Jewish Education – Page 11 – A Floor, But Not a Ceiling

Empty Seats: Are We Asking Too Little?

No, this is not a picture from the most recent Jaguar’s home game!

But there is a link between this picture, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and our school’s experience over Sukkot this past week…

I blogged about a year and a half ago about my observations of what happens when a Jewish day school closes for the explicit purpose of celebrating Jewish holidays and finds that a minority of families appears in synagogue.

I want to revisit that conversation, update it, and perhaps offer a provocative solution…

The Issue

I am going to inch close to a third rail during this conversation even though it is not at all my intention to do so. I am going to run the risk of appearing judgmental although I really do not hold families in judgement. I am going to name the elephant in the room and point out the obvious. I am going to ask some difficult questions. I am going to make some suggestions. And I will do all of this in the spirit of trying to spark a valuable conversation and furthering the mission of our school and community…and will hope that I have built up enough credibility so that because I believe it is part of my job to raise precisely these questions that the only outcome will be an honest exchange of ideas.

When Jewish day schools close for Jewish holidays they do so with the presumption that families need to be free to fulfill Jewish obligations and to celebrate the joy these holidays bring. Yet so often, our school closes for holidays such as Sukkot, Passover, Shavuot, etc., and the synagogue remains remarkably free of our students and families.

Blaming families is easy.

The truth is, institutionally we have failed to bring the families of day school students along for the rides they have committed their children to, regardless of their motivations for doing so. Parents who themselves are unobservant and often Jewishly uneducated enroll their children in Jewish day schools for myriads of reasons – seeking their own Jewish journeys may be one them, but surely not always.

However, without the family – Judaism’s primary and preeminent educational institution – we are too often expecting too much of the children we are educating. It is not reasonable to expect children to be change agents for their parents. It is reasonable to use enrollment as the means to reach out to families and help move them with love along the path being carved out by their children.

What is being done?

Last year we launched an incentivization program that provided an extrinsic motivation designed to ensure sufficient attendance to allow for the much preferred intrinsic motivation of celebrating the joy of Jewish holidays with friends and community. I admit that I had – and have – reservations about this program. I worry that essentially bribing children to celebrate being Jewish is not a terrific message and in the long run may, in fact, be counterproductive. But we had to do something and something we did.

What happened?

Well we had more students last year for the first two days of Sukkot than in recent memory. And even if the momentum faded slightly for Passover and slightly more for Shavuot – last year’s “Journey Through The Jewish Holidays” was considered a success. We had more students than ever before AND we offered more programming than ever before. Lots of children got their Adventure Landing passes and their Jaguars tickets. And so we decided that we would do it again this year…

Well, now this year’s Sukkot has come and gone…and, although, we did have better turnout than we had two years ago, we did not match last year’s success, let alone build on it. And I would be naive to think that the fact that this year the holidays were connected to weekends did not contribute to this reduction in attendance…

Okay, so what else can we do?

Before I offer the provocative suggestion, I acknowledge the fatigue that comes with being in the same building day after day after day. And I am not immune to the ways in which life interferes in the best laid plans. I know how important extracurricular experiences and family vacations are. But I also know we can work together make Judaism come alive OUTSIDE the school – in shul and in homes – in powerful ways which only create more opportunities for sacred moments and lifelong memories.

And so I still believe that first and foremost, we can and must offer families compelling examples of synagogue life. Regardless of the age group being targeted, we have to provide appropriate, meaningful and spiritually satisfying experiences. I believe in Judaism and its ability to inspire. I believe if children and adults have an opportunity to learn and live Jewish lives, the positivity it generates becomes self-motivating. We have the responsibility to try to create those moments.

We also have a responsibility to ask for more and not settle for less.

I have been inspired by my colleague Stan Beiner, the Head of the Epstein School, in Atlanta who this year tried something bold. Despite the logistical challenges of not being housed or affiliated with any particular synagogue, he counted the first day of Sukkot as a day of school. He recently blogged about this experience and how positively it impacted his students, his parents, his school and his community.

And so I have charged our Day School Community to take on this question during our year of work together:

What would it mean for the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School to count the first two days of Sukkot as half-days of school that included appropriate celebration and programming?

Would we have more kids? Would we have more parents? Would we have more programming? Would it lead to the desired outcome – more families creating powerful Jewish memories?

I don’t know what we will decide. I do know it will be a conversation well worth having.

Feel free to begin now in the comments…

Lessons from Dad

It is amazing how much life takes place in a relatively short of amount of time. Three years ago, I blogged about my aspirations as a parent and a principal on this exact same day on the Jewish calendar – on the morning of what will soon be Kol Nidre and the beginning of Yom Kippur. They feel newly appropriate. Three years ago we were new to this community, this synagogue and this school. We had had a great transition and were full of excitement about what the future would bring. We had plans, hopes, dreams, fears, concerns and a whole host of other emotions.

And I had a father.

Of all the myriad of changes that has taken place between now and then, this one looms largest even though it is sometimes difficult day-to-day to always understand how. There are days when it feels like it happened years ago. There are days when it feels like it never happened. And there are days where it feels like it is happening all over again. I am assured that this is all normal and I am sure that it is.

So.

Now that I have been blogging for a few years, I am sometimes moved to revisit prior posts and see how they hold up over time. Occasionally, I am inspired to update in light of new realities. This is one of those times, as I revisit words of prayer written by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov from his Likutey Moharan (2:7) that now speak to me with the same words, but with new meaning…

Dear God,

teach me to embody those ideals

I would want my children

to learn from me.

Let me communicate

with my children – wisely

in ways

that will draw their hearts

to kindness, to deceny

and to true wisdom.

Dear God,

let me pass on to my children

only the good;

let them find in me

the values

and the behavior

I hope to see in them.

I now read those words of three minds – as a son who lost a father, as a parent of two and a principal of many. It reminds me why our faculty handbook quotes Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, saying, “We need to have more than textbooks, we need text-people”. We can have the best books, most well though-out curriculum, and the most sophisticated technology – and hopefully we either do or will soon – but without the right people what does it really amount to?

And we can have read all the best parenting books and have our children in all the best schools and extracurricular activities – but without us parenting as our best selves, what can it really mean?

Among our traditions during the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur include the act of teshuvah – the complicated act of acknowledging past wrongs, correcting past mistakes, promises of changed behavior, etc. For my part, please allow me apologize to all those I have wronged or hurt, intentionally or unknown over the past year. I look forward to working on myself to be the best “me” I can in the upcoming year. For me, my mother, my wife, my children, my family, my friends, my colleagues, my teachers, my students and their families – I hope this year to live up to the words of Rebbe Nachman and Rabbi Heschel.

And I hope to take the lessons of my father of blessed memory to heart as I now follow his footsteps on the journey of my own fatherhood…

The Transparency Files: MJGDS 2013-2014 Faculty, Part I

It has been a VERY busy week!

We were very proud to honor Liat Walker this week at our annual PTA Teacher Appreciation Dinner with the Jacksonville Jewish Center’s Men’s Club Martin J. Gottlieb Brit Hinukh Award, “given each Spring to one Teacher in the Center schools who best represents the life commitment necessary to bring a quality learning experience to Jewish children.” It was a well-deserved honor and a fun evening.

I am very appreciative of all the kind words and warm wishes I have received about my future plans. I have been thinking and reflecting about it all week and when I am ready, I will share my thoughts and feelings here in this space.

This weekend we are celebrating our annual L’dor V’dor event – this year honoring our retiring Youth Director, Gayle Bailys with a special Shabbat morning service and a Sunday event during which she will receive the 2013 Rabbi David Gaffney Leadership in Education Award. We are looking forward to an incredible weekend!

In the spirit of transparency, because we are a small community prone to well-meaning whispers and whatnot, I decided to split my my annual “Transparency Files” blog post with next year’s faculty assignments into two parts because I do want to make transparent a few issues of import that have become final and public this week.

As you may have already heard, MJGDS will be saying goodbye to a few veteran teachers this year. We have already publicly acknowledged that Silvia Tolisano, Susan Burkhart, Deb Kuhr and Jo-Ann Kagan will be leaving at the end of this school year. We are also saying goodbye to Cathleen Toglia, Marissa Tolisano, Megan DiMarco and Sara Luettchau. Each has contributed much to our school and each will be missed.

We have filled almost all the lead positions and are working to fill the assistant positions as well. I will lay out the entire new structure and composition of the faculty once it is complete, hopefully next week. But suffice it to say, that this has presented us with an opportunity to re-imagine our entire staffing structure in order to best meet our school’s needs. And I would like to take this opportunity to share a few key changes.

Stephanie Teitelbaum will be moving to the Middle School where she will become our new Middle School Language Arts Teacher. Having successfully introduced elements of the Daily 5 in Grades 4 & 5, as well as important advances in how to integrate 21st century learning into language arts instruction, she will now stabilize and secure excellence in Language Arts instruction for our Middle School. In addition to her new teaching responsibilities, she will join our 21st century learning team, providing coaching and support to our faculty, focusing primarily on our “Community of Kindness” initiative. We are confident that this is an important long-term decision which will benefit our entire school community.

When faced with the task of replacing Mrs. Teitelbaum, we were very cognizant of the high expectations she has left us with, as well as the new expectations we have created for pioneering 1:1 iPad usage in class. This is why, after having reviewed a number of resumes and having met with select candidates, we decided that the only way we could responsibly fill the position was to transition Andrea Hernandez back to the classroom where her successful career began. We have the Daily 5 because Mrs. Hernandez brought it to our school. We have become a leader in 21st century learning because Mrs. Hernandez pioneered the path. We would not be ready to go 1:1 with iPads if not for her expertise. If we can’t have Mrs. Teitelbaum, who better to jump in than the teacher who has been coaching her?

Mrs. Hernandez, having been a highly successful classroom teacher prior to coming to MJGDS, is very excited about returning to the classroom and being able to work more directly with students and parents to implement the creative and innovative programs she has been introducing through our faculty these last years. She is also excited to partner with Mrs. Zavon in this different structure, having worked with her as a coach.

These decisions have only become clear and final this week and this is the first opportunity I have had to share them publicly. I recognize that change – even positive change – can cause anxiety and that parents may have questions. I welcome those questions. Please feel free to email, call or drop in. We want you to be as excited about these changes as we are.

And we will share the rest of our faculty news next week.

As mentioned last week, we have now tallied the winners of our first (annual?) “Journey Through the Jewish Holidays” and would like to take this space to congratulate them. We will be handing out the Adventure Landing passes next week and the Jaguars tickets next fall.

We hope this incentive program was meaningful for the families who participated and, perhaps, could inspire more families to participate in the future. We would very much like to have your feedback on this program and whether or not it inspired your family.

The following students attended 5 out of the 10 days school was closed during the Pilgrimage Festivals (Sukkot, Passover and Shavuot) and will receive a free pass to Adventure Landing:

Kitah Gan: Morgan N.
Kitah Alef: Lily D., George S., Jacob M. & Maya L.
Kitah Bet: Aleeya S. & Saylor S.
Kitah Gimmel: Samantha L. & Isa Z.
Kitah Dalet: Samantha Z. & Arin N.

The following students attended 8 out of the 10 days (including 1 day of each holiday) and will receive a free pass to Adventure Landing and 2 free Jaguars Tickets:

Kitah Gan: Zach H. & Sadie H.
Kitah Alef: Hallel S., Lucy G. & Evan W.
Kitah Bet: Eva G., May A., Moses J., Daisy H., Alon S., Ariel O., Anna F., Eliana M. & Yisrael A.
Kitah Gimmel: Lial A. & Benjamin D.
Kitah Dalet: Elad O., Zach M. & Eliana J.
Kitah Hay: Elior L., Itamar L. & Benjamin C.
Middle School: Jake G., Josh F., Lily H., Max M. & Ryan M.

Congratulations to all! (And if there are any errors, please do let us know!)

Dugma Ivrit

There is a Hebrew expression often used in Jewish educational settings known as a dugma ishit – a personal example. We remind ourselves as leaders and our students (or campers or youth group members) of what it means to be a role model and an example to others. I take this concept seriously, not only for my teachers and students, but for me. As a Jewish educational leader, I should strive to be a dugma ishit. However, as I was reminded by my Jewish Studies Faculty last week, in a school like ours that prides itself on Hebrew language immersion, what that really means is that I must become a dugma ivrit.

My oldest daughter is now in Grade Two. Having attended preschools where she always had at least one Israeli teacher and being in a day school that utilizes the Tal AM curriculum, she has developed an authentic (and very cute) Israeli accent. She, like her classmates, have been listening to Hebrew for as long as they can remember and although they (naturally) vary in their abilities, they are comfortable speaking Hebrew.

Let me define “comfortable”.

The biggest difference between adult learners and child learners is self-consciousness. As an adult, I am very conscious when I make mistakes and, as an adult, I am uncomfortable making them. As a child, I am often less conscious when I make mistakes, but more importantly, as a child, I am comfortable making them – because that’s what learning is.

You can learn Hebrew as an adult. I did. I was in my 20’s attending ulpan as a prerequisite to begin graduate school before I spoke my first Hebrew sentence. I was a pretty good student and so I learned. But as I good as I ever got in the heart of my studies, I could never escape the heart palpitations when called upon to speak. What if I didn’t know the correct word? What if I mixed up my verb tenses or used the wrong grammatical construct? And so even though I have lots of Hebrew in my head and would be considered “fluent” by some, I still have to manually shift my brain and screw up my courage to speak. For example, Jewish Studies faculty meetings are typically conducted in Hebrew. And I am perfectly capable of participating. But when it is my turn to speak, I may get a few Hebrew sentences out, but will almost automatically switch to English.

Here’s the irony. (Or, perhaps, hypocrisy.)

I have been on a mission since arriving at the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School to up the intensity of our Hebrew immersion. I am the first one to call out Jewish Studies teachers if I hear any English spoken in the hallways, let alone the classroom. As an educator, I know that any hope at true second-language acquisition and authentic fluency is dependent on our ability to provide as pure an immersive environment as possible. And yet when Dr. Mitzmacher comes to teach prayer – I mean Tefillah – to First Grade – I mean Kitah Alef – he speaks to the children in English, while praying with them in Hebrew.

Some dugma ishit that guy is!

So after almost three years of hearing me preach Hebrew immersion (in English!), I finally got called out by our Jewish Studies Coordinator. Why don’t I speak to the kids in Hebrew when I am teaching Jewish Studies? If we want to truly be more of a bilingual school why don’t I make school announcements in Hebrew or speak Hebrew during school assemblies and other events?

Why don’t I?

Because it scares me.

What if I forget the words? What if I say it incorrectly? What if I get nervous and go blank? What will people think?

And for me it is about more than Hebrew. Because if a school prides itself on transparency and praises spirited failure, then it requires that leaders lead.

So even though it terrifies me I have set some new professional goals for next year. I am going to try to speak only in Hebrew when I am teaching Jewish Studies. I am going to try to include spoken Hebrew in major school events, like graduation. I am going to try to speak Hebrew during Jewish Studies faculty meetings. I am going to try to speak Hebrew with my daughters, even though my older one’s vocabulary will soon outsize mine. I am going to try and I am likely to fail. But I will keep trying.

Because that’s what it means to be a dugma ivrit.

The Impact of a Teen Israel Experience

This Sunday is Community University!

Community University is an annual day of learning for the Jewish Community of Jacksonville, cosponsored by the Jewish Federation of Jacksonville and the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School and in conjunction with local synagogues and agencies. Once created as a day of parallel learning for MJGDS parents, Community University (known until recently as “Family University” now serves as day of learning for the entire Jewish community, with programs for all ages and stages. [Online registration for Community University is now closed, but you are still welcome and encouraged to join us! Same-day registration is permitted.] The theme this year is “iNDEPENDENCE, iDEAS, and iNNOVATION: Israel on the Cutting Edge”. All our programming: Preschool, Elementary, Middle and High School AND Adult Learning will have Israel at the center as we celebrate Israel’s 65th birthday.

In addition to having responsibility for planning the youth education component, I have found an opportunity each year to teach adults. This year, I am offering the following:

The Impact of a Teen Israel Experience

With so many Jewish teens traveling to Israel, what happens when they return? Are there lasting impacts? This session will provide data and conversation for those who are considering sending their teens to Israel, parents who have teens who have spent time in Israel, and anyone who is passionate about Israel education. What can our local Jacksonville Jewish Community do to support teens who return from Israel experiences? Let’s discuss!

This topic is personal to me and that’s why I wanted to spend a few minutes reflecting on. Because like a lot of Jews of my generation, a teen Israel experience (along with camp) was a crucial step on my Jewish journey. It also was my very first job in Jewish education.

I first went to Israel in 1988 as part of our local Federation’s teen tour. It was an extraordinary experience and I met friends that summer that I am still close with today. I returned to Israel in 1992 as part of a NFTY in Israel summer experience. I unfortunately decided to pose in the awkward position you find me in the lower, righthand corner of this picture. Yes, my hair is shoulder-length. And yes, sadly, I am wear socks with sandals.

My very first job in Jewish education was working for the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Los Angles (BJE-LA) running teen programs, paramount of which was the LA Summer-in-Israel Ulpan. I cannot provide a link to the program because, unfortunately, it no longer exists, but for many years it was a signature summer-in-Israel program combining the regular touring experiences of other trips with an actual Hebrew ulpan for which students received high school and college credit. I spent the summers of 1997 and 1998 leading this trip and having an opportunity to provide teens with the experiences I had been blessed to have as a teen myself.

The power of the teen Isreal experience is real. Here’s excellent proof (Spoiler Alert: I will be showing this trigger video at Community University):

A 2011 study conducted by Ramie Arian and sponsored by the iCenter indicated the following:

Roughly 11,000 teens traveled to Israel in 2010 – almost the same number that participated in peer-trips to Israel in the late 1990s. One difference, however, is that over 130 agencies took teens to Israel in 2010.
The majority of teens traveled with youth organizations, middle schools, high schools, community trips and camps.
The mifgash is becoming a normative part of the teen Israel travel experience, with a few select groups extending it to the full length of their programs.

Based on two iCenter convenings of 30 teen Israel trip stakeholders, the following was underscored:

An experience in Israel must be seen as an essential component of Jewish Education. Ideally, students participate in multiple Israel Experiences over time.
The Israel Experience is most impactful as part of a Jewish Educational continuum (pre- and post-trip programming).
Teen years are critical from a developmental perspective to help form identity and relationships.

So what happens when teens return?

This is what I plan to discuss at Community University! But if you aren’t able to attend (or would rather attend someone else’s session!), I welcome your feedback in the comments.

This is NOT a hypothetical question! My Master’s Thesis for my MBA at the University of Judaism was a strategic plan for the creation of a program we created at the BJE called “IsraelPlus” – a program that continued the experience back home, found a place to channel the positive energy and excitement teens typically return home with, kept the Israel education and advocacy alive, and bridged the gap between the teen Israel experience and university. Of course, the lack of hyperlink indicates that that program, too, no longer exists, but it was a worthwhile attempt and it did morph into other important programs that still survive.

So I really mean it…what should our Jewish community do for teens returning from peak Israel experiences to ensure that enthusiasm for Israel doesn’t fade when summer does?

C-U@C-U!

Getting Ready for edJEWcon 5773.1

Who was the smart guy who didn’t build a travel day into this year’s Passover Break?

This guy!

It has been quite a short week recovering from Passover and preparing for a tremendous amount of important events and programs to bring us from now through the end of another terrific year at the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School. We are engaged in annual parent and faculty surveys. We are finalizing financial aid decisions. We have many important and exciting Jewish holidays to celebrate and experience. Our Middle School is off next week to Washington, D.C. We will have standardized testing to analyze and disseminate. We will have a graduation. We have our annual L’Dor V’Dor spring event (save the date coming soon!). We have a faculty to hire and new students to enroll. We have a gaming project to embark upon and we are just opening up our K-2 digital portfolios to sit alongside our existing 3-8 blogfolios.

Needless to say, there is plenty to do!

And smack dab in the middle of it all comes edJEWcon 5773.1!

Thanks again to the generosity of the AVI CHAI Foundation and the support of the Schechter Day School Network we will again welcome over 100 participants representing schools, agencies, foundations and universities from all over North American and Israel who are coming to Jacksonville, Florida to learn, reflect, share and co-create the future of Jewish day school education. Want to get excited? Check this out.

Want to get excited if you are not a Jewish educator, but care about education?

Even with the difficulty in scheduling between Jewish holidays, we are thrilled to not only have great turnout, but we have changed the conference from last year to this in a few important ways:

Requests for presentation were offered and we received back more than enough high-quality proposals to allow edJEWcon to be a conference by the field for the field.
We have built in reflection and collaboration to ensure the conference is simply the beginning of an ongoing conversation about teaching and learning.
We closed school on the Monday so that our faculty can more fully participate and benefit from the conference.
We have expanded our outreach to ensure that Chris Lehmann’s Keynote: “Building School 2.0 Creating the Schools We Need” is well attended by our local school community as well our larger Jewish and educational community here in Jacksonville.
Working with DSLTI, we will have a post-edJEWcon experience focused on leading cultural change in a 21st century learning organization facilitated by Jonathan Cannon.

So much gratitude and thanks goes to our 21st Century Learning Team who does the bulk of the conference preparation. Thanks to all the students, teachers, parents and stakeholders at the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School whose hard work allows us to host an edJEWcon. Extra thanks to those MJGDS teachers who are presenting this year! Much thanks to Karin Hallett and Silvia Tolisano for innumerable hours of work. Extra special thanks to Andrea Hernandez who steers the ship and who will very deservingly be giving the opening keynote.

We have a lot of work to do over the next three weeks to ensure edJEWcon’s success. But it is inspiring to know that the future of Jewish education is happening now…and it is happening here.

Stay tuned!

Setting Limits: Jewish Approaches to Parental Discipline

As far back as the time of the Mishnah, we have been faced with the challenge of setting limits for our teens and children. Archeologists have unearthed clay tablets, dating back more than six thousand years, that describe how the adults of the ancient Babylonian community were completely confounded by the behavior of their children.

Clearly, this is an old and familiar problem!

Great teachers remind us that our children’s behavior often may reflect more about us than about them. Children raised in a household permeated with tension, manipulation, dishonesty, distrust, or depression may act high-strung, deceitful, morose, uncaring, rebellious, unsure, listless, inattentive, or angry. A classic rabbinic parable tells of a man who opened a perfumery in a marketplace frequented by prostitutes and unsavory businesspeople. One day, the man caught his son in the company of prostitutes and in the midst of a deceitful business deal. Incensed, he began to shout insults and threats at his son. Finally, one of the merchants retaliated by asking the man what he expected his son to do and who he expected his son to become when he placed these influences in his environment.

Do you deal with conflict by exploding, pouting, surrendering, bullying or ignoring? Well, if you do, chances are that your children will study your responses acutely and imitate them consciously or unconsciously. As Saadia ben Joseph, the tenth-century gaon of the academy in Sura, Babylonia, observed: “Little children do not learn to lie until they are taught to do so.” Similarly, it is often the case that little children do not rant and rave, yell and scream, hit and pound, ignore and flee, or bully and bluster unless significant people in their lives do the same.

The Hebrew word for parents is horim, which comes from the Hebrew word hora’ah or instruction. We are the ones who gently guide our children to proper behavior by demonstrating it for them consistently and persistently. We are the ones who teach our children about appropriate responses to disappointment, threats, challenges, and provocation as much by our actions as by our instruction.

The Jewish approach to discipline advises us never to shame a child or attack his or her character. We are challenged to teach our children that particular behaviors, words, and attitudes are inappropriate, immoral, unjust, or unacceptable while at the same time showing them love, patience, and sensitivity. Guidance and instruction are best achieved in a relationship. If we hold them, hug them, and honor them as human beings in the eternal process of becoming, we manifest the divine, supernal qualities of compassion and wisdom that sustain Creation even when flawed. We become our children’s models and mentors and by our example and influence, contribute to the world’s blessings and our children’s health and wholeness.

What? No “model seder” this year?!

Regardless of whether the thought of not having a “model seder” to attend this year makes you happy or sad, it is time to revisit the “model seder”. What, exactly, is it supposed to accomplish? Do we need to do one in each grade? And if not, are there other Passover experiences we can offer families that might be nice to experience as well?

At the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School, we have been pretty consistently offering pretty consistent-feeling model seders for quite a while. Are they rehearsals for the main event? Are they just-in-case some families have no other Passover experience?

I admit that last year I hit a bit of a “model seder” wall. I had my own children’s to attend in both Preschool and Day School. And I had to make meaningful appearances at all of them. By the time we got to Passover itself, I really wasn’t in the mood for two more! I mean I love charoset, gefilte fish, and matzah as much as the next person…

We do believe in the “model seder”. The seder itself is amongst the most powerful pedagogies ever developed. Celebrating a holiday through reenactment is experiential education at its finest. We like it so much we have created them for Tu B’Shevat, Yom Ha’Atzmaut and holidays! And we do in the Jewish day school feel a certain pressure to provide Jewish experiences of holidays to ensure all our families have opportunities to participate. Hence, our monthly “All-School Kabbalat Shabbat” services and this year’s Shushan Purim (even though we lack walls, we felt we needed to acknowledge Purim in school even though it fell on a weekend this year). Outside of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, we celebrate the entire Jewish calendar in school – whether they fall during school or not. So we are not going to get rid of Passover. But maybe we can provide a differentiated educational experience?

The Jewish Studies Faculty and I met last spring after Passover to reflect and again this fall to plan, and we are pleased to share our plan for a K-8 differentiated Passover experience for MJGDS students and families:

Kitah Gan: First “Model” Seder
Kitah Alef: First Hebrew “Model” Seder
Kitah Bet: Hebrew Passover Play
Kitah Gimmel: Historical Reenactment “Model” Seder
Kitot Daley & Hay: A Passover Experience
Kitot Vav – Chet: Lead Seder at Mt. Carmel in partnership with JFCS

Each grade (or grade grouping) has its particular theme or experience (or both). Every student will have learned appropriate Passover material and each family will have a chance to have an appropriate Passover family experience. Hopefully, the differentiated experience will give our students something new to look forward to each year…and give our parents and families (particularly those with multiple children) something different to experience with each child.

Looking forward to all the pre-Passover excitement coming soon!

Postscripts:

We finished (except for makeups) our standardized testing this week! Click here for last year’s results and background information on our approach to testing.
We will soon be issuing our annual Parent Survey. Click here for last year’s results.

A Purim Prescription for Pediatric Judaism – A 5773 Remix

When we think about Purim as parents, we probably think most about this: What shall I dress my children as this year for Purim? But in a hopefully growing number of families, including ours, the question isn’t what are we going to dress our children as for Purim. In our family, we ask ourselves what are we going to dress as for Purim?

I would wager a bet that no more than 10-15% of families attending Purim services and/or carnivals this year will come in costume. Why?

The phenomenon is often referred to as “pedicatric Judaism” and I find that Purim is its paradigmatic Jewish holiday. I recently Googled “pediatric Judaism” to see who should get credit for its coinage and the best I could come up with was the following from a Reform Judaism Magazine article:

Why, then, the emphasis on what Rabbi Larry Hoffman, professor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, calls “pediatric Judaism”? “We have planned for our children only,” he wrote in 1996. “In our understandable anxiety to pass on Judaism as their heritage, we have neglected its spiritual resources for adults, leaving ourselves with no adequate notion of how we too might draw sustenance from our faith as we grow up and grow older.”

That sounds about right. Far too often, even those who are the most engaged – the ones who do affiliate with synagogues and do try to provide their children with Jewish educational experiences – we work to ensure our children experience and participate, but neglect to include ourselves.

When as a graduate student in Los Angeles, I first attended a synagogue in which adults participated in Jewish holiday celebrations as adults – active, joyous and engaged – it was almost surreal. This was not a Judaism for children – costume contests, parades, pony rides and candy (although that may all have been there as well) – but a Judaism that adults took seriously for themselves. They were not lining the walls watching the children within; they were celebrating the joy of being Jewish for themselves.

What’s the danger of “pediatric Judaism”? For me it is the perpetuation of the idea that being Jewish, or perhaps more accurately doing Jewish, is something that is only for children. We are our children’s most powerful role models and teachers and they are surely paying attention. When they can see that we take something seriously, it is a signal to them that they ought to as well. Children learn how to be an adult by watching our adult behaviors. We understand this as parents and so we think carefully about how we behave in front of our children, what kind of language we use, and what kind of values we express and try to live by. So, too, it is with being a Jewish adult. Our children are looking to us to see what adult Jews do and it presents us with a big opportunity and a huge responsibility.

I don’t wish to pile on parents. Jewish schools and institutions play a part as well. If Rabbi Hoffman is correct that adult Jews do not see in Judaism a resource to find their spiritual needs met, we have to be willing to ask the difficult question of why? What programs, classes, experiences, outreach, etc., have we not successfully offered or facilitated that have led to this situation?

We will all need to do more if we are ever to cure ourselves of pediatric Judaism. In our schools and our synagogues, we need to reach out to parents and provide them with the support, education, experiences and love they will need to find the courage to try on new ideas and behaviors. We will need to present a Judaism worthy of the education and sophistication of our parents. Luckily, Judaism contains within it all that and more.

One example of taking our adult population more seriously at the Jacksonville Jewish Center? This year’s “Purim Unmasked” (click here) is a concrete attempt to reach the needs of adult Jews – an evening celebration sans children to celebrate the joy of being Jewish! We are hopeful for a strong turnout.

Proof us adults can let our hair down come Purim time?

So this year…what are you going to be for Purim? Don’t let your children have all the fun…and don’t let them think that the fun of Purim is only for them!

And if you live here in Jacksonville and are looking for a place to celebrate…join us!

It Just Got Real (MJGDS Got Game)

As you can see, the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School will surely remember this Chanukah season for years to come! In addition to celebrating the joy of the holiday season and fulfilling the mitzvah of giving back to those in need, this will be the Chanukah that marks our school’s next step on the journey of 21st century learning. This is the moment that the last few years of cutting-edge experimentation and (sometimes) lonely trailblazing begins to pay off in tangible, real-world ways. There have been signs along the way, perhaps edJEWcon being the most significant, because that was the first clear and direct signal that the world of education was paying attention to what our Jewish day school in Jacksonville was doing – a minor miracle in its own right! But with this week’s announcement, our school takes another, perhaps more significant leap into the future.

21st century learning just got real y’all.

In July, I blogged the following:

And I have been recently working with Nicky Newfield, Director of Jewish Interactive, on potential new projects. Although I have no groundbreaking program or initiative to announce at present…I am quite confident that all this thinking and collaboration will yield exciting fruit, and soon.

You can read the entire blog post, here. And although from July to December, some of the details have shifted, the big idea remains intact. Allow me to refresh you…

The last three years in my position as Head of the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School, a K-8 Schechter Network Day School of nearly 130 students located in Jacksonville, Florida, has overlapped with an explosion of interest in 21^st century learning and educational technology. In large ways, our school has been shaped by the works of leading figures in this educational movement – Heidi Hayes Jacobs, Alan November, Mike Fischer, and Chris Lehmann to name just a few. And in small ways, I believe our school has contributed to the movement as well, by serving as a living laboratory and our creation of edJEWcon – a yearly institute for 21^st century Jewish day school education, launched in 2012 with 21 Jewish Day Schools throughout North America and representing the full ideological spectrum. As our work in this area deepens each year, new opportunities for innovation arise. It has become to clear to us that gaming and gaming theory represent the next frontier.

A leading feature of 21^st century learning is giving students the opportunities to own the learning. Knowing that Bloom’s Taxonomy recognizes “creativity” as the highest rung on

the ladder, we are interested in giving our students opportunities to create meaningful, authentic work. From a motivational standpoint, gaming provides us with a tangible example of our target audience spending hours upon hours failing to achieve! But rather than becoming despondent, kids find this kind of failure motivating – they will spend hours and days working on new skills and seeking new discoveries in order to accomplish their goal. Deep gaming allows for the possibility of harnessing students’ desire for creativity and motivation for success to the curricular aims of a school.

Although this would apply to any aspect of the curriculum, it is in Middle School Jewish Studies where perhaps the greatest opportunity lies. It could be because the current quality of curricular materials is less. It could be because student motivation for Jewish Studies is oftentimes less in, at least, some kinds of Jewish day schools. It could be that for some students virtual Jewish experiences may the only Jewish experiences (outside of school) available. For those reasons, and for the benefits of creating integrated curricular learning experiences between secular academics, STEM and Jewish Studies that many Jewish Day Schools find desirable either for expediency, mission or both, we believe the creation of a virtual gaming environment built around Jewish studies has the greatest academic and commercial potential.

And that leads me to this week’s exciting announcement. Our work with Jewish Interactive and with Rabbi Tal Segal in particular, led to today’s exciting press release. Again, you may read the whole post here, but allow me to quote below.

We are pleased to announce that Jewish Interactive will be embarking on a joint project with the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School of Jacksonville, Florida, where students will be designing from the ground up an educational Chanukah video game. Jewish Interactive will actually build the software, to be released in advance of next Chanukah for use in their current network to more than 50 elementary schools around the world.

In this jointly planned and executed cross-curricular project, MJGDS students will first learn about the software development cycle and form project teams, each receiving a specific role, e.g.:

 Project manager

 Content expert

 Instructional designer

 Gaming expert

 Graphic artist

 Programmer

 Animator

 Sound effects

Students will research and gather the Jewish content to be included in their game, develop a curriculum and learning objectives, script an instructional game design, and develop characters and graphics. Every step of the process will be supported and guided by the team and educators at MJGDS and the Jewish Interactive team.

The MJGDS team has been a leader of innovation and entrepreneurship in the field, and a strong voice of change and advancement, most noticeably through their edJEWcon initiative, a conference for Jewish schools and institutions on 21st century teaching and learning, and the cross-curricular use of technology in their own school, sharing Jewish Interactive’s vision.

Jewish Interactive is thrilled to embark on this joint initiative with MJGDS and to pioneer the involvement of students at the very core of the learning experience.

Did you see their faces in the opening video? Do you think those students will be excited to learn in years to come? Do you think their motivation to excel academically will be at its highest?

In this Chanukah season, we’re betting “yes” and have pushed all our gelt to the middle of the table. A great miracle happened there…but we have miracles up our sleeves right here in Jacksonville, Florida to celebrate as well.

Chag Chanukah Sameach!