Havruta for Chapter 5

[pobble_reads]

Havruta/Chavruta (transliteration is tricky) is a collaborative paired reading practice from the Jewish tradition. There are some links about it on the HPST website I found the longer article from Brandeis University which includes a transcript of a Havruta discussion really interesting. Obviously I am not Jewish and i am probably missing a lot of nuances about how the practice works (sorry) but my understanding of the basic idea is that Havruta partners work together to build a shared understanding of the text - it's not really a teacher/pupil relationship or about trying to convince your partner that your opinion is right but about being open to each other's ideas and to help each other gain understanding. Havruta partners may disagree with each other but the focus is collaborating and working with each other's ideas rather than being adversarial.
The way that Havruta is practiced on the HPST podcast is for one of the presenters to ask a question about something that genuinely puzzles them in the chapter they are studying. Then they have to come up with a possible answer before the second partner can comment and build on that. So what O am going to do here is pose a question and come up with my own answer first and hopefully you will comment and add to that.

So my question is about the Orphanage - why do the Porteress and the Cook seem to have such different attitudes and outlooks? When Gobbolino moves into the Orphanage Kitchen we read
It would suit him very well, he thoughy, to become an orphanage cat, and although the cook was very sour-faced and bad tempered, the porteress was very kind.
The Porteress seems to have seniority so why has she not found someone with a similar outlook to her to work in the Kitchen? And why hasn't her kindness and caring attitude set the standard for how all of the orphanage staff behave?

I'll put my thoughts in the comments and hope you will share yours

Comments

[pobble_reads]

My first thought is that maybe the Porteress doesn't get to choose her staff even though she manages them - maybe there is some sort of governing committee that does that kind of thing? And if so maybe they deliberately employed someone a little bit less soft-hearted than the Porteress to balance out any tendency to over-generosity? Or they simply employed the cook for her cooking skills and didn't think about how she would interact with the children?

I think it's quite likely that the cook does have less face-to-face contact with the orphans - so maybe she's less concerned with putting on a caring face towards them. I'm sure the kitchen work can be frustrating at times - there seems to be a significant mouse problem before Gobbolino moves in to deal with it and i'm sure that sours her mood. Some of the children who have ended up in an orphanage are likely to have various issues with food - maybe trying to hoard it (possibly trying to steal from the kitchens?) or refusing anything that doesn't taste like their memories of home and that must also be very frustrating to deal with day after day. Troubled children can be very troubling to work with. Maybe she used to be kinder and has succumbed to compassion fatigue and burnout?
Maybe the cook sees her job as about providing nutrition and not as a careing role so thinks her attitude doesn't matter. I don't think you can divorce emotional care and nurture from physical care of children but i know some people don't see it that way.
She may be having difficulties in her own life that make it harder for her to be (or at least to act on feeling) compassionate?

I find it a bit harder to come up with answers for why the Portress doesn't notice the Cook's attitude and attempt to change it (unless she has tried and not been successful). I guess she is very busy looking after her charges and may have let staff development slide. We see in the next chapter that she works a different shift pattern to the Cook (who is in sole charge of breakfast) so she may not be seeing the most problematic behavior. And she presumably doesn't have much time to spend in the kitchen so she doesn't get as full a picture of the Cook's behaviour snd moods as Gobbolino does.
It still seems like a big thing to miss/not at least try to address when it's going to impact on the orphans wellbeing...

[pobble_reads]

I do also want to problematise the way the text - representing for Gobbolino's point of view - conflates appearance with attitude and goodness or badness. The Portress is described in the first sentence about her as a kind, rosy-faced woman and the Cook is sour-faced and bad-tempered. We do see examples of the Porteress' kindness and the Cook's bad temper so they are at least partially accurate descriptions but does Gobbolino only see the best and worst in them because of how he feels about how they look?