21st Century Learning – Page 12 – A Floor, But Not a Ceiling

Live Blog of MJGDS EdCamp 2014

Welcome to our Second Annual Martin J. Gottlieb Day School EdCamp!

You can review what an “EdCamp” is and relive last year’s “Live Blog of MJGDS EdCamp” if you would like extra context…

…when we entered the Library today:

9:00 Blank Board

9:30 EdCamp is Ready!

Session #1

Task Authenticity

The conversation is centered around our Learning Target’s domain of “Task” and defining what “authentic task” really is and how it looks in our classrooms. There is consensus that this is amongst the most significant challenges of our target. Some subjects may lend themselves to greater authenticity than others, but it is a challenge all teachers of all subjects of all grades have. For example, our Middle School Mitzvah Trips – each Friday our Middle School students go out into the community to do social action in lieu of their Jewish Studies block – provide authentic opportunities to put what they learn academically in Jewish Studies into practice in an authentic, real-world way.

What about 1st Grade Math?

What about 5th Grade Social Studies?

I hate to leave the convesation, but I am anxious to see what is going in the other sessions!

Session #2

Math Games

One of our Middle School Math Teachers shared examples of games that she has made – digital and hands-on – that work for her in the classroom. And after she shared her examples, teachers had an opportunity to make their own games for the classroom!

One great outtake – she shared her firsthand experience of growing a Professional Learning Network via Twitter thanks to her coach and is encouraging her colleagues to do the same. Hooray Instructional Coaching! Hooray Amplification!

Session #3

Tiny Tap for General and Jewish Studies

This is being facilitated by our Jewish Studies Coordinator! What a wonderful example of 21st century learning not being bound to any part of the curriculum! Our Jewish Studies Faculty has come a long way and I am so proud that many of our EdCamp facilitators today are JS Faculty presenting to GS Faculty about how to incorporate 21st century learning pedagogy.

Our first round went by so fast! Time for a quick break and then it will be time to begin the second round…

10:20 AM

Session #4

Bringing Out the Best

Our Middle School Vice Principal is using our example of caring who our students are outside of school, to start a conversation about how to bring out the best in our students. The common denominator in well-behaved students? Parents who expect well-behaved children!

How can we build a true Community of Kindness when we only have control over what happens in school? How do we provide parent education to help increase healthy school-parent relationships?

One place to start? ALL teachers and staff have to share similar high expectations for student behavior and the school has to be willing apply adequate consequences and incentives for student behavior.

How do we do that when all our students share so many different teachers?

Session #5

Readers Theater

Our First Grade General Studies Teacher (an alumna of the school!) is sharing the concept of preparing students to better integrate public speaking skills and drama into Language Arts instruction. What I like about this conversation – besides the topic – is that the audience is made up our Assistant Teachers. Assistant Teachers in our school may not have lead teaching responsibilities, but they are qualified teachers who contribute so much to our ability to personalize learning.

Where does she get resources? From a blog she follows, by Skyping with other teachers…another example of using social media to develop a Professional Learning Network!

Session #6

SMART Board

Who is teaching? Our 2nd/4th Grade Jewish Studies Teacher! Again, a Jewish Studies teacher sharing 21st century learning pedagogy with General Studies colleagues. They are sharing SMART Board games that they have made and other tricks and subtleties of using the SMART Board for instruction. Another great conversation!

Can the second round be ending already! Time flies when you are learning from your colleagues! One more rest break and on to the third and final round…

Session #7

Behavior Consistency

Not a direct follow-up to Session #4, but connected. What I like about this conversation is that it is being facilitated by one of our Assistant Teachers, who is an experienced teacher in her own right, but by sharing the perspective of an assistant, it will hopefully help us be consistent across subjects, between classes, in the lunchroom, on the playground, etc.

This conversation is trying to dig deeper into recognizing the source of children’s behavior it helps figure out how to correct it.

Teachers are expressing the need to see our school evolve into a more consistent program of behavior management. Building on a “Caught Being Kind” with real carrots…I think this session and this topic will have real legs post-EdCamp.

Session #8

There was supposed to be a “Session #8”, but the beauty of an EdCamp is that people “vote with their feet”. And their feet have spoken! Only two teachers turned out for Session #8 and they decided to have the conversation during free time and joined one of the other two sessions…

Session #9

Integrating Centers with the Daily 5

A very popular session because we have made the decision after piloting the Daily 5 for two years that we plan to adopt it as our Language Arts philosophy for the Lower School.

Our Grade 2 General Studies Teacher, who is one of the teachers who piloted the program, is leading the session. We have a range of teachers in the room, some who have been piloting it also, some who will be responsible for it soon.

One great outtake: We have Jewish Studies Teachers in the room. Why? Because they want to see if there are principles from the Daily 5 that might apply to Jewish Studies. No one prompted or suggested that to them…it comes from them. I love that about where our faculty culture has evolved to…

…can MJGDS EdCamp really be over for 2014?

Sadly, yes. But another great year, another great set of conversations, another great opportunity to learn from each other, and time will tell which conversations will lead to changes or improvements or initiatives for the school.

But experience teaches that it surely will!

The Transparency Files: Teacher-Led Evaluation

We are into the second year utilizing our school’s new learning target. I blogged last year, as part of “The Transparency Files,” about why and how we created the target and how it would guide important decisions about how the school runs, what programs the school invests in, and about anything and everything central to questions of teaching and learning. And so far it has. Our decision to move to a 1:1 BYOiPad pilot for Grades 4 & 5, helps move us closer to the target. Creating a “Community of Kindness” position and utilizing the 7 Habits to develop the program, helps move us closer to the target. Our work in Middle School, developing a new app that will become commercially available in time for Purim, helps move us closer to the target. Our decision to expand the use of “Student-Led Conferences” to Grades 4-8, helps moves up closer to the target. Our move to Singapore Math, expansion of the Daily 5, use of blogfolios, our current conversation about homework, increasing the amount of immersion in our teaching of Hebrew – all of these decisions are framed by whether or not it will bring us closer to the target. That’s the power of having a clear and shared vision for what teaching and learning ought to look like in our school.

So it should have been so surprise that when it came time to re-imagine what teacher evaluation ought to look like…we looked to the target to guide us.

We realized last year that with the success of student-led conferences, that we are actually treating our students with greater ownership of their evaluation process that we were our teachers! If our students are supposed to own their learning, then our teachers ought to own their professional growth. And if our students can collect artifacts of their growth, organize them on their blogfolios, reflect on their growth and present to their teachers and parents…

And so we charged our faculty to form a “Teacher Evaluation Committee” to re-imagine the evaluation process for teachers and what they came up with is our new “Teacher-Led Evaluation”. It reflects what we believe is the most authentic way for teachers (and teaching assistants) to document, reflect and share their professional growth while still allowing for the accountability necessary to ensure expectations are met. In the spirit of transparency, I would like to share the process and briefly reflect on how it working out so far…

This is what teachers received a couple of months back:

Dear Faculty:

For the fall evaluation, please schedule an appointment with Jon before Winter break. You will need the following:

A completed self-evaluation packet (checklist plus narrative)

Be prepared to discuss your self-evaluation with Jon

Not required at this time: A presentation, artifacts, a video-recorded lesson or peer observation

For the spring evaluation, please schedule an appointment with Jon in April. You will need the following:

A completed self-evaluation checklist (narrative not required)

A presentation aligned with the Learning Target documenting your professional growth during this school year in a format of your choice, including the following:

Artifacts to show evidence of growth

A reflection of your video-recorded lesson

A reflection of your peer observation

Goals: Where do I go from here?

Be prepared to discuss your self-evaluation with Jon

Teacher Evaluation Committee

The self-evaluation comes straight from the target:

And the narrative prompt:

Please reflect in writing on your growth as a teacher at this point in time. Your reflection should be directly related to the Learning Target. Make sure to address your professional development goals and offer an evaluation of your progress to date. Also consider the following questions: What are my successes? Is there room for improvement? Do I have artifacts as evidence of my learning? What tools or resources do I need to continue my professional growth on the Learning Target continuum?

I have made my way through about a half to two-thirds of the faculty and I am enjoying it immensely. The conversations have been more focused on growth and less focused on what I (or others) feel is lacking. The conversations are led by teachers who are experts in who they are and not guided by me who, in the past, would have to play detective in order to have what to present. The artifacts are fabulous, the discussions are rich and – most importantly – what teachers are working on is astounding.

The accountability is still there – teachers are required to demonstrate growth in areas mutually agreed upon by them and me – but the shift in emphasis has brought a shift in attitude that brought a level of professional development we have never seen before.

All in all, this first go around has been a true success. I can’t wait to see the fuller presentations in the spring and see how much more growth there is to come!

The Transparency Files: Homework Wars

This is the 150th (!) blog post of “A Floor, But No Ceiling” and amazingly, to me, in a search of all my blog posts, I cannot find one that deals with “homework”. I guess denial is not just a river in Egypt…it is a river in Jacksonville, Florida!

Disclaimer: In addition to being the head of school, I am married to a public school teacher and am a parent of a 3rd Grader and an Kindergartner. “Homework Wars” do not describe my parental situation with homework. Whether that is a function of my children, their particular teachers, our particular family dynamic, or blind luck, I couldn’t say, but “homework” is not a daily or any other kind of struggle in my household. (Knock on keyboard.)

Why the disclaimer?

I guess because I want to be sensitive to any unconscious biases I may bring to the table in this conversation. We have excellent teachers who do not have children of their own. But I think it would be dishonest to suggest that lacking a parent’s perspective never has consequences for teachers who have not lived at home the impact of schooling. There are some things you can only learn through experience and if not through experience, through the willingness to learn from other’s experiences.

So I admit that as a parent, I am presently satisfied with the amount and the quality of homework being brought home by my children. That does not make it objectively true. As a head of school of a K-8, however, I am well familiar with concerns and complaints about both the amount and the quality of homework. And the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School is in an excellent position to tackle the subject…

Important Segue:

I have used this blog to document our school’s 21st century learning journey and all the associated initiatives we have taken on to get from there to here to the future. For anyone who has not been along for the ride, in celebration of my 150th blog post, here is my starter’s collection to be fully caught up with who we are and where we think we are going:

The MJGDS 21st Century Learning Journey in 13 Blog Posts

Transparency
Standardized Testing
edJEWcon
Inclusion
Financial Sustainability
Gaming Theory
Habits of Kindness
Reflective Practice
EdCamp
Learning Target
Second Language Acquisition
Experiential Education
Blogfolios

…here in year four of our work together.

It is reasonable to conclude that there are various philosophies about what the purpose of homework ought to be and that there is ample research to be found supporting just about them all. For our school, however, the conversation comes with a context. Considering who we are and what we believe to be true about teaching and learning, what ought to be the role of homework here?

Like all preceding vital conversations, this one has begun with our 21st Century Learning Team and will continue on with our teachers, parents and students before being concretized in final form.

What is our current policy?

We have a simple 10 minutes per grade level (outside of reading) formula for estimating the appropriate time it should take a typical student to complete his or her homework.

Part of the impetus for taking this on is that not only does that policy seem not to hold true often enough, it fails to address the why’s and what’s of homework. It only speaks to, “how much?” We can do better.

The purpose of the MJGDS Homework Policy, once re-imagined, will be to provide guidelines for teachers, provide for consistency through the grades, and to educate parents who have questions about homework. A school policy regarding homework, along with clear expectations for teachers as to what constitutes good homework, can help to strengthen the benefits of homework for student learning.

This policy will need to address the purposes of homework, amount and frequency, and the responsibilities of teachers, students, parents, and administrators.

The MJGDS Homework Policy will be based on research regarding the correlation between homework and student achievement as well as best practices for homework.

Without having had all the conversations we will be having, I do think based on the conversations we have had, that there are philosophical conclusions consistent with who we are that we can put up front that will inform the policy once complete.

The philosophy at the Martin J Gottlieb Day School regarding K-8 homework is that homework should only be assigned that is meaningful, purposeful, and appropriate. Homework will serve to deepen student learning and enhance understanding. Homework should be consistent with the school’s “Learning Target” and strive to incorporate creativity, critical thinking, authenticity, and student ownership.

We understand today’s busy schedules and demands on parent and student time. Most learning is done in school, but as is the case with our learning of a foreign language and learning to read, reasonable and age-appropriate practice and repetition is exceptionally beneficial in other certain subject areas.

There are also some commonsense practices we believe will help to increase the benefits of homework while minimizing potential problems. Homework is more effective when:

…..the purpose of the homework assignment is clear. Students should leave the classroom with a clear understanding of what they are being asked to do and how to do it.

…..it does not discourage and frustrate students. Students should be familiar with the concepts and material.

…..it is on a consistent schedule. It can help busy students and parents remember to do assignments when they are consistent.

…..it is explicitly related to the classwork.

…..it is engaging and creative.

…..part of the homework is done in class.

…..it is authentic.

…..feedback is given. Follow-up is necessary to address any comprehension issues that may arise.

…..it is differentiated.

…..it reviews past concepts to help retention over the course of the year.

This is not to suggest that we are not presently trying to live up to the above in our current practice. But it is to suggest that our written policy fails to provide teachers, parents or students with sufficient guidance to insure that all students in all grades are doing appropriate homework – appropriate quality, appropriate content and appropriate length.

As with every other initiative or project we undertake at MJGDS, our conversation and conclusions about homework will be done collaboratively and transparently. We look forward to our local conversations, to doing the work, and to sharing it out when done.

Martin J. Gottlieb Day School Middle School Retreat 2013 Part II – the iMovie

My First Twitter Cloud

Every now and again, I find it refreshing to focus my blog post around a visual image – sometimes it is a picture that explains better than any words I could choose about a powerful experience taking place in our school. But it sometimes is a word cloud. A “word cloud” takes any piece of written text and represents it graphically in a way which highlights frequently-used words. It is a fantastic device for visually summarizing the essence of a written text. Many of the programs that create word clouds allow you to enter a website, a blog, etc., and it will go ahead and create a word cloud visually summarizing which content mattered most over a bounded period of time.

I have used Wordle to create word clouds of this blog and analyzed the results.

I have used Tagxedo to create a word cloud of our Parent Handbook and analyzed the results.

Today, I want to use Tweet Cloud to create a word cloud of my Twitter feed.

Why?

Because I use Twitter exclusively for professional development and I am interested and seeing what it reveals about what I have been interested in since the beginning of this school year.

So…what does my Tweet Cloud (“t” is for “Twitter”) look like?

What do I notice?

“Habits” and “Kindness” are big ticket items. This reflects not just what we are doing internally about this, but what I have been reading professionally and asking my professional learning network about – the two primary things I use Twitter for.

What do you notice? Anything surprising you see? Anything surprising that you don’t see?

Next week, I am off to Camp Ramah Darom for our annual Middle School Retreat. The last few years I have been able to stay awake long enough on the Friday to edit my video and publish. I hope to do the same next week!

Another Trip Around the MJGDS Blogosphere

It is that time again!

How about this week we take a trip through the MJGDS Blogosphere and kvell about some of the excellent projects our students and teachers are engaged in. Perhaps it is too much to expect folk to check all the blogs all the time – especially if they are not parents in a particular class AND with our new website still under construction. So allow me to serve as your tour guide this week and visit some highlights…

From Our Kindergarten Blog:

Our Latest Creation – A Book!

In conjunction with our literacy program, we have been discussing “settings” for books by comparing one book to another. In this case, we discussed the various settings of the “Miss Bindergarten” series books. Each student created the setting for his/her imaginary Miss Bindergarten book! We have compiled all of these “settings” into our 1st ebook.

Check out our latest creation:

Miss Bindergarten

If you own an iPad or iPhone, you can download the epub file and directly drop it into your iTunes library. Once you sync your device with iTunes, you are able to read our book.

If you are reading this post on your iPad, simply click on the epub link and choose to open in iBook.

If you do not have a device to read our eBook, you can download the pdf Where Is Miss Bindergarten? , but the children’s voices will not be audible.

From our Community of Kindness Blog:

Advisory Lunch Groups

Advisory lunch bunch groups have started. The feedback from the advisors and the students has been extremely positive! While discussing how they have become more proactive this year, one student expressed that he does his homework FIRST when he gets home from school. He said he hasn’t been late on any assignments this year, which he explained is a HUGE accomplishment for him! WOW!

Most classes have started to talk about Begin with the end in mind, the second habit. During October, the classes will be working on class mission statements and developing personal goals for each child.

The middle school students wrote down the things that they have started doing this year to be more proactive….

From our Fifth Grade Blog:

New Jobs for Kids

This week in fifth grade there are….. New Jobs for Kids! Mrs. Hernandez looked at our applications online. After she looked, she picked which person deserved which job. I got Official Scribe (by the way, I am Arin). Emily and Zach got Documentarian. Ariella, Eliana, and Josh are the Global Connectors. Ayden is Librarian. Elad and Griffith are the Researchers, and Evan and Jagger are the Kindness Ambassadors. Mrs. Hernandez hasn’t figured out who the graphic designers are yet.

Now I’ll explain what all the jobs mean. Official Scribe writes the blog posts, takes notes, and really anything that has to do with writing. Documentarian is taking pictures and videos. The documentarians send me some of the pictures they take so that I can put them in the posts. Global connectors will tweet, put our Skype calls on our map and a lot more. Librarian puts some of the new words that we learn on our word wall, updates what we are reading on the wall, and straightens the books. The designers will sometimes draw visual notes and will do other design projects. Researchers look things up when we have questions. Kindness ambassadors make sure everyone is being kind to one another and don’t leave anyone out.

Meanwhile, we have been reading Out of My Mind. We are now on chapter twelve. We just read about how Melody went into a “normal” classroom. To her a “normal” classroom is a classroom with kids that don’t have disabilities. She got to sit with one of the only nice kids in that class. She sat next to a girl named Rose every Wednesday. Now she can’t go to sleep on Tuesday nights because she’s so excited.

On whole different note, we have picture day today. We took a whole-school picture, a class picture and individual pictures. Earlier today we had a school picture. Everyone was smushed into one little area. The photographer had to take a picture when no one was really ready. I wonder if that picture will be good.

Well, have a great Friday! Have a great weekend and Shabbat Shalom!

photos and photo collage by Emily

From our Third Grade Blog:

Skypportunity… a job they’ve never heard of…

It’s a mystery indeed!

She has patients…

they are not sick…

she is not a doctor or nurse…nor does she work at a hospital…

her patients are women only…

when she is working she has to be on call 24 hours a day…

3rd graders worked SO hard to figure out this mystery…

but it just wasn’t on their radar… but they will learn about the long history of midwifery while studying the Torah with Morah Liat!

SHE IS A MIDWIFE!

Special thanks to Sharon Schmidt, a Florida Licensed Midwife and a Certified Professional Midwife at Fruitful Vine Birth Center for this Skypportunity!

From our Art Blog:

First Grade

Color wheel art project from criscoart.blogspot.com

Amazing stuff, no?

Why not more from Jewish Studies Teachers? Why nothing from Middle School? Why nothing from our student blogfolios?

Got to leave something for the next tour!

Emails from Naomi Shemer

Each afternoon between 1 and 1:30 PM, I receive an email from “Naomi Shemer”. Not the Naomi Shemer. From the iPad in our school named “Naomi Shemer”.

See?

One of our founding 21st century learning teachers, Silvia Tolisano, decided when we first got our iPads that we ought to name each one after a famous Jewish person and sneak a little extra learning in. So we have iPads named “David Ben-Gurion” and “Ilan Ramon” and “Sarah Aaronsohn” and (of course) “Solomon Schechter” and so on. Awesome idea.

And because of the way our gmail is constructed it also allows you to receive unexpected emails from names you thought you would never see in your inbox!

Hey! I just received an email from Naomi Shemer! How awesome is that!

So…why is “Naomi Shemer” sending me a daily email?

Because my oldest daughter is in Grade 3 this year and according to their class blog:

And that is what happens. Each day Eliana takes a picture with an iPad of where her clothespin ended up for the day and emails it to both me and her mother. Besides the ease of communication the technology allows for, what I really appreciate about it is that it shifts ownership from the teacher to the student. We typically talk about students “owning their learning” – this is an example of our students owning their behavior.

Grade Three is a pivotal year in our school when it comes to a student’s digital presence. We have blogfolios for each student in our school, Kindergarten through Grade Eight. [NOTE: We are in the second week of school here in Jacksonville and all of our blogfolios have not yet been carried on to the next grade. They are going live as we update them.] But the teachers have primary responsibility for them in Grades K-2 – although reflection is there from the beginning, they function more like digital portfolios than true blogfolios. Grade Three is when our students begin to assume ownership of their blogs and begin to learn how to be digital citizens. They are beginning by learning how to comment on their own class blog.

I have written often about why we put such an emphasis on blogging in our school. And I, myself, have been blocking off for the last couple of years about an hour a week to comment on student blogfolios. But now I have the opportunity to view the experience wearing my parent hat. And I can see the idea that “with 21st century learning education need not be bound by time and space” playing out before my eyes in my own kitchen. Eliana was not required to comment on her class blog and her teacher was not required to comment back. But she was interested as we were cleaning up after family dinner and he was responsive during prep and now their student-teacher relationship has a different nuance than it otherwise would have had.

And both the father and the principal in me couldn’t be happier.

MJGDS Pre-Planning: A Storify

Tried something new this week!

[View the story “MJGDS Pre-Planning Week” on Storify]

Square Holes

This series aired on CBS in 1982-1983…so you may or may not recall its glorious one-year run, documenting the real life adventures of two “square pegs” entering their high school years. I was thinking about the show (and its awesome theme song by The Waitresses) as I have recently finished one of my summer reading books from our Faculty Summer Book Club:

Book Club- Square Peg In the seventh grade, Todd Rose was suspended—not for the first time—for throwing six stink bombs at the blackboard, where his art teacher stood with his back to the class. At eighteen, he was a high school dropout, stocking shelves at a department store for $4.25 an hour. Today, Rose is a faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Square Peg illuminates the struggles of millions of bright young children—and their frustrated parents and teachers—who are stuck in a one-size-fits-all school system that fails to approach the student as an individual. Rose shares his own incredible journey from troubled childhood to Harvard, seamlessly integrating cutting-edge research in neuroscience and psychology along with advances in the field of education, to ultimately provide a roadmap for parents and teachers of kids who are the casualties of America’s antiquated school system.

With a distinguished blend of humor, humility, and practical advice for nurturing children who are a poor fit in conventional schools, Square Peg is a game-changing manifesto that provides groundbreaking insight into how we can get the most out of all the students in our classrooms, and why today’s dropouts could be tomorrow’s innovators.

There is a lot to appreciate about this book. It is very easy to read. The human story is compelling. The research findings have impact. The implications for schooling are motivating. But the common thread I am finding as I interact on our faculty ning with other teachers who are reading the book, is that we are constantly thinking about who have been and who continue to be our “square pegs” and how good a job we have (or have not) done serving their needs. Do schools have a responsibility to be “square holes” for their “square pegs” and, if so, how can we truly differentiate in ways that meet all students’ needs? Is it by embracing 21st century learning – which the book clearly indicates is a likely possibility – and, if so, what does it look like on the ground?

One great feature of the book is that it is not just the story of a “square peg” who overcame the odds and went on to be a great success…it is that he has dedicated himself to the very thing that was his greatest obstacle – education (schooling).

I was not a “square peg” – at least not academically. My learning style is built for education. And I would guess that many, if not most teachers and educational administrators were good fits and, thus, good at school. We were round pegs who found round holes. We are now responsible for all shapes of pegs…

The other connecting point was bullying…that square pegs are frequent targets for bullying and that no one can learn – especially those for whom it is hardest to learn via conventional means – when preoccupied with one’s health and safety.

So…inclusive schooling, differentiation, educational technology, 21st century learning and communities of kindness…sounds like an excellent Jewish day school! Hopefully ours!

For (a whole lot) more about the neuroscience informing Dr. Rose’s work, please do check this out:

As we round the bend towards school beginning (!), I am pleased to announce that we are indeed fully staffed. I have already blogged about the structure and makeup of our lead administrative and faculty, but allow me to announce the final group:

Second Grade General Studies Assistant Teacher: Dee Ann Wulbern
Third Grade General Studies Assistant Teacher: Emma Boette
Fourth Grade General Studies Assistant Teacher: Joni Shmunes
Fifth Grade General Studies Assistant Teacher: Michelle Lewis
Jewish Studies Assistant Teacher: Shosh Orgad

Ms. Wulbern is an experienced public school teacher working her way back after having paused to raise a family. Ms. Boette has worked in our Preschool and recently graduated with her degree in education. Mrs. Shmunes has worked at the Center for years and years and was recently honored by the Center for her excellence in teaching. Ms. Lewis is a new teacher who is also new to our community. Morah Shosh was on my faculty in Las Vegas who, by happenstance, recently relocated to Jacksonville.

So…we are fully staffed and fully excited (at least I am!) to report back on August 12th for Faculty Pre-Planning (during which we may very well invite a successful former square peg to share his or her experiences and their impact with our teachers).

For now? Enjoying the present and looking forward to the future…

Why Experiential Education Matters

How is it possible that this guy…

…is old enough to be taking his soon-to-be 8 year-old daughter to her first Jewish summer camp experience on Monday?

I don’t know either.

But somehow life happened and Eliana and I are off on Monday to Atlanta, Georgia where I will hand her off to the good people at Camp Ramah Darom for her one-week “taste”.

As we have been dutifully putting her name in and on everything she owns, I have naturally grown nostalgic thinking about my own experiences. The impact of Jewish camping on me is indescribable and undeniable. It is not hyperbole to suggest that I am neither the Jewish person nor the Jewish professional am I today without having spent my formative years as a camper and staff person at a variety of Jewish summer camps and on numerous Israel experiences. There have been lots of studies documenting the tremendous power of informal Jewish education or experiential education.

Timing, as always, is everything.

As I am living through this family transition, here at the Jacksonville Jewish Center we are going through a directly related professional transition – namely welcoming Ezra Flom, our new Director of Experiential Education. As it says in the article introducing him (pg. 12),

The Center understands that meaningful, formal classroom educational experiences are essential, but recognizes that for many, it is the experiential educational moments that occur in camp and youth group settings that leave a lasting impact. With that in mind, the Center has hired Ezra Flom as its first Director of Experiential Education.

As the director, Ezra will spend his time working with the Center’s youth groups, Camp Ki Tov summer day camp, and scouting programs.

I have blogged about some of the pedagogical implications of experiential education for Jewish day school in the past. I think in many ways there are confluences between “21st century learning” and “experiential education” – the most important of which, to me, is an emphasis on authenticity. Students learn best when engaged in tasks they perceive to have real-world meaning. That can be building a real game or mitzvah trips that make the work a better place. It can take place within the walls of a school or out in the world. As an academy housed at a synagogue, we have unique opportunities to not only “learn Jewish” but “do Jewish”. We don’t just learn about Shabbat; we experience Shabbat. We don’t just learn about tikkun olam/social action; we go out and fix our community. We don’t just go to school; we go to camp and youth group.

Most importantly we encourage our student to be their authentic Jewish selves as they carry their experiences from context to context. To me that why experiential education matters. It brings with the promise of making real what, in some cases, can only be simulated or sampled within the walls of a classroom. Those are often the most important experiences of all…

And so as I am presently feeling the impending impact my daughter’s first taste of Jewish camping will have on her and on our family, and as I think back on the impact my experiential educational experiences have had on me, I look forward to working with Ezra to re-imagine the walls and boundaries within our academy so that we may provide our students and their families the full richness of what Jewish living has to offer.