One of my joys as head of school (for real!) is that I teach a weekly Tefillah class to Seventh Grade. Because as everyone knows, there is nothing that seventh graders enjoy more first thing in the morning than an opportunity to learn and explore prayer with their principal!
This is the second year I have taught this class (I also teach Tefillah to Grade One twice a week and have a weekly seminar with Grade Eight), and I have tried to make sure that my pedagogy is in line with our learning target despite my limited exposure (and planning time). I don’t always succeed, but I think it is important to talk the talk and not leave it up to the rest of the faculty to walk the walk.
A couple of weeks ago, after completing a unit, I thought it would be interesting for our students to design their own prayer spaces. We had been studying “Mah Tovu” – a prayer which comes early in the morning service (traditionally on the way into synagogue) – and discussing the blessing of having synagogues and sanctuaries and places in which we are encouraged to connect with our spiritual selves. I was curious to see what environment our students felt encourages spirituality and so, without time to prep, they were given one brief period to design their own personal “Mah Tovu” space using whatever medium they liked and to email it to me by the end of the period.
Almost each student chose Pixie as their medium and you can see for yourself what some of them designed:
Do you see any common themes?
Do you see anything that surprises you?
How would you design your own prayer space?
I look forward to more integration between 21st century learning and Tefillah and welcome suggestions from those of you who are doing this work in your schools and synagogues. I am going to spend some time thinking about what my Mah Tovu space would look like and when I’ve designed it, I’ll update this blog post.
Wow, this is really interesting. Have you had them discuss their creations? This would be a good blog post- share picture and write about/explain it.