Do I have a stake in who my students are when they are not in school?

(Am I my brother's keeper?)

We are completing our third week of school today (!) and I wanted to take an opportunity to reflect on a question that bubbles up from time to time that I struggle to provide a clear answer to.  It gets asked in lots of different ways, but essentially boils down to the same idea: Do I or does the “school” have a responsibility to address behaviors that take place outside the bounded times and spaces of school?

Typically the question is specific to an incident of negative behavior, although it is just as fair to ask about positive behavior as well, and I intend to address both.

Jewish day schools are in the character-building business.  It is a significant motivation for parents to enroll their children in our schools.  We care at least as much about who our students are as we care about what they can accomplish.  We utilize Jewish value language across the curriculum to reinforce the idea that being a mensch is not something one does only in certain classes, but something one is all day long.  Our teachers, along with our clergy, work hard all day to ensure that our school lives up to the ideal of being a community of kindness.  And even during school we struggle to achieve our goal.  That’s precisely why we launched the “Community of Kindness” initiative in the first place.  [Click here for a recap.]  We recognized that in order to become that community it required all of our schools working together with our clergy to build the safe, loving environment our children deserve.  But even this important new initiative emphasizes what happens under our watchful eye.

What about the text sent out at 9:00 PM?

What about the play-date on Sunday?  Or the ones some children are not invited to?

What about the hallways during Shabbat services?

Let me be clear that I am purposefully leaving parents out of this behavioral equation. Not because I either blame parents for their children’s behavior nor because I abdicate parents of their responsibility to effectively parent.  I am simply asking a different question.  If I witness or discover noteworthy behavior of my students when we are not technically in school, what exactly are my responsibilities to respond or react?  Do I have a stake in who my students are when they are not in school?

The simple answer is “yes”.  I care deeply about who our students are when they are not in school because how they behave when no one is watching matters a whole lot more than how they behave under close supervision.  That’s the true measure of character. That’s derekh eretz.

OK, that part is simple.  I am proud when students behave well outside of school and disappointed when they don’t.  But do I share those feelings with them?  Do I share those feelings with their parents?  Is it my place to hold them accountable for those behaviors?Those are the vexing questions I struggle to answer effectively – especially when the behaviors are grey.

The black-and-white ones are easy; they always are when the level of behavior is so significant it cannot be ignored.  We already engage parents when we discover social events where students are excluded.  We already employ effective discipline when students bully outside school walls and times.  We already impose consequences if the physical facility is harmed after hours.  And on the positive end of the spectrum, we already celebrate students who are honored elsewhere.  We already praise students for their outside academic achievements (i.e. high school placement).  We already highlight students who perform significant acts of lovingkindness outside of school.

The grey ones are more complicated; they always are when the level of behavior is insignificant enough that it can be, and often is, ignored.  We don’t always engage parents to ensure all our students have access to frequent play-dates and smaller social opportunities.  We don’t always praise students for their random acts of lovingkindness outside of school.  We often ignore disruptive behavior on Shabbat and holidays because we are ostensibly “off-duty” and we surely do not call those students to account for those behaviors when next back in school.  And we don’t properly incentivize participation in Shabbat and holiday celebrations so important we are willing to close school.

I am no longer willing to stand on the sidelines.

With regard to “community of kindness” we say that we will know if the program is taking hold if students on their own are willing to address their own behavior or that of their friends.  That children will be willing to say to themselves and to each other that “we do not behave like that here”.  To me this is no different.  We need to do a better job instilling pride of school, pride of academy and pride of self in our students so that they feel the responsibility of representation outside our direct reach.  A Galinsky Academy student simply does not behave like that.  A Galinsky Academy student behaves with derekh eretz whether they are in school, synagogue, the football game, or the mall.

I have a role to play and I am working up the courage to empower myself to do it.  If I am made aware of discouraging behavior, I will share my disappointment regardless of when or where it took place.  If I am made aware of positive behavior, I will share my pride regardless of when or where it took place.  They will know that I have high expectations.  They will know that we treasure their participation in Shabbat and holiday celebrations and have announced a new program to incentivize it.

The older ones will know that I don’t issue a character reference or a principal recommendation lightly.  If you want me to recommend you to a high school, an honors society, or even to babysit, you will earn that recommendation by making for yourself a good name.

My students will know that I care who they are and that who they are matters.

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Our Civic Responsibility

Typically when I prepare to write a blog post, I do a little bit of research.  I am very rarely, if ever, writing about something that someone else smarter or more experienced hasn’t already discussed elsewhere.  I enjoy that research, even if it does require quite a bit of time and a lot of cyber-linking!  But as we move out of the Republican Convention, into the Democratic Convention, and towards a hotly contested presidential election, I wanted to inoculate myself from outside information and speak purely from the heart about what role I believe all schools, Jewish day schools in general, and our school specifically should play in educating our students to appreciate and exercise their civic responsibility as members of a democratic society.

This will be my second straight swing state (say that five times fast!) election.  Four years ago I was in Nevada and now I live in Florida.  I recognize how passionate people are.  I appreciate how emotionally-laden the conversation can become.  The issues of the day are serious – war, the economy, social issues, etc.  It is no surprise with the stakes so high that people can become extremely sensitive.  Politics can also be personal and defenses automatically are raised.  Watching the discourse fly back and forth on Facebook or Twitter, even with people I know well, can be disconcerting.  It doesn’t take much for a conversation to veer off course into unkind territory.

Our responsibility as a school seems simple, straightforward and entirely non-controversial.  We should educate our students as to how our political system works.  We should teach them the history of American politics.  We should instill in them the desire to participate fully in the political process and to proudly exercise their right to vote.  We should encourage them to seek truth so that their beliefs and attitudes about how government should work (one of the definitions of “politics“) are rooted in objective reality.  They should learn to be respectful of differing opinions and to always keep an open mind.  And they should honor the office of president regardless of who holds it.

I can hear alarm bells ringing in people’s minds.  We are not here to promote a political ideology.  Our students should be largely, if not entirely, unaware of a teacher’s personal political leanings.  We respect that our families represent the full spectrum of political viewpoints.  But no matter how many times I’ve reread the above paragraph I cannot find anything in it remotely partisan or worthy of disagreement.  And if you do, by all means write a “quality comment” and let me know.

For me, as an educator, the most difficult trend in political discourse, which impacts our ability to help students “seek truth” is the seeming inability to agree on an objective truth – about just about anything.  This is particularly challenging in schools where the ability to develop critical thinking skills is amongst our highest responsibilities.  Facts are facts and opinions are opinions.  Or at least they used to be.

As facts themselves have been called into question, politicized, and debated, it makes it more challenging for schools to play their proper role.  We want to provide students with the tools and skills they need to discern truth from fiction, fact from opinion.  Armed with facts, they can then form informed opinions.  When we cannot collectively point to a fact and call it “fact” any hope for intelligent debate fades away.  What is a school (or society) to do?

Presidential elections are an exciting time to be an American citizen.  As an American Jewish day school, it is a powerful opportunity to demonstrate how to have complicated and important conversations in accord with our highest values.  We are all made in God’s image, regardless of political affiliation!  At the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School we will remind our students of that fact while encouraging their informed opinions.

To stay on the sidelines for fear of political correctness would be an abnegation of our responsibility.  So all we can do is our best. We try to live up to our ideals.  We teach facts.  We provide respectful space for opinions.  We encourage civic participation.

We witness history and celebrate the miracle of our democracy.

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Shofar so good!

The very first thing we do at the beginning of each school year is gather together as a school community and celebrate the ceremony of Havdalah.  Havdalah literally means “separation” and is the ceremony that marks the transition between Shabbat and the weekday.  Because of its length (short), melody, and prominence in Jewish camping, Havdalah is a relatively popular ritual even with those who are less ritually observant.  Part of what makes any ritual powerful is its ability to infuse the everyday with transcendent meaning.  My small way to lend transcendence to the typical “Back to School” assembly is to use the power of Havdalah to help mark the transition between summer and the start of school.

And so this past Monday morning, the students and faculty of the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School marked the transition between the summer that was and the school year that is presently unfolding with a heartfelt Havdalah.

I told my faculty during “Pre-Planning Week” (click here for a reflection of that week) that I had never been this excited for the start of a school year in my 8 years as a head of school.  All the work of the last two years combined with a cast of talented, dedicated, loving, enthusiastic returning and new teachers (click here for a list) has led us to this point.  We are as ready as we have ever been to deliver on the the promise of “a floor, but no ceiling”.  And this first week has more than lived up to my expectations.

It has been wonderful to walk the school, to feel the positive energy oozing through the walls and see the smiling faces of our students and parents.  As we say this time of year, “Shofar so good!”

Our newest faculty members are acquitting themselves with great aplomb and our returning teachers have plenty of new tricks up their sleeves to mix with their tried and true excellence.  We are focused on ensuring that we take the time at the beginning of the year to create classroom communities of kindness.  We have added 33% more faculty to lunchtime supervision to make sure the good work of the morning doesn’t fall through the cracks of lunch.  The first week of the departmentalization of Grades 4 & 5 has been a success (with the normal amount of confusion newness brings) and evidence of the power of looping (click here for a fuller description of how we approach Grades 4 & 5) is already manifest.  Dedicated science instruction in the Lower School (click here for our Lower School schedule and rationale) is a success.  And in my meetings with faculty to lay out their professional development plans for the year, I can see the impact their summer reading (click here) is already having on their practice.  If the next thirty-nine weeks go as well this one, the 2012-2013 school year will, indeed, be a very special one.  Be excited.

 

Two business notes and a personal one…

Our annual PTA Magazine Drive kicks off next week with an assembly.  This year’s drive, one of our biggest fundraisers, will take place over two weeks.  It will, like last year, have incentives to encourage student participation.  [It won’t be frogs this year and no one is being “kidnapped”, but I can’t give the schtick away here!]  We took in a lot of feedback last year, the first one in which the administration and faculty actively participated, and based on that feedback have made a few adjustments to ensure the most positive experience possible.  Although it is a fundraiser and the only way those funds are raised is through the selling of magazines, we have worked with our vendor to put “literacy” out in front as the primary motivation for purchasing a magazine.  It will be, we hope, as much a literacy campaign as anything else.  And, therefore, in addition to earning tokens through sales, students will also have opportunity to earn tokens through reading.  In addition, we have scaled back the opportunities for trading and the overall length of the drive to reduce distractions and to prevent student enthusiasm from encroaching on academic time.  Finally, in a developmentally appropriate way, we will explore how to explain to students why our schools, like most schools, engage in fundraising activities.  That will, we believe, provide meaningful context.  We are looking forward to our best magazine drive yet!

 

The “book” on edJEWcon is out!  Thanks to Silvia Tolisano for compiling this amazing  document of edJEWcon 5772.0’s tremendous success.

edjewcon5772-0

Save the date: edJEWcon 5773.1 – April 28-30, 2013!

 

And on a personal note, lots of people have asked me if the cover girl on the newest volume of “Voices of Conservative Judaism” (click here for the whole PDF) is my oldest daughter, Eliana.  It, in fact, is!  United Synagogue asked all the Schechter schools to submit photos over a year ago for possible publication and without any notice, my daughter wound up in people’s mailboxes this week.  I can ensure you that no nepotism was involved, but we certainly appreciate seeing our daughter (circa two years ago when she was in Kindergarten) on the cover.  As you can tell from the picture above, she gratefully takes after her mother.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to let us know that they saw it!

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Putting it All Together

What a week!  I want to use this week’s blog post to add some closing thoughts to recent weeks’ blog posts, tying some threads together, as we officially open school on Monday.

Thread #1:

I blogged last week, here, about what we would be doing this week in our annual Faculty Pre-Planning Week and writing on a Friday afternoon, it has been a tremendously positive, energizing, motivating and informational week culminating in Thursday’s “Meet & Greet” for Grades K-5 and today’s “Middle School Orientation”.  We are ready to go!

Here we were on our opening World Cafe (click here for more info):

The lead question was about “mentoring” and here is one sample of how our conversation unfolded:

We collected all the creative output of our cafe and uploaded it to our faculty ning for further conversation and collaboration.

Another highlight was an opportunity to gather with our Galinsky Academy colleagues in the DuBow Preschool for some team-building activities:

We had a fantastic week and cannot wait until Monday!

 

Thread #2:

I blogged a few weeks ago, here, about our amazing cast of new and returning faculty & staff.  There were a few gaps that I updated through postscripts in future blogs, but one gap had until now been left unexplained.  While I was on vacation, Jessie Roman, who had served ably as our secondary support staff person in the Day School for over seven years, informed me that she had accepted an opportunity too important to her family’s well-being to pass up.  We understood and continue to wish her well in her new endeavor.  She is missed.

We have quickly gone through a search and interview process to find a capable replacement.  I am pleased to announce that we have identified a new employee and have signed her to a contract.  Technically we are still awaiting background data to confirm her employment, so I cannot, as of now, share her name.  But pending a surprise, she will begin her work a week from Monday.  I will share her name as soon as she clears!

Recognizing we have been one person short in our office this month and next week, we appreciate your patience.  We’ll be back to full speed soon.

 

Thread 3:

I blogged more recently, here, about the official launch of the first Galinsky Academy initiative: Creating a Community of Kindness.  It began this week with our teachers, and continues next Monday at our annual PTA-sponsored “Back to School” brunch for Preschool and Day School parents with information sharing on the new project.  [NOTE: This will be repeated for teachers and parents in the Bernard and Alice Selevan Religious School at their upcoming Faculty Orientation and PTA-sponsored “Back to School” brunch.  All Makom Hebrew High teachers also work in another Galinsky Academy school and received their information there.]

In the spirit of transparency, I wanted to share with you the overall vision for that program as has been worked out by the professionals of the Academy, the clergy of the Jacksonville Jewish Center, and our partners at Jewish Family & Community Services.  It is a starting point – a work in progress – not the entirety.  As data is collected (surveys in September across the Academy), we will revise to keep the project moving forward in the right directions.  Here, however, is at least where we will begin:

Outline for Curriculum for 2012-2013

Galinsky Academy

The purpose of this program is to create a community of kindness amongst students, teachers and parents within Galinsky Academy. This curriculum is intended to support what is already being taught with the message of Chesed throughout the religious institution.  The plan would be to kick-off this program prior to the beginning of the school year with teachers during pre-planning week and we would be available to do similar with parents.

For the DuBow Preschool:

  • Facilitating classroom activities based upon the themes of the monthly Character Words.  Examples of activities include assisting teachers in creating a monthly classroom bulletin board and leading an activity that corresponds to the monthly reading of a PJ Library book.
  • Utilizing the book Conscious Discipline by Dr. Becky A. Bailey as a resource to develop classroom activities to support teachers plan/agendas
  • How to take home what is being learned and processed in school: Examples include facilitating conversations with parents and teachers about how to create a community of caring, implementing specific projects that can be done at home with their children and brought back to school, classroom projects with teachers  (i.e.; creating Tzedakah boxes)

For the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School:

  • School-wide projects  (part of this will include engaging the student council—attending the monthly meetings with them to encourage their support and involvement in activities) Examples include: creating themed bulletin boards about definitions/examples of caring, implementing peer to peer support groups, implementing a school-wide award system/acknowledgment of students acts of kindness, an award system for teachers, implementing a system/plan for parents to recognize teachers/staff
  • Classroom workshops and projects— would include an activity (with processing upon completion), then leaving teachers with worksheets/mini-projects for follow-up to do in classroom and/or send home with kids

For the Bernard & Alice Selevan Religious School & Makom Hebrew High:

  • Teacher workshops.  Possible topics include: how to facilitate communication with parents and with students, how to recognize special needs and emotional issues in children, how to encourage peer to peer support amongst students, assertiveness training, bullying prevention ideas
  • In-classroom projects with follow-up activity for child to bring home and do with parent(s)
  • Teacher coaching–initial meeting with teacher about classroom issue(s), then observe classroom and make suggestions (behavioral management)

Examples of possible workshops for students

  • Value of friendship–how we choose friends
  • Hands-on sensitivity training—“walking in their shoes” (bring in guest speaker to help understanding physical and emotional disabilities—have students walk blindfolded, etc.)  Focusing on accepting differences and strengths, what makes each of us unique
  • Self-esteem/empowerment topics
  • Communication—how to talk to your parents or those in authority
  • Why do we bully? (classroom and cyber)—what to do when you see bullying occur
  • Dealing with conflict
  • Healthy boundaries/healthy relationships
  • Assertiveness vs. aggressiveness
  • Role-playing—practicing kindness—what to say to peers, processing discussion
  • Classroom project/team-building—how to make the classroom a safe place

Examples of possible workshops for teachers and parents

  • Recognizing signs of bullying behavior (including cyber and classroom); threats to our children
  • Recognizing possible mental health issues/needs
  • Coaching on how to talk to parents about sensitive topics (for teachers)
  • How to talk to student/child in a way they will understand

Putting into Action/Other learning opportunities

  • Field trips and Mitzvah projects: 1-2x a year kids will go off-site to volunteer with another agency which provides services to children (Sulzbacher, Community Connections, etc.)
  • Availability to meet with parents and teachers—before or after school day, during summer, before holidays, etc.
  • Acceptance of referrals for short-term counseling and/or crisis intervention
  • Availability for classroom management intervention/suggestions per request from staff
  • Availability for specific interventions with child and/or family related to bullying issue
  • Follow-up sessions with aggressors or victims of bullying on an on-call basis
  • Pre and post tests/evaluations of knowledge and resources available to students

Resources

Books by Dr. Becky A. Bailey—Shubert series and Conscious Discipline

Employee certified in training of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits

Stephen Covey— The Leader in Me

 

Tying those three threads, along with others, together helps create the fabric of what will surely be an amazing year in the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School and the Galinsky Academy.

Off to enjoy a restful Shabbat and to get ready for an amazing week!

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The Transparency Files: Faculty Pre-Planning Week

Here we are again!  It is the Friday before Pre-Planning Week and the building is full of energy and excitement as boxes are unpacked, files organized, plans established, etc., as we prepare for our teachers on the 13th and our students on the 20th.  Another summer has come and gone and the 2012-2013 school year is ready to begin!

I blogged, here, about how we intended to use our summer vacation for personal and professional development.  “Pre-Planning Week” is our first opportunity to come together as a faculty and staff to share the results and plan implementation into the next school year.  It is a week for preparation, planning and motivation.  It is a liminal week hanging between what was and what is yet to be.  How will we take yet another step closer to being the school we are becoming?  What new programs or ideas will take shape and impact the lives of children and families?  How will we be better teachers and administrators this year?  What will we learn from our students and parents?

The birth of a new year is always exciting because everything is possible!

In the spirit of transparency and constantly putting our schedule where our mouths are, I thought it would be useful to share a taste of what our teachers will be doing this week and link those topics to the major philosophical ideas that guide our school’s mission and vision.

We will begin our week with a protocol I use to kick off each year:

The World Café
Using seven design principles and a simple method, the World Café is a powerful social technology for engaging people in conversations that matter, offering an effective antidote to the fast-paced fragmentation and lack of connection in today’s world.

Based on the understanding that conversation is the core process that drives personal, business, and organizational life, the World Café is more than a method, a process, or technique – it’s a way of thinking and being together sourced in a philosophy of conversational leadership.

This year’s kick-off question: “How can our willingness to mentor and be mentored take our school to the next level?”

The DuBow Preschool (you won’t believe how beautiful it looks after its summer renovation!) will join us for annual team-building.  This year we will unpack what it means for us to be joined together as part of Galinsky Academy by treating this Wordle as a piece of text:

Other highlights of the week will include a training with Dr. Mae Barker, a Senior Behavior Analyst at Florida Autism Consultants & Educational Services entitled “The Recipe for the Successful Inclusion”.  This fits with our ongoing desire to meet the different needs of all our students – it is the very definition of “a floor, but no ceiling”.  [For a fuller explanation of “inclusion” and what it means at MJGDS, click here.]

Our teachers will present their summer “homework” in our first-ever “21st Century Book Club”.  For a refresher on what books our teachers read this summer and why, click here.

And in addition to the studying with our clergy, meeting in teams to plan curriculum and projects, and receiving training and coaching in iPad implementation, SMART Board instruction, blogging, etc., we will kick off our new “Creating a Community of Kindness” initiative (click here for a full description) with our first session with our partner in this project, Jewish Family & Community Services.

All of that AND a series of individual meetings with families, a “Meet & Greet”, and a Middle School Orientation…it will be quite a week!

Two quick bookkeeping notes:

Summers do bring their surprises.  Whilst I was away on vacation, we made a change in the Fourth Grade Assistant Teacher position.  I am pleased to welcome Sara Luettchau to our MJGDS family!  She graduated last year from UNF with her degree in education and brings great enthusiasm and fresh ideas to our team.

On a sadder note, we also said goodbye to Jessie Roman who had been an administrative assistant for the Day School (as well as our Youth Department and Religious School) for the last seven years.  We wish her well in her new endeavor.  As I type, we have narrowed our search to three excellent candidates and look forward to having a new person in place by the start of the school year.

The flip-flops have been replaced by socks and dress shoes.  It is go time!  Can’t wait for Monday!

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The Transparency Files: Lower School Schedule

For those of us in the Southeast, the snowball of summer has crested and is headed downhill towards the start of another amazing school year!  Teachers report on August 13th and the first day of school is August 20th.

Really!

A housekeeping note before diving into this week’s post:

We are fully staffed for the 2012-2013 school year.  I am pleased to introduce our “final four” who will round out the faculty of new and returning teachers I introduced here:

  • Cathleen Toglia will be teaching Sixth Grade Math & Seventh Grade Pre-Algebra.  She comes certified for teaching math in both elementary and high school and a has a wealth of excellent teaching experience.
  • Kara Alford will be our First Grade Assistant Teacher.  She comes certified for teaching elementary education and has experience as a lead First Grade Teacher.
  • Ryisha Flowers will be our Fourth Grade Assistant Teacher.  She is currently a student at the University of North Florida where she is working on her degree in Special Education.
  • Megan DiMarco will be our Kindergarten Assistant Teacher.  She is finishing up her Florida Teaching Certification at the Educators Preparatory Institute and has held a similar position at a school in South Florida for the last two years.

We welcome our final four and look forward to great things in the year to come!

Segue.

Well, it took a great deal of time to plan, plot and format, but as promised, I want to share the new schedules for Grades 1-5.  Similar schedules for K & 6-8 are being finalized, by the way, but for those grades it is more a work of translation.  Although I do not believe there is much new in these schedules, our desire to publish them stems from two places:

  • The desire to break down “General Studies” into “Language Arts”, “Math”, “Science” and “Social Studies”.  It is important that we have accountability for a complete secular academic schedule, particularly for Science and Social Studies.
  • We want to dismiss once and for all the idea that students in (at least this) Jewish Day School have a “less than” secular academic experience than our friends at other secular independent schools or public schools.  With our extended day, careful scheduling, and mission-driven choices, we believe our students have similar time on task with regard to secular academics as anyone else.  To repeat – families who choose the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School are not sacrificing secular academics for the sake of Jewish Studies.  They are choosing a full secular academic program (and a pretty excellent one at that!) with the benefit of a world-class Jewish studies program.

The proof is in the pudding…or, in this case, the schedule.

[Now this is our first go around with the new format so there are some kinks that need to be worked out.  Not every teacher included every activity (recess) on the schedule.  And a few teachers have some features unique to them.  So please don’t sweat the small stuff or make assumptions…if you have a specific question about your child(ren)’s schedule, go right ahead and shoot me an email or make a call.]

Without further adieu…

I will be off next week on a family vacation, but back working and blogging the week after.  Enjoy these last weeks of summer…but be excited by what will be waiting for you when you come back (I wonder if they did any work on the second floor this summer)!

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The Official Launch of the “Creating a Community of Kindness” Initiative!

[NOTE: For a more expanded read of my blog on Jewish gaming from last week, here, please check out my guest blog for Jewish Interactive, here.]

I am thrilled to announce the first-ever initiative of the new Galinsky Academy [the home for all the schools of the Jacksonville Jewish Center including the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School, the DuBow Preschool, the Bernard & Alice Selevan Religious School and Makom Hebrew High] will be an exciting pilot program called “Creating a Community of Kindness”!  We will be launching at the beginning of the school year and partnering with Jewish Family & Community Services a sustained, meaningful, comprehensive program that will not only include our schools, but also our clergy, to ensure the fullest participation and the maximum impact possible.

Thanks to Colleen Rodriguez and Rachel Weinstein from JFCS for working with our school professionals and clergy to draft a program and a curriculum we are excited to bring to life in the month and year ahead!

Our plan from the beginning (you can catch up on some of our early thinking on the subject, by clicking, here, here and here), has been to avoid the one-shot assemblies or training that have some, but fleeting impact on the lives of our students, teachers, and parents and move to something deeper and more powerful.

Our assumptions are as follows:

  • Survey data from our schools indicates that the most prevailing form of “bullying” or “mean” behaviors throughout our institution are those of social exclusion.
  • Our students, academically, know what the right thing to do is.  But many suffer from a pervasive “by-standerism” that prevents rightful action from occurring.
  • The schools are capable of responding appropriately once behaviors happen.  The reactionary system is working appropriately, by and large.
  • We need to create a culture that reduces, if not eliminates, those kinds of behaviors from happening in the first place.  We lack a proactive system.
  • It will take students, parents, teachers, administrators, volunteers, and clergy working together to create a common vocabulary and to build a culture where a child of 3, a teen of 15, and a parent would each be equally willing to come forward when faced with “mean” behaviors and articulate that this is not how we behave here.

We will know we have succeeded when we hear peers tell each other that…

“We don’t let friends eat by themselves here.”

“We don’t let our classmates play by themselves on the playground.”

“Of course you could be my math partner!”

“No one works by themselves on class projects here.”

“We invite all our friends to birthday parties in our community.”

 

You can supply your own appropriately positive quote.  But we will know the culture has shifted when those kinds of expressions are voluntarily offered, not teacher prompted. We will begin next month with teacher workshops during all each school’s “Preplanning Week” or “Faculty Orientation”.  We will also present more information at upcoming PTA-sponsored “Back to School” brunches for each of our schools.

I cannot think of a better first-initiative for our Academy to engage in.  I am looking forward to taking a major step forward next year to becoming the Academy our students deserve.  Parents looking to get involved are welcome to!  Feel free to comment on the blog or email me directly at [email protected].  [Those interested in seeing the details of the plan are welcome to contact me directly for a copy.]

Enjoy the remaining weeks of summer, knowing that upon your return the work of ensuring our children a safe and nurturing environment to learn, to explore and to grow has already begun.

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Jewish Education Got Game

Personal Note:

Thanks to all who reached out over the last week or so to see how I was faring after having undergone my personal “Fifty Shades of Ow” early 11th anniversary gift to my wife of having a deviated septum repaired along with the ever-popular “uvula shave”.  I was always told that “eleven” was the gift of “elective, non-cosmetic survey to reduce snoring” and I am an excellent listener.  My nose is back to its normal shape with the added value of being able to breathe out of one side of it for the first time.  My throat?  I am just about able to swallow without wincing.  Another week or so and I should be as good as new.  Will it actually reduce the snoring?  Stay tuned.

Coming Attractions:

I hired a new Middle School Math Teacher as well as a new First Grade Teaching Assistant this week!  Next week, I hope to secure new Kindergarten and Fourth Grade Teaching Assistants as well, so we will be fully staffed!  Our new transparent schedule will also be finalized, so you can look forward to a final “Transparency Files” blog post sharing the new schedule and its rationale.

I will also be finalizing a VERY exciting “Creating a Community of Kindness” (click here, here, and here) announcement that will be the subject of a blog post, press release, etc. Please be on the look out for this first-ever Galinsky Academy initiative in the weeks to come!

I wanted to take a moment in the calm of summer to reflect on some thinking we’ve been doing in the area of “gaming” and “gaming theory”.  It reflects experiences as far back as last January’s North American Jewish Day School Conference, which I blogged about here.  The end of that blog post was my reflection on my experience facilitating a session for Barry Joseph of Global Kids on Gaming 101.  He gave a wonderful overview on the impact of gaming on education and provided lots of rich resources.

I have been influenced by this TED talk by Jane McConigal: “Gaming can make a better world” which has been among their most viewed:

http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html

I have also been inspired by thought-partner Rabbi Owen Gottlieb:

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. Here is where I think we are heading:

White Paper: Gaming & Jewish Education

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 21st 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, Angela Maiers, Alan November, Mike Fischer, and Chris Lehmann to name 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 21st century Jewish day school education, launched in 2012 with 21 Jewish Day Schools throughout North American 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 21st 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 key periods of Jewish history has the greatest academic and commercial potential.

We envision our Middle School students having the opportunity to build upon existing curriculum by creating avatars who can interact in key periods of Jewish history.  It would call upon skills taught in Bible, Rabbinics, Social Studies, etc., and also include opportunities for remediation and enrichment.  We envision our day school students and faculty perhaps integrating their 21st century learning skill set in mastery levels by creating new events, periods, storyboards, characters, etc.  This provides the greatest range of differentiation possible, from playing the game to co-creating it.

As an additional footnote, because of our school’s location within an educational academy at a large Conservative synagogue, we recognize there are yet additional applications of a game such as this with a larger population of supplemental school students.  We can imagine a game which allows the player to experience key moments of Jewish history being desirable either for the schools, parents and Jewish students who would unlikely be able to experience that subject matter (at least to day school depth) with the limited hours and curriculum supplemental schooling provides.

Jumping into Lake You

I blogged a couple of weeks ago, here, about the professional development our faculty was engaging in over the summer – featuring a Summer Book Club.  I alluded at the time, to my own personal professional development, and I wanted to share that here.

It actually goes back more than a few years.

I have mentioned frequently in prior blog posts and in my doctoral dissertation, the impact the Day School Leadership Training Institute (DSLTI) has had on me.  (Click here for the most relevant one.)  One benefit to being an alum of the program is access to annual retreats where we have opportunities to collaborate, connect, reflect and grow. One such retreat took place almost four years ago and it was the most outside the box retreat I have ever participated in – and among the most impactful.

The theme of the retreat was “leadership presence”.  Sean Kavanagh, CEO of the Ariel Group, defines “leadership presence” as, “The ability to connect with the thoughts and feelings of others, in order to motivate and inspire them to achieve a desired outcome.”

Sounds like a pretty important ability for a head of school to have!

The methodology for the retreat included performing drama exercises and receiving acting coaching.  Now, anyone who knows me knows that “Jon does not role play” – it is the farthest possible activity outside my normal comfort zone.  But for some reason, perhaps peer pressure, the safety of this particular professional learning network, the alignment of the stars, who knows, for this particular retreat, I allowed myself to be pushed.

What I came away with was a powerful understanding of my own leadership presence and the work I needed and wanted to do to in order to more fully develop it.  It impacted things as seemingly benign as strategic sartorial decisions to thinking more carefully about the emotional impact of my words, actions, body language, etc.  My most important takeaway from that retreat was the knowledge that I would be a more successful leader if I prepared and approached meetings, conversations, interactions, etc. by being less concerned about what I would say and more concerned about how I wanted people to feel.  Studies have shown that people remember a fraction of what they hear…but they do remember how they felt.

This has really stuck with me over the years.

I don’t always remember to make use of it and I have a ways to go in improving my leadership presence.  But when I do, it almost always makes a positive contribution to my practice.  And that is why I was so pleased that one of my DSLTI mentors, Jane Taubenfeld Cohen, recommended a book for me to read this summer on this exact topic!

And due to the power of Twitter and Facebook, this recommendation multiplied and evolved into a true 21st century virtual Book Club that will culminate in a webinar featuring the book’s author!

So, this summer, I will be exploring my leadership presence by reading…

From author Kristi Hedges‘ website:

Presence: You know it when you see it, but what exactly is it? And how can a person get more of it?

Everyone recognizes leaders with “presence.” They stand out for their seemingly innate ability to command attention and inspire commitment. But what is this secret quality they exude, exactly?

Executive and CEO coach Kristi Hedges demystifies this elusive trait, revealing that presence is the intersection of outward influencing skills and internal mental conditioning. Using her I-Presence™ model, the author shows how anyone – regardless of position or personality — can strengthen their impact. Readers will learn how to build trust as the foundation for leadership, eschew perfectionism for authenticity, banish limiting thoughts and behaviors, and galvanize their team through visionary, inspiring communications.

Stellar technical knowledge, a strong work ethic, excellent presentation skills—none of these tangible traits puts people on the career fast track as readily as a compelling presence. Filled with profiles of leaders with powerful presence and the latest neuroleadership research translated into actionable habits, this authoritative guide puts a little-understood, but potentially game-changing, tool within everyone’s reach.

I look forward to sharing my reflections as I make my way through the book and very much look forward to our late-summer DSLTI & Friends Book Club webinar.  I’ve got my flip flops on and a good summer read…life is pretty good.

Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo: What one Jewish Day School Head learned on his Disney vacation

Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo from the Disney film, Cinderella, 1950. Copyright Disney.

Lyrics:

Salagadoola mechicka boola bibbidi-bobbidi-boo
Put ’em together and what have you got
bibbidi-bobbidi-boo
Salagadoola mechicka boola bibbidi-bobbidi-boo
It’ll do magic believe it or not

 

I do believe it.

I spent the majority of the last week with my family on a Disney cruise.  (My poor children were crushed on our first night back home to discover that no one had created elaborate towel animals on their beds or left chocolates on their pillows!)  We have cruised a bit in the past, but a “Disney cruise” is a completely different creature.   Disney is not messing around – no one takes customer service more seriously.  As the days moved on and memories piled up one on top of the next, like any good reflective practitioner, it occurred to me that it would be worth reflecting on what lessons might Disney have to offer me in my (not-with-mouse-ears) Jewish Day School Head’s hat.

Let me begin by stating clearly that I am hardly the first or best one to think about this question.  I am most familiar with my former American Jewish University (then University of Judaism) professor, Dr. Ron Wolfson’s work in this arena.  He is well-known for bringing students to Disneyland for a firsthand taste followed by reflection and application.  [Click here for a brief article about Dr. Wolfson’s work and here for his book, “The Spirituality of Welcoming: How to Transform Your Congregation Into a Sacred Community”, where he shares his work in this area.]  I am not sure how much I can add to the conversation, but when in Disney…

Cleanliness is next to Princess-liness

I have never seen a cruise ship, or even a large room, as meticulously groomed as the Disney Dream.  Whether they were soaking up moisture on the pool deck in order to avoid slipping or polishing the brass railings at 11:30 at night, someone was always cleaning up something somewhere at sometime.  Details are important and appearance does matter.  Students are not employees, I realize, but I would like to see our student body take more pride in our school’s appearance.  It doesn’t matter who you are or what role you play in the organization – caring about picking up litter, taking an extra half-second to clean your shoes on the way inside, not standing by while someone else damages property – pride shows through.

Everyone is a Greeter

This comes straight from Dr. Wolfson’s work – it is a core Disney principle that each employee understands that they are a “greeter” first.  For our school to truly embrace a “spirituality of welcoming” each student, teacher, parent, staff person, etc., would recognize that they have a responsibility to make everyone else feel welcome in our school.  It extends well beyond greeting a stranger – imagine how much closer we would be towards becoming a true Community of Kindness  (here, here and here) if we treated each other as someone deserving of the feeling of being truly welcome.  Older students looking out for younger students.  Teachers looking out for parents.  Parents looking out for teachers.  What struck me on the cruise is how clearly this cut across hierarchical lines – the maintenance person swabbing the deck and the captain of the dining room treated each of my daughters like true princesses.  [Insert gratuitous photo here.]

Time is of the Essence

There is not a minute of wasted time on a Disney cruise.  They have constructed a schedule to allow for a maximal experience.  We certainly know the challenges of doing the same in a Jewish day school!  I am finishing up presently a revised schedule for our Lower School and it has taken hours and hours and still isn’t quite ready.  [Spoiler Alert!  It will for the first time make transparent hours of instruction dedicated to each subject.  I think it will be a most positive surprise.]  It is a worthy goal to make each moment of our Jewish day school be filled with maximum meaning.

Personal Navigation

This may be my favorite one (and one that I will likely think the most deeply about in the weeks to come).  The Disney cruise line calls their daily schedule a “personal navigator” and I don’t think it is simply a matter of semantics.  They create a schedule which allows each customer to clearly identify which activities create the most meaning – activities for each demographic, activities for different lifestyles, activities that bridge and activities that winnow, etc.  We would sit down as a family each evening to plan out the next day, factoring in the interests and abilities of our complete family – the four of us plus my wife’s father and wife.  The schedule was our invitation to take responsibility for meaning-making.

I talk a lot in my work about how the truest reflections of a school’s values can be found in two places – the budget and the schedule.  If you want to know what a school really believes to be important you need not go any farther than how it chooses to spend its money and its time.

As we continue to walk down the common paths of differentiation and 21st century learning, the answer to the question posed in Alan November’s new book “Who Owns the Learning?” is obvious: The Student.  If the student owns the learning, how does that impact what we teach, how we teach, when we teach, etc?

What would it mean to organize learning by the paradigm of personal navigation?

I hate to mix metaphors on a Friday afternoon, but as one moves from student to teacher to principal, one peeks behind the curtain and realizes that the Wizard is simply a person like anyone else.  Similarly as to how one moves from camper to counselor to rosh at summer camp and one realizes how the magic is made.  But it doesn’t make the experience any less magical for the student or the camper just because there was a science behind the magic-making.  My daughters’ experience of the Disney Dream was magical even if I know how they did it.

I realize that creating a culture at our school that embraces these ideas will be harder than singing “bibbidi-bobbidi-boo”.  But if we could achieve them?  Well that would be some real magic.