This Was Not Okay

In the course of my long life, I have met at least one man whose life was deeply impoverished, when he was too young to know what was going on, by the lust of a much older married mother of children. She wasn't in a paid position of trust, this lady, but the effect was the same: a young life blighted, youthful potential wasted.

Thus, I am not overwhelmed with sympathy for female teachers who "fall in love with" or take advantage of the barely-in-control sex drive of adolescent students. Depending on the case in the papers, I may feel a thrill of pity and fear, of course. This increases when the teacher is single and only in her twenties. However, the married women in their thirties... What do they think they are doing? And what do they think will be the long-term effect on their students and their students' families?

Therefore, I am incensed at the idea being offered in this article that the public is disturbed by the relationship between the 39 year old new president of France, Emmanuel Macron, and the 64 year old grandmother who was his drama teacher because of "deeply ingrained" MISOGYNY.

The most poignant part of the article for me was the reaction of the boy Macron's mother:

Realising the affair would not be a passing phase,[Macron's mother] is said to have told the teacher: “Don’t you see? You’ve had your life. But he won’t have children with you.”

Well, no. And I find it curious how a growing number of political  leaders have  no children. Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland--none. Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives--none. (RD is openly lesbian, however.)  Theresa May, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom--none. Alec Salmond, the former First Minister of Scotland--none, But then he is married to a woman 17 years older than himself: she had been his boss at work.

The Salmond case--although considered a tad weird by the electorate, and we did not see the 70-something Mrs S on the campaign trail--is different from the Macron scandal, however, as Alec was in his twenties when they met at the office, not 15 years old. Nevertheless, I can imagine libidinous female bosses contemplating the success of the Salmonds' marriage when checking out the handsome new twenty-somethings who have walked into their fiefdoms.

"He's 6 foot 4, blue-eyed, and I wish we had ten of him," said a female manager at my then-workplace over the phone about my male colleague when he was just outside the door. She treated me like crap; she was the kind of older woman I have sworn I never shall be.

Macron's parents divorced in 2010, apparently. Happily, however, they have two other adult children, so presumably their hopes for grandchildren did not rest in their eldest son.

Teachers should not have affairs with their students. That should go without saying, and I hope the Macron case is far, far from the minds of any other teacher who finds herself pursued by a crushed-out teenager, no matter how brilliant he or she may be. Meanwhile, here's a cheerful little article about the birthrate in France. Macron's mother was clearly worried about the impoverishment of Macron's life; she would have been correct to worry also about the increasing impoverishment of France.

The Thriller in Mantilla

After bragging about going to the TLM in a coin-sized fascinator, I felt guilty.

My mini-hat is a lovely wee object, but I'm worried it makes me look like the proverbial organ-grinder's monkey and, besides, nobody else in my local TLM community wears a fascinator to Mass. One dashing young matron wears a smart pillbox, and there is a beret or two, and the Frenchwomen go bareheaded, but mostly the women and girls wear mantillas. The girls and maiden aunts wear white mantillas, and the married women wear black. Well, one married woman wears blue because she's Italian and doesn't want to look like the proverbial Italian widow. Me, I don't want to stick out as the one woman at Mass wearing a fascinator, just as when at the NO, I don't want to stick out as the one woman in a manilla.

The Sunday after my bragging, I noticed how pretty many of the mantillas are, but most of all, I was haunted by the private revelation of some girl on the FSSP Supporters Facebook page that her veil had found favour with the Lord. Yes, this was a complete stranger writing on the internet about a personal and private locution, but it made me think all the same.

 Is Our Lord and Saviour pleased when, out of respect for His presence in the monstrance or tabernacle, we women wear veils? I don't know, but so far nobody has claimed it makes Him mad. Saint Paul, naturally, was all for them and, if this is the sort of thing saints think about in heaven, perhaps he still is. For a contemporary point of view, here's what Raymond Cardinal Burke had to say on the matter. 

I am not sure my husband would care one way or the other what I wore on my head to Mass although he might find it odd if I deliberately stopped wearing anything on my head. And he did not kick up a fuss when I presented him with a bill and asked him to write a cheque for £30 to a mantilla maker.

For, lo, I looked online and discovered Zélie's Roses. A Mrs D. of  Oxfordshire, England blogs there when she is not making "modest clothing, First Holy Communion wear, Wedding Dress, Mantillas and Veils"--and gorgeous altar frontals, too, it seems!  Here are some of her laces and designs. Oh, the pretty!

Making mantillas is not as easy as one might suppose, which I guessed thanks to attempts at making wedding veils. UGH. Not a good project for an indifferent seamstress. Therefore, I did not make the mistake of thinking I could do a mantilla on the cheap. No, no! I wrote to Mrs D about her current stock, and now I have a lovely  mantilla that looks rather like this, only black:

For some reason, I find the tiny label identifying the mantilla as the production of "Zélie's Roses" rather thrilling. Perhaps it's the thought of a Roman Catholic woman having her own little business making beautiful church-appropriate garments for whichever women care to wear them.

I love the idea of women running little businesses from their homes, and I very much admire the women who have the patience, talent and eyesight for fine sewing.

By the way, I wore my new mantilla on Saturday to confessions at the Cathedral, and afterwards I thought I perceived people staring at me although maybe this was because I was looking at them. Or because I looked incredibly beautiful and the women all suddenly wanted one of their own!

Update: The baby bonnets. THE BONNETS!

Another Argument for Catholic Homeschooling

This is not an edifying story, but I find it both funny and important. It's funny and important for the same reasons.

After being found guilty of misconduct for putting her legs behind her head in front of her students, [the ex-teacher] stands in a coffee shop the next day and lifts her floral skirt. 

“It was a yoga exercise,” Brown says, revealing to a reporter that she has aqua yoga tights under her skirt, just like the day she proved how flexible she is to her students. “You stretch until you’re aligned. That’s what I showed them. I’m not ashamed.”

Brown, a fit 65-year-old, was recorded by a student when she laid down on the floor and swung her legs upward until they were behind her head. The video, along with the statements of more than 10 students and one educational assistant were the primary evidence used against her during an Ontario College of Teachers tribunal hearing on Tuesday. Some said her actions made them feel embarrassed.

“Why would the children be embarrassed,” Brown asks, noting she performed the exercise during lunch hour. “They have sex in the hallway and they smoke.”

 It's funny because we do not expect teachers, let alone Catholic religion teachers, to illustrate how flexible they are by doing feet-behind-head yoga moves, or talk glibly about their mothers' sex-lives, or make jaw-dropping claims about the students' sexual behaviour.  Something tells me Humanae Vitae  and the thought of Saint John Paul II weren't pondered too deeply in this woman's classes. 

But it's important because it is dangerous to assume that  teachers are thoughtful, prudent, moral, respectful people just because they are have been hired to teach at Catholic schools, especially government-funded Catholic schools. Teachers at publicly funded Catholic schools in Toronto are very well paid. If I had had any financial sense when I went to university... But, on the other hand, if you're not called to it, and you do it just for the money, teaching high school can be miserable. 

This woman claims to have taught at a number of Toronto Catholic high schools since 1987--when I was in high school, my dears--including my own high school. I don't recognize her, so I don't think she was there (if she ever really was there) in my day.  However, I can remember one other teacher giving a very good impression of being bat-guano insane. Others, of course, were great and their more quirky pronouncements--"Mankind is doomed, girls. We're doomed. Have a good afternoon"--didn't do me any harm. 

Now that I teach teenagers instead of adults, I worry about being overly lighthearted and saying the wrong things or The Wrong Thing that will stick in a student's head for years after I have forgotten it. (I worry about this regarding my niece and nephews, too.) The teacher in this story doesn't seem so bothered. 

Happily, I am not given to outrageous remarks about (A) Adult Stuff or (B) my students' ethnic backgrounds. I imagine Filipina-Canadian girls who attend or have attended one of this woman's schools (and their parents) must be feeling pretty shaken by this woman's dismissal of them all. It is hands-down worse than anything I ever heard anyone in Toronto--student, teacher, boss--say about pasty "mangiacakes "like me, and I am still mad that 30 years ago Mrs Such-and-Such said that Anglo-Saxons won't do construction jobs because we don't like to get callouses on our hands. I was too stunned to raise my hand and volunteer that my mother's (White, Anglo-Saxon and even Protestant) cousins worked summers in Toronto's construction industry until their inability to speak Italian became a problem. 

(Let it go, Dorothy. Let it gooooooo. Daj spokój. Non fa niente. ) 

Perhaps the most disturbing feature of the story is that this ex-teacher was hauled up before a tribunal only in 2015. Okay, it could be that she was an exemplary teacher from 1987 until then. But if not, what were her colleagues doing to protect their students from this woman's insanely imprudent and immoral remarks?  

For the sake of fairness, I should also observe that this teacher was the victim of quite a serious fraud at the hands of a friend in 2014, so it very well may be that she snapped afterwards. That said, I really do think it important that all parents who entrust their children to a system check that system regularly. 

Finding the Fun Again

Not to be confused with Anne of Green Gables

Of late I have been thinking that Polish class is not much fun. We of the Third Level have been reading graphic novels about a Polish girl named Marzi who was about 10 when the Berlin Wall came down. Marzi complains a lot as she reflects on her life in Poland during the 1980s and early 90s, and I find her attitudes and point of view incredibly alien. In the darkest recesses of my mind an Ontario WASP sniffs, "They're not like us, dear"-- an attitude that, by the way, inhibits foreign language learning.

The drawings of the adults in Marzi's life make them look, at best, dumpy and, at worst, utterly frightening. (For some unknown reason, all Marzi's male relations look like ax murderers.) The real-life Marzi fled to France ASAP and told her stories to her new French boyfriend, who drew them into cartoons. (The books were first published in French.) Does Marzi love Poland or hate Poland? Probably both. I would be very much afraid to meet Marzi at a cocktail party. (Imagine cartoon of your poor correspondent in a mad frock, face a sort of white pudding with two tiny raisins for eyes.)

Besides Marzi comics, we read a lot about Polish politics, and as our professor does not like the New Guard, there is a lot of doom and gloom in the handouts. We also discuss Brexit as if it were a sort of philosophical genocide of local Poles. Where, I ask myself, is the gleeful spirit of Polish weddings? Of Polish joy? Of--dare I mention it--Disco Polo? 

Add to this denunciations of my lamb-based bigos as Polish-American (not properly Polish), and Polish class just did not seem fun anymore.

Then I opened the file attached to the email about last week's class (which I missed, due to one of B.A.'s appointments. The star of the week's non-Marzi reading was me. 

Lesson 62

Problem with eye

Dorota: Excuse me, where is the Eye Department?

Nurse: You must go outside, go around the building and turn left.

It was the tale of my Warsaw Eye Terror, which I had sent (in English) to my professor as an  example of a conversation her students might really have in a dire Polish emergency. 

As I read, I began to laugh. Later a fellow student confessed that she had also laughed. And, indeed, as I read out my own part in class, the other students laughed too. 

Second Nurse to Third Nurse: I don't think that she has proper insurance.

Third Nurse: Well, then she will have to pay! 

Given that I had temporarily lost 80-90 percent of the sight in my left eye and was in terrible pain and fear, you would not think that this was very funny. But I got my sight back, and seeing the doctor cost only 120 Polish zloty (i.e. £25), so all's well that ends well. Besides, the nurses were funny in their grim, unsmiling way, and I suppose it was funny that I longed for Polish Pretend Son's real mother to appear (if humanly possible, which it wasn't), just so a mother (any mother) would hold my hand.  

For once I had given myself plenty of time to do all the reading and homework exercises. And although there were some references to Trumpa, Brexit and Kaczyński, class was fun. 

What I Learned Today

This is GENIUS! Japanese GENIUS!

Teaching Attic

Good coffee with useful packaging

When I was asked to teach  Attic Greek to Catholic home-schoolers, my first thought
was to text a recent Classics grad from Edinburgh Uni to see if she would like the job. However, she had not done any Greek; her specialization began and ended with Latin. I cast about in my mind for someone else among my Edinburgh friends and acquaintances, but I could not think of anyone who had studied Ancient Greek within the past 25 years save my unworthy self.

As I passed Ancient Greek 101 and 102 only by the skin of my teeth, my conscience would have cut up rougher had I not sat down eight years later and worked through the bally stuff. That was the year I lived alone in a bachelor flat and spent my evenings reviewing Italian, French, Latin and Attic Greek. Eventually French and Greek fell by the wayside as I concentrated on Italian and Latin. My Italian was in super shape by 2000, and I actually used it at work----but let us return to Attic Greek.

Although I have little "natural talent" for foreign languages, I know a lot about learning them, thanks to a steady reading diet of popular works on language acquisition and years of grappling with Tym Pięknym Językiem.  I also know something about teaching, which I have been doing off-and-on since the year 2000. A three year stint under the Ignatian Pedagogical Method taught me some great teaching tricks, including repetition and getting students to really "ENGAGE" with the material. All that stuff about marking your "consolations" and "desolations" in the margins of photocopies and writing "questions for reflection" turn out to be key to memory work.

"Revel in your chagrin," I yell at my students when they perceive their errors. "Feel the pain of your errors! Or feel the joy of your successes! Joy or pain! Whichever! Feel it!"

I am all about pedagogical method. When my first Attic Greek pupils were sent away to be educated by a proper teaching order on the Continent, I asked them to discern the sisters' pedagogical method. They're still not sure what it is, but I hope it has lots of sneakily useful teaching tricks. Meanwhile, I have been engaged to continue teaching them Ancient Greek by correspondence as the girls their age are already reading Homer, Herodotus and the gang. Fortunately, we have a brilliant textbook.

My first and favourite Greek teaching trick is to make pupils cut out, bake and eat the Greek Alphabet. Subsequent testing has led me to believe that this step should never be skipped. Apparently Jews taught their children the Hebrew alphabet with cookies for centuries, and it makes complete sense. Children love cookies, so their love for cookies becomes linked to the alphabet being consumed. If the children are made to cut out the stencils and then the dough themselves, this engages their eyes, ears and hands. In fact, since they eventually bake and eat the alphabet cookies, all their senses work together.

My most recent Greek teaching trick was to make up Leitner boxes for my senior students. A Leitner Box is a classic Spaced Repetition System. In short, one has vocabulary cards which one reviews according to a fixed schedule, moving them closer to the back of the box as one's memory for them strengthens. As per the instructions in Fluent Forever, I left the backs of the cards blank so that my students could draw pictures or symbols denoting the Greek word (or word pair) on the front. English is not allowed.

The amusing thing about my Leitner Boxes is that the actual boxes are made from cardboard Union Coffee coffee bag supports, and as my favourite brew has this vigorous name, my students are returning to their consecrated preceptress from their Jesuit-trained, Easter-holidays tutor with boxes marked Liberacion. No pun was intended, and I rather wish I preferred "Bobolink", whose name is surely more in keeping with Traditional Catholicism, homeschooling and convent schools. But there it is.

Tweet!

Own Croissants

Dear me, it really is the Year of Food. Last year was the Year of Wilderness Camping.  Last spring I loved to read guides to surviving in the wild, and now I am surrounded by cookbooks. I even have a cookbook geared to surviving in the wild--or, rather, in poverty in rural Greece.

Not being in poverty in rural Greece, on Saturday I had a pound coin with which to buy 250g of unsalted butter. Therefore, on Saturday night I made raw croissants and left them to prove in the fridge overnight. I awoke in a panic at 5 AM and moved them to the kitchen counter. At a more reasonable 7 AM, I woke up again and had a look. They had indeed doubled in size although I must admit they were not (and had not started) at uniform sizes. Getting a 20 cm x 65 cm rectangle of dough to the same thickness throughout was a challenge I met but imperfectly.

Into the oven they went for 25 minutes. I did them too brown (as Georgette Heyer would metaphorically write), so next time I will have a look after 20.

Even when overly brown, there is nothing like a  hot, freshly baked croissant straight from the oven, as I now know. The outer layers snap and flake, and the inner layers cling softly together until you pull them apart to apply the jam. You do not need to add butter. They are butter.

Various online wags say that after making your own croissants, you understand why there are bakeries. I wonder where the online wags live; it can't be suburban Scotland. It is a 30 minute bus ride to the nearest French bakery, and we consider ourselves lucky. Moreover, it costs less to make your own croissants (approx 10p each) than to buy even a bad, bready one from Tesco (approx £1).

Meanwhile, making croissants is not that difficult, especially if you add the butter in one-inch cubes instead of pounding it into a flat slab, as did Julia Child. The important thing is not to lose your nerve when the greasy dough sticks to your rolling pin. To avoid this problem, roll the dough between lightly floured sheets of baking paper. It will still stick, but don't panic.

Besides butter, flour, yeast, sugar, salt, milk, water, baking paper and a cool head, you need a refrigerator and time. The butter-studded dough needs about an hour to rise. The twice-turned dough-envelope needs about that (see recipe) to rest in the fridge, and then another hour for its second rest in the fridge. The crescent shapes need two hours (perhaps)  to double--unless you put them in the fridge overnight, as I recommend.  If you want croissants for breakfast, you have to start the night before, perhaps right after supper.

The long-term goal is to have croissants for breakfast, so the short-term goal should be to have the crescent-shapes in the fridge before you go to bed at your normal time. In the morning, you pop them on a counter/table, wait an hour for them to finish doubling, and then bake and eat them. This may mean getting up earlier than usual. As a morning person, I love the blissful solitude of being awake and busy before anyone else.

A problem I did not foresee is that 12 -14 croissants are too many for a middle-aged married couple, even over two days. (This morning's day-olds tasted great after being warmed in the oven.) Next time I will either freeze half of the proved-but-unbaked crescent shapes or I will wait until there are overnight visitors in the house. Of course, there is always the option of halving the recipe and making just six.  Rolling the dough to just 32.5 cm must surely be easier!

By the way, I didn't have plastic wrap to cover the dough, so I used a large white linen napkin throughout. French bakers thrived for at least three centuries without plastic wrap. I wonder how they coped without refrigerators, but presumably they had cellars.