully. It is both healthy and thoughtful.