September 2020 – A Floor, But Not a Ceiling

Leaning Into Forgiveness 5781

We are right now in the עשרת ימי תשובה‎ – the ten days of repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Each year, I look forward to the opportunity to pick a personal growth goal general enough to my work with students, teachers, parents, colleagues, community, etc. [Last year at this time, I blogged out my personal growth goals as well.] By doing this publicly, I hope, it will inspire others to think about how they wish to grow and provide me with a little public accountability to keep me honest.

Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another’s position.

I worry, in general, that one of the challenges we have in the world is a genuine empathy gap. I think that we find it harder and harder to feel, show and teach empathy. I think that COVID only makes this harder. But instead of focusing on others or the culture or the pandemic, this time of year calls upon us to focus on ourselves. And I want to spend this year shrinking my empathy gap across the stakeholder groups I encounter…

Students

School came really easily to me. Sure I had some social concerns around adolescence (I am sure being forced to wear headgear to school did not help), but by-the-by school was a comfortable and safe place for me to be. I had a secure social group and I got lots of positive reinforcement from teachers who recognized and appreciated my natural (and in no way earned) skill set and performance. I fully appreciate that my experience of school is not that of all, or even most, of my students. Part of my job is spending meaningful time with students who don’t find school easy, safe or enjoyable. Their discomfort is made manifest in all kinds of ways – some productive, some less so – but I am making it a goal this year to start with empathy.

Before I leap to judgement or into problem-solving or consequences, I want to do a better job trying to understand their lived experiences. I hope that helps deepen my relationships with the very students who would benefit from it the most. I hope it helps me be more constructive in my feedback and my response to students in distress. I hope it makes me a better principal.

Teachers

I was never a teacher. My path to day school leadership was highly atypical. Although I did have a brief stint as a (very) part-time teacher in the late 90s at a Jewish day school in Los Angeles, I came into Jewish day school sideways. After a brief career in Jewish camping and some time as a congregational educator, my first full-time job in Jewish day school was as a founding head. I was never a full-time teacher and I never worked my way up from teacher to administrator to principal to head. I came in as the head and that’s all I have ever been. This unorthodox (no pun intended) path has its advantages and its disadvantages. I have always found the biggest disadvantage to be in my lack of empathy. Do I truly understand what I am asking of teachers if I have never had to live it myself?

We have set the bar very high for teachers at OJCS, with the teachers themselves often leading the way. COVID has only made it harder to reach towards our North Stars. This year, I want to make sure that I dedicate time in all my teacher discussions and encounters towards building empathy. Am I asking the right questions to truly understand the lived experience our expectations demand?

Before I leap to judgement or into problem-solving or accountability, I want to do a better job trying to understand their lived experiences. I hope that helps deepen my relationships with the very teachers who would benefit from it the most. I hope it helps me be more constructive in my feedback and my response to teachers in distress. I hope it makes me a better head of school.

Parents

I am a parent.

I am struggling with how to best express this next part, because I for sure do not wish to imply that my marriage or my children or my family doesn’t have all the same stressors and challenges and flaws as everyone else’s. It definitely does! But I think it is fair to describe my marriage as healthy and my children as fairly typical and my family as relatively functional. Luck has as much to do with this as anything else…

I say this only to state that I recognize that life and luck may not be equally distributed across all families and there are parents in our school and community who are dealing with challenges that I have not experienced. As the head of school, I am sometimes privy to the burdens parents carry, but just as often, I am completely unaware. When a parent comes forward with a question or a concern or to provide feedback or for help, I want make sure that I lead with empathy. Have I done enough work to truly understand a parent’s experience or perspective before I offer thoughts of my own?

Before I leap to judgement or into problem-solving, I want to do a better job trying to understand their lived experiences. I hope that helps deepen my relationships with the very parents who would benefit from it the most. I hope it helps me be more constructive in my feedback and my response to parents in distress. I hope it makes me a better leader.

So during this time of introspection, let me take this opportunity not only to ask forgiveness in general for anything I have done – purposely or unknowingly – to cause offense or upset during the last year, but let me specifically apologize for any moment in which I didn’t show empathy towards you. I am sincerely sorry and ask for your forgiveness.

As you ponder the purpose of this season for you and your family, I hope you find the time for introspection and the inspiration for the teshuvah you are seeking. From my family to yours, wishing you a tzom kal (easy fast) and a day of meaning.

G’mar chatimah tovah.

The Very Unique & COVID-Friendly 2020 OJCS Middle School Retreat

We just completed our third annual Middle School Retreat and I am so proud of our students and teachers (and families). Just figuring out how to conduct a retreat adhering to COVID protocols was a challenge in and of itself. But compliance was not our goal – creating community, inspiring growth and fostering (this year’s theme) grit was. And even if we were unable to do all the things we wanted to (the ability to mix the grades being the single biggest loss), we still made it happen. It was so nice to be outdoors, to hike, to zip, to talk, to play and to learn together. It was like a little slice of normalcy during abnormal times.

Our theme (borrowed from last year’s graduation) was grit. Over a decade ago, academic and psychologist Angela Duckworth released her first paper on the notion of grit and its application to education. In both her TED Talk and her book, Duckworth defines grit as “a combination of passion and perseverance for a singularly important goal” that is a key ingredient for high achievement, not only in school, but in life. If there was ever an adjective that described this year it would be “grit”.

We fused together these notions of grit – spending the first day focusing on “passion” and the third day on “perseverance” (with the second day spent ziplining through the trees) – with Rabbi Hillel‘s famous three questions:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when? (Pirkei Avot 1:14).

In between the social bonding, the hiking, the scavenger hunts, the sports, and the ziplining, our students found their passions, set goals, explored the relationship between the individual and the community, culminating in the concluding conversation, answer the question:

How can we work together as a Middle School Community to foster each other’s passion, to overcome each other’s obstacles and to show grit on our way to achieving our individual and communal goals for 2020-2021?

We ended our retreat by doing what comes naturally at OJCS, giving back to the community, by launching a project with our local Kosher Food Bank: developing social media campaign to amplify the important work of feeding our community. All in all, we spent three days living our North Stars and strengthening our Middle School Community. You can see for yourself…

https://youtu.be/g2RKxgOyRTc

A huge thank-you goes out to our Student Life Coordinator, Deanna Bertrend, for all her hard work putting this together! Putting the Middle School Retreat together isn’t easy in a normal year, but doing it while we are just a week or so into figuring out how to reopen in the middle of a pandemic, and having to adapt the retreat to all kinds of protocols…well that’s a lot. Our students and school are grateful for her leadership.

We are looking forward to next week’s “Virtual Back to School” on Wednesday, September 23rd beginning at 7:00 PM. We will be sending out a schedule and links early next week.

As the eve of a new Jewish Year approaches, it is my most sincerest hope that this is the year we’ve been waiting for. To all the teachers, staff, parents, students, donors, supporters, and friends in this special school- thank you for your enthusiasm and your hard work. Let’s make sure that 5781 is not only an amazing year, but a safe one at that.

From our family to yours, “Shanah tovah!”

Shofar, So Good: Reflections On A First Week Like No Other

Long time readers of this blog know that there is no pun too corny; and that I am good for a “shofar, so good” blog post each year come the Jewish High Holidays. With our annual (reimagined for COVID) Middle School Retreat taking place next week (!) with its inevitable blog post to follow, it means that I get to use my pun even earlier, albeit a week too soon for Rosh Hashanah.

I have been a head of school for thirteen years across three schools and, like all my colleagues, I have never had a spring like last spring, a summer like last summer, or a first week of school like this one.

So after all the work and the planning and the logistics and protocols and the procedures…how are things going at the end of the first week of the 2020-2021 school year at the Ottawa Jewish Community School?

Shofar, so good!

We have lived a thousand micro-dramas these last few weeks as it is one thing to put protocols into writing and an entirely other thing to put them into practice. I lived this experience myself as both a parent and a principal on the very first day of school! My experience of trying to figure out what to do in the grey areas between policy and life is being played out in homes and schools throughout our community, province and country. Teachers and parents are being called upon to exercise both caution and discretion in the face of unheard of conditions and we will be well-served to give each other space and permission to overcorrect and overcorrect again until we calibrate into our new normal.

But as I tried to express in last week’s post, our school is way more than a collection of COVID protocols and processes! Of course, safety is our most pressing concern these days, but only a schmidge below is our sacred duty to educate. And with regard to that holy enterprise, I am so grateful towards and proud of our teachers – especially the many new ones. The job of being a teacher has never been more complicated and never more important. Not only must our teachers do everything they had to do before, but they are also called upon to be distance and hybrid learning experts, healthcare workers and mental health professionals – all while taking care of themselves and their families. And while this is generally true of all teachers, it is especially true at the highest bar for OJCS teachers. Seeing the time and effort that goes into reaching it, is nothing short of inspirational.

We saw last spring how amazing our teachers were when we needed to make the pivot unplanned. (And we know that our community was paying attention as our enrollment has grown – and is still growing – despite an economic downturn.) Imagine how extraordinary our teachers are going to be when we have done nothing, but plan! If you are a current OJCS parent, of course, you don’t have to imagine – you can see it each and every day.

Other thoughts and musings from the first week…

…you know how you sometimes don’t fully appreciate something until you can’t do it? I always feel badly that I am not more of a presence in classrooms, but now I crave it! I can’t wait to be back in classrooms!

…I didn’t think I would miss the Shofar Patrol this much!

…I know I mentioned it above, but it really is true that you cannot know something until you live it. We have lots of fine-tuning ahead of us as we gain experience! We appreciate both your feedback and your patience as we learn and our policies evolve. Our “COVID FAQ” is live for a reason…it will change.

…I love using three entrances and exits this year, but please don’t tell any parents who hate it.

Please save the date! By both parent and teacher request, we are bringing back a traditional “Back to School” on Wednesday, September 23rd at 7:00 PM. The platform (virtual) may be new-school, but the program will be old-school. Apparently, my telling you each year that all the information you need as parents (homework policies, behavior management programs, and the curriculum) is simply on the classroom blogs hasn’t satisfied parents or teachers! So now that I have united you in your disagreement with me…welcome back “Back to School”.

The Transparency Files: We Do More Than Plan For COVID

[NOTE: I wrote most of this post prior to our school’s first direct experience with COVID yesterday. I considered delaying or rewriting this post because I do not wish to appear cavalier or tone deaf when so many families and teachers are carrying anxiety into our first day of in-person school. However, as real – and as sad – as this “new normal” may be, it is our new normal. And I believe that part of making that true means that we will need to resume talking about things other than COVID. So without further adieu…]

There is obviously nothing more important than the safety of our students, teachers, families and community. That being said, it has been wonderful to be reminded this week why we are investing so much time and energy and so many resources to be able to both safely reopen for in-person learning and provide high-quality educational, social and spiritual experiences for distance learning. It is because we love to teach children!

So, for one blog post at least, let’s take a break from COVID safety procedures and protocols…

You may recall that despite the challenges that last spring brought us, we learned a lot through being forced into distance learning. We summarized those gleanings in a blog post that became a slogan: “Don’t go back to school; Come forward to OJCS”. You can see evidence of that growth by looking at how we are planning for 2020-2021. Let’s spend just a little time sharing what our amazing OJCS Faculty has been learning about and working on during our annual “Pre-Planning Week”. Hopefully it will leave you not only feeling comforted that your children will be safe, but feeling excited that your children will be inspired to learn, to grow and to become their best selves.

Here’s a curated selection from our activities…

The Hyflex Cafe

Each year (13 years, 4 at OJCS and counting!), I begin “Pre-Planning Week” with an updated version of the “World Cafe”. It is a collaborative brainstorming activity centered on a key question. Each year’s question is designed to encapsulate that year’s “big idea”. To no one’s surprise, this year’s big idea? Hyflex Learning!

We call it “hyflex” because we are not simply offering a “hybrid” of both in-person and distance learning; we are preparing for the flexibility of students (and teachers) switching from one to the other in both a planned and unplanned fashion. The “flex” stands for “flexibility” and that is as good an adjective for this year as any other.

“Getting Started With Hybrid Learning” with Emma Pass

Thanks to a generous grant from the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, we have been able to bring in some outside experts to work with our teachers during this week of planning. One extraordinary expert is named Emma Pass. Leaving aside the whole hybrid/hyflex thing, her session was an hourlong tour de force of all things hybrid learning that really set the table for the week. Or as our Teaching & Learning Coordinator Melissa Thompson put it:

Speed-Geeking Critical Platforms for Hyflex Learning

After having spent some time exploring the big picture, here we began to explore some critical platforms that OJCS teachers are becoming more familiar with in order to succeed in hyflex learning contexts. What do we love about speed-geeking at OJCS? That the sessions are led by our own teachers!

Let’s check out them out!

Classkick

In this session, our Kitah Alef (Grade One) Jewish Studies Teacher Morah Ada shared about Classkick. Classkick is an app that gives a teacher maximal flexibility to incorporate audio, text, video, picture into a shared document that students and teachers can edit and work on seamlessly. For example, a teacher can record herself giving video instruction, embed a PDF and ask students to record their responses all in one document. Teachers can also take pre-prepared documents (like an alef-bet chart) and designate individual letters as student manipulatives. Meaning that a student could drag an “alef” around the document and place it where it belongs.

Primary teachers can import critical documents like their calendars or job charts. Teachers can easily customize and personalize different assignments. The most exciting part of the session was the conversation between teachers. One of the goals we have as a school is to find more opportunity for our students to use their languages. Classkick makes it really easy for teachers to record themselves giving oral prompts (personalized if needed) and for students to record themselves responding. This will be a great way to build in more authentic contact time with Hebrew and French!

Flipgrid

Flipgrid is not new to OJCS, although it may be new to our new teachers. [We made heavy use of it during last year’s PIVOT, especially in the primary grades.] In this session our Grade Two General Studies Teacher Morah Lianna caught us up on all things Flipgrid. Flipgrid essentially allows students to record 90 seconds of video in response to all kinds of prompts. A teacher could ask the class to tell her all about their summer vacations, and each student would record themselves in response. Flipgrid gives you both public and private options for maximal flexibility. Flipgrid also is a great global connector since it is heavily used around the…globe! With a sea of platforms available, one question that our teachers always have to ask is which platform makes sense for which lesson or unit or subject or students? And how can we make choices that don’t overwhelm students (or parents)? (How many logins can anyone manage?)

Nearpod

Nearpod is a platform we are eager to begin using at OJCS because of how easily it allows us to factor in both synchronous and asynchronous learning. As explained by our Middle School Hebrew I Teacher Morah Ruthie, Nearpod, is a little like Classkick, but even moreso, and is intended to be a “one-stop shop” for teachers. Nearpod allows a teacher to create lessons that can be delivered by the teacher, or can be done in-class either in groups or individually, or done at home. Lessons can be guided by the teacher or offered to students to do at their own paces. And, critical for these times, lessons can be offered synchronously or asynchronously.

Of the three platforms we explored, Nearpod clearly has the most maximal utility for our teachers. They can pull content from a ton of sources, including virtual reality presentations, YouTube, Google Slides, PDFs, and just about anything and anywhere you can imagine. Teachers can use materials that they have already created, of course. Part of what makes Nearpod so powerful, however, is that it has a full and growing library of lessons across every (general studies) subject and each grade-level. You can even select lessons benchmarked according to (US) national and state standards. You can embed polls, quizzes and activities to keep students engaged and accountable. Finally, the teacher can not only track student progress, but also provide ongoing assessment.

Proficiency Approach to Hebrew Language

Here is the second place we are utilizing grant funding from JFO. As you know, we are in the middle of a major consultancy with our French Language Faculty that we call TACLEF. One thing that we have learned through that experience is how much we would like to give our Hebrew Language Faculty a similar experience. While we cannot (yet) invest in a consultancy of that magnitude, we have begun working with Orly Lavi Travish. We will work with her on the “proficiency approach” to Hebrew language instruction. Proficiency is…

…the ability to use language in real world situations in a spontaneous interaction and non-rehearsed context, and in a manner acceptable and appropriate to native speakers of the language. Proficiency demonstrates what a language user is able to do regardless of where, when, or how the language was acquired. The demonstration is independent of how the language was learned; the context may or may not be familiar; the evaluation of proficiency is not limited to the content of a particular curriculum that has been taught and learned.

Just like with French, we want our Hebrew outcomes to be real, spoken, authentic language. We want to both teach and assess language proficiency in this way. We are way farther ahead in using this approach in French (although not as far as we would like to be) than in Hebrew, but this session will hopefully be the beginning of an exciting Hebrew journey.

Did I do one of my spiritual check-ins on the topic of hitlamdut (mindfulness)? Sure did!

Did Mrs. Thompson do a great session on use of classroom blogs and student blogfolios? Yup!

Did Mrs. Bertrend and Mr. Ray take us all outdoors and show us all the ways we can use our outdoor space for recess, outdoor education and learning? Absolutely!

Did Mrs. Reichstein lead a session on creating a caring and nurturing classroom during these COVID times? You bet!

Did Mrs. Gordon go over all the guidelines and protocols and procedures and rules and mandates to keep us all safe? 100%!

Did the PTA sponsor a yummy breakfast and lunch? Yes!

Did our teachers have lots of time to meet and prepare and collaborate and organize and do all the things needed to open up school on Tuesday? And then some!

All that and much more took place during this week of planning. But at nearly 1,500 words, even I need to stop writing.

Needless to say, we are prepared to do way more than create a safe learning environment. We are prepared to develop a rigorous, creative, innovative, personalized, hyflex and ruach-filled learning experience for each and every one our precious students who we cannot wait to greet (in-person and virtually) on Tuesday morning!

Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday weekend and a successful launch to the 2020-2021 school year…