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Early in third grade a new student entered my class. He arrived with his mother.  Jay came from Israel and didn’t speak any English.  He did however have one word of English down pat, “NO!” Before even uttering a word to the teacher, Jay and his mother got into a heated conversation right in the front of the classroom. I, nor anyone in my class, could understand a word that he and his mother were conversing about.  She shouted at him in Hebrew. He responded loudly to her in Hebrew, emphasizing each statement with the word, “NO!”. That much we all understood
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How does a 6-hour plane flight become a 14-hour story? It’s all in the timing.

I was enrolled in a workshop that was run by what at the time was called NAPPS (The National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling). It was a weeklong conference on “Using Community and Family Stories in Teaching”.  Renowned storytellers, Syd Lieberman and Barre Tolken, were teaching the class. The course was held at the site of the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee.

This workshop was to begin on a Monday from 5:30 p.m. until 9:30p.m. the first day and then run the rest of the week ending on Friday from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.
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When I was 15 years old I had my bicycle stolen. I lived in a good neighborhood in the Bronx, so it was surprising to me that my bicycle would be taken. I had no clue who or why it was stolen. Up until that time I never thought that needed to lock it up.
After about a month or two I gave up all hope of ever seeing my bicycle again.
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Being the shortest person in my grade always left me open to being bullied by the so called macho, cool people in school. I went to a public school in the Bronx in a very good neighborhood. When I was in third grade I had an encounter with a bully that changed my perception of myself and how to deal with bullies. His name was Marc. He was in my class. We interacted with each other when we had to, but other than that I rarely said anything. I was very intimidated by him. I tried to avoid a confrontation with him whenever possible. That wasn’t a possibility that one day on the playground when I accidentally ran into him on the playground while he was eating a frozen ice and it spilled on his shirt. He didn’t take kindly to that.

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