Category: Jewish Education

Notions from #NAJDSCONF 5772

This seems to be the weeks of sequels!  Last week, I revised my love of Wordle with a second-annual graphic summary of a year’s worth of blog posts (here).  I am still waiting for comments (hint, hint parents & teachers!) to see how comparing the first and second Wordles reveals anything about a shift in emphasis or direction.  I love hearing that someone is reading the blog…I really love when someone comments on the blog.

This week, I will try to creatively share and reflect on my experiences in Atlanta from which I just returned from the North American Jewish Day School Conference.  This year’s theme was “Current Landscapes, Changing Horizons” and you can read all about the conference and find links to presentations and materials from the conference, here.  You can check out all the official conference tweets, which includes links, photos and videos not on the website, here.

Coming on the heels of another reflective blog post about Jewish day school conference attendance (here), I don’t want to be repetitive.  I did a fair amount of tweeting from the conference, which you can check out, by either clicking above to follow me on Twitter, or by clicking, here.  And you will find pictures, videos and thoughts from the conference that I may not get to in this blog post.

I attended the conference with our school’s 21st Century Learning Coordinator Andrea Hernandez and we co-presented a session on the first day called “21st Century Learning in Jewish Day Schools – A Conversation”.  It was well attended and augured well for the rest of our conference experience.  If you would like to see the presentation, you can click here and scroll down to the entry entitled “NAJDS”.

On Day 2, I had the pleasure to be a part of a panel discussion hosted by DeLeT on the topic of “Teacher Leadership”.  The rest of that day was spent exclusively with the Schechter Day School Network.  Sitting next to Andrea, I was captivated by a new app she was using and I immediately purchased it and started playing with.  As she says on her blog post from the conference,

 I am trying to build fluency with my iPad, so I used the Corkulus app to take notes. Not only do I feel that the practice was good for my iPad fluency, I am happy with the notes that I am able to share, not only here on my blog, but I was able to email the notes to the person sitting next to me, as well as others who were not at the session.

I spent the rest of the conference playing with it and loving it!  So, for something different, here is my summary of Day 2 of the conference via Corkulous:

Depending on how you are viewing this, I realize it may be a little blurry (even after clicking on it).  If you cannot blow it up, and would like to see it (or if you have the app and want me to email it to you in format), please feel free and email me directly.  It includes thoughts from a text study, the new branding initiative for the Schechter Network and DeLeT.

On Day 3, I had the honor of playing a (very) small part in Michael Mino’s morning keynote.  I don’t have permission to share the presentation, but I can share my small part of it, which you can find here under the heading “Mobile Learning”.

I spent lots of time networking about edJEWcon!  I suspect we will be fully enrolled by the end of the month.  I look forward to announcing the schools and partners who will be joining us for this exciting opportunity.  Our thanks again to The AVI CHAI Foundation for their generous support.  Stay tuned!

I closed the conference by live blogging a fascinating session on Games-Based Learning facilitated by Barry Joseph.  Here is my Corkulous-produced live blog from the session:

We are in the process of exploring bringing gaming theory into our repertoire of 21st century skills and literacies.  We are engaged in serious conversation with a few thought-partners in this field and look to make some announcements of new initiatives soon.

After the conference ended, I stayed on for an extra night to participate in a board meeting for the Schechter Day School Network.  Despite all the negative press, the future for Schechter is quite optimistic.  We struggle, as all Jewish and private schools do, in a down economy and increased competition.  But we also offer a unique and valued product.  Good things are coming.

All in all, it was a wonderful opportunity to learn, share, reflect, connect, collaborate, present and feel the power of being with over 600 people who care deeply about securing the Jewish future.  I plan to bring the positive energy and innovative ideas I got from this year’s conference back to help secure our own school’s future.

But tonight I rest…

Share

21st Century Conference Attendance – One Head’s Meta Experience

I spent this past Sunday through Tuesday attending the Day School Leadership Training Institute’s (DSLTI) Alumni Retreat in West Palm Beach, Florida.  It was the first conference I have attended this season, with at least two more coming up.  I will be in Atlanta, GA in January attending (and presenting) at the North American Jewish Day School Conference and we will be hosting edJEWcon 5772.0, right here at our school in May.  There have been years, when in addition to those, there might be other Jewish or secular conferences in education I have attended or presented at.  That is, admittedly, a lot of time to be out of my school and (particularly in this economy) a lot financial resources being spent for me to attend theses conferences and retreats.  It raises the very legitimate question, “Is it worth it for the school to have you attend or present at all of these conferences”?  My teachers, parents, students, board members, donors, etc., all have a very legitimate right to ask what benefits come from this investment.

I had thought (prior to the retreat) about writing a blog post describing what I would learn from the DSLTI Retreat with suggestions of ways it might impact my practice.  But then I remembered that I am supposed be Mr. 21st Century Learning and couldn’t I employ another method for delivering that content?

So…my first order of business was to ensure that I captured my experience of the retreat utilizing 21st century technologies.  We quickly developed a Twitter #hashtag to organize a back-channel for the retreat; for us to comment, and collaborate, and – for me – to experiment with using Twitter for my own personal professional development.  Every time I would have written a note, or typed a note, I sent a tweet.  For those who already follow me on Twitter (and you can click on the “Follow” button on my blog if you’d like to), it provided them with a running live experience of who I was listening to, what I was thinking, what questions it raised, and some cases what I was seeing (as I attached pictures to my tweets using my iPhone).

Whether you have a Twitter account or not, you can review the entire #DSLTI Twitter feed simply by clicking here or by going to www.twitter.com and searching for “#DSLTI”.  (You will notice that the conversation has continued past the conference – which means it was and will be a meaningful professional development vehicle.)  But for a taste, I am going to simply show you my tweets from the retreat.  [Warning: I have given this to you as snapshots – NONE of the links will work.  You would have to get that from going directly to Twitter.]  This is one answer to the question of what the experience meant to me:

So besides tweeting from the retreat, I also took “notes”.  Using the “Note Taker HD” app on my iPad, I was able incorporate my hand-written notes, typed notes, and photos.  Again, it may not all be legible (I am a doctor now) and it all may not make sense because I wasn’t writing it for public display, I do think it is useful to show for two reasons.  One, as above, is to ensure no one thought I spent my time sipping drinks by the pool.  But, it is also to provide some meta-analysis about the experience of attending a conference and how 21st century learning has impacted my experience.  It may also stimulate some thought about whether we need to train teachers or students about how they can adapt new ways of “taking notes” in a 21st century learning context.  Here’s what I came up:

The third thing I did was enter each new book I was stimulated to buy onto my Shelfari page, which you can see to your right on my blog as a widget or by clicking here.

I came back front the retreat jazzed up about what I had learned, how I had learned, and how I hope to have my practice informed by new learning.  I hope this blog post does a fraction of any of those things for you!

And if you are interested in where #DSLTI goes from here?  Follow us on Twitter!

Share

Leap of Faith – The Sequel

I wrote a blog post last year after returning from our school’s second annual Middle School Retreat (my first with the school) at Camp Ramah Darom in Georgia, entitled “Leap of Faith” (you can read it here).  One of the great 21st century learning pedagogies is the gift of reflection.  And one of the gifts of living by a school calendar (which, parenthetically, is equally true of the Jewish calendar) is that it often gives you the chance to experience and re-experience similar events on a yearly basis.  And so now after having had a week or so to reflect on this year’s Middle School Retreat, I wanted to spend a little time unpacking this most powerful of experiences.

[You may wish to reread my most recent blog post here and/or check out the brief video we made of it here for a taste of those experiences.]

The other advantage of having taken an additional week or two to share my thoughts is that I am not writing in the feverish afterglow of the experience.  We’ve come down from the high, but the carryover effect carries on.  And that’s what it is really all about isn’t it? Transferability?  The magic bullet of all successful informal educational experiences is how well they transfer back into “real life”.  Sure it is amazing, the best-time-of-my-life when you are in the middle of gorgeous scenery flying down the zip-line.  But is it still amazing back in the science lab?

Yup.

Or at least so far.  We have work to do to nourish the spark from the retreat and keep the flame lit through the peaks and valleys of a school year.  But when I walk the halls and see our Middle School students, I can see the bonds born from horseback and hikes remain intact. Similar to the positive impact on athletics in the small middle school (you can read that blog post here), our ability to create community is vital to our continued success.  We are not sixth graders, seventh graders and eighth graders…we are a middle school.  We are not just students, teachers and administrators…we are a family.

 

Final note: If you are an MJGDS middle school family reading this, you may be wondering what the big deal is with the Schnupencup.  If you are someone who has been a student, camper, teacher, staff, or participant in just about anything I have done in Jewish education since 1989…I hope you are smiling.  If you have no idea what I am talking about…it is just a matter of time!

Fingers up!

“We left as a school and came back as a family.”

Wow.

That’s all I can say.  We got back yesterday from our four-day Middle School Retreat and it was everything you could hope for in a Jewish informal educational experience. We had learning, games, athletics, prayer, social bonding, community building, hiking, zip lines, a campfire, and a friendship circle to boot.  It felt like we squeezed a summer’s session of camp into just four days…and we are all tired enough to prove it!

After having spent a good chunk of time, in between catching up with the rest of the school, putting together a video of our experience, I will let the video to the talking – for this week.  I will likely have more to say next week when I’ve had a chance to properly process and reflect.

The flip camera was held by lots of hands and so I apologize to parents and students that not everyone made it in – it is not a reflection of anything other than happenstance.  We will more than make up for it with the photos to be published on our website soon.  It is, I hope, a taste of why this retreat is such an important part of our middle school.  Our relationships are forever changed – for the good.  We will be able to do things within the walls of the classrooms that we never would have without having spent time together outside of them.

I am now going to go home and rest.

Jewish Holiday-Palooza!

How many Jewish holidays can we pack into a two and a half day school week?

Lots!

We are doing our best to pack both the authentic celebrations of holidays we are in school for (as you will see below) and foretastes of holidays to come like the mini-Simchat Torah celebration we will have later today (of which I will not have time to make a mini-movie of due to the half-day schedule).

If a picture is worth a 1000 words…hopefully, a couple of short movies of our students living the Judaism we teach in the classrooms outside their walls will a blog post make!  Here’s a brief look at our week.  Enjoy!

And the fun doesn’t end today!  We hope to see many families celebrating the holidays that are to come this week – especially Simchat Torah!  Don’t miss this opportunity to celebrate the gift of Torah – and to let your children see you enjoy the love of Judaism.

Monday?  Off on our Middle School Retreat!  I’ll blog all about it when I get back.

Chag sameach!

Marching with Fruits & Vegetables (5772 Remix)

We are deep into the holidays!  We have come out of Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur and headed straight into Sukkot.  It is amongst my favorite times of the year.

Not because we have a half-day and I have to sprint out of here to buy ingredients for cholent, finish my sukkah, and get ready for the holiday am I going to revise and update a blog post that I originally wrote last year here.  I am going to revise and update that blog post because I don’t know how to say what I want to say during this time of year any differently…and because I don’t imagine the issues it raises will markedly be different this year (but I am open to being wrong!).

So…without further adieu…

I love Sukkot!  Talk about “A Floor, But No Ceiling”!

This is absolutely my favorite holiday of the entire year.  There is nothing else like it on the Jewish Calendar – sitting outside in a sukkah you built yourself (which I actually did this year!), with handmade decorations from your children, enjoying good food with friends and family in the night air, the citrusy smell of etrog lingering and mixing with verdant lulav – this is experiential Judaism at its finest.

But here is a complicated truth: Even though our school will be closed on Thursday and Friday for Sukkot, it is reasonable to assume that the majority of our students will not be found in synagogue enjoying what is known as “The Season of our Rejoicing”.  But many or most were in synagogue last weekend for Yom Kippur.  So when it comes to “atoning” we have a full house, but for “rejoicing” we have empty seats?

If our children – if we – only experience the Judaism of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and not the Judaism of Sukkot, the simple truth is that we are not exposing them to the full range of beauty and joy our tradition has to offer.  So why, in fact, is this what typically happens?

I’m not entirely sure, but I think it has to do with the exotic nature of the holiday.  As someone who did not grow up celebrating this holiday, upon coming to synagogue as an adult and watching a congregation march in circles waving fruits and vegetables – well this was not the Judaism I knew!  Truth be told, there are surely pagan accretions to the way that we honor the harvest roots of this holiday which may seem alien to the typical prayerbook service.  But for me, that is precisely what makes it so unique, special and not-to-be-missed!

No one likes to feel uncomfortable and adults especially are wary of feeling uneducated or unprepared.  I know how I felt encountering Jewish ritual for the first time as an adult – it was scary.  I, however, was lucky.  I was pursuing a degree in Jewish education and, therefore, had all the support and resources I needed to learn and grow.  I realize that most adults coming at Jewish practice for the first time (or the first time in a while) are not so lucky.  The amount of “stuff” Judaism asks of us to do – building the sukkah with precise specifications, shaking the lulav and etrog in the proscribed way, chanting less-familiar prayers, coming to synagogue on unfamiliar days – can be overwhelming.

But don’t lose the forest through the trees…I’d simply ask you to consider this: When building your child’s library of Jewish memories, which memory feels more compelling and likely to resonate over time – sitting in starched clothes in sanctuary seats or relaxing with friends and family in an outdoor sukkah built with love and care?

You don’t have to choose just one, of course, that is the beauty of living a life of sacred time – there is a rhythm to the Jewish calendar, evocative and varied.  Come to synagogue for the High Holidays, to be sure.  But don’t miss out on Sukkot (or Simchat Torah or Shavuot or “Add Jewish Holiday Here”).  Let this Sukkot truly be the season of our great rejoicing.  I hope to see many students in synagogue this Sukkot.  I hope to see many parents push themselves out of their comfort zones and join the parade.  Pick up your fruit and vegetables and march with us in a circle.

Chag sameach.

It isn’t just good education; it’s good business.

I feel similarly to how many synagogue presidents must feel heading into Kol Nidre this evening as I prepare to write my first business blog nearing the eve of Yom Kippur!  The rationale is hardly the same.  Synagogues reserve Yom Kippur for their annual “High Holiday appeals” because this is the time they have the most people in the seats, not necessarily because the message of fundraising fits with the theme of atonement.  I do not presume that as families are preparing for the holiday that I will have a similarly huge burst in blog readership!

A personal note…

…apropos of the time of year.  Let me take this opportunity to offer my sincerest apologies to anyone whom I may have hurt or offended over the past year.  Let us forgive each other (and ourselves) for our all-too-human foibles and pledge to make this new (Jewish) year one of growth and community-building.

And now to the topic at hand…

I have been asked by our good friends at the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE) to become a guest blogger on the topic off  “How 21st century Jewish education is an issue of financial sustainability?”  First off, thanks to my new, good (and for now virtual) friend Ken Gordon, PEJE’s fantastic Social Media Manager for the opportunity!  I’m excited to wrestle with that question and share my thoughts with colleagues in the field.  [My posts with PEJE will appear here on their home page for blogs impacting the Jewish day school field.  I recommend the page for regular viewing or subscription if you are interested in the field.  I am cross-posting this first one in my own blog as a trial run.]

From PEJE’s 2009 strategic plan, they define “financial sustainability” as “increasing the resources available to schools and professionalizing the development capacity”.  This is part of PEJE’s overall shift in mission from an organization dedicated to growing the number of Jewish day schools to an organization dedicated to sustaining Jewish day schools.  (I’m oversimplifying a bit.)  So…how can being a 21st century Jewish day school increase resources and professionalize development capacity?

As I have been thinking about this question, my initial reaction is to try to avoid providing obvious answers.  If this is, however, to be my introductory blog post on this topic, I do want to share my initial thoughts on the subject because they may be crossing your minds as well.  This was my off-the-top-of-my-head response when Ken first asked me to blog on the topic:

…to me it fits very much with why we feel 21st century learning is so vital – with increased competition from Hebrew charter schools, independent schools, and suburban public schools AND a perilous economy – we have to brand Jewish day schools as being the kind of school most likely to provide a high-quality 21st century learning experience – that we are the future of SECULAR education because we are JEWISH.

Totally flips the script on prospective parents.  “Too Jewish?”  No such thing.  Parents looking for excellence in 21st century education should be more concerned with “Jewish enough?”

Now the truth is that I could not be more passionate about this idea.  Over the last year and change of my current headship, I have seen firsthand the power of 21st century learning in action and have been convinced that this is the only viable path forward for Jewish (particularly non-Orthodox) day schools.  To be financially sustainable really only (!) requires two consistent streams of revenue: tuition and fundraising.  You can only increase tuition revenue by adding students.  You can only add students if you have a great product.  So if embracing 21st century learning values increases the quality of your product, being such a school should drive enrollment and, thus, tuition revenue up.

And I absolutely believe this to be the case.  But as a philosophical concept, it doesn’t really answer the question.  Because all I’ve done is suggest that if you want your school to be really successful it should be a really good school.  You don’t need me to point that out.  The more interesting question, to me, is how being a 21st century Jewish learning institution impacts the business of schooling?  What I am interested in exploring through these occasional blog posts is how we can apply the pedagogies of 21st century learning to the managerial and business aspects of running a Jewish day school to ensure they maximize financial sustainability as defined above.

[Disclosure: I have been the head of two Jewish day schools owned and operated by synagogues.  Neither school has a dedicated “Development Director” or a “Business Manager” or a “Department of Institutional Advancement.”  Both schools outsource a fair amount of their business functions.  I do have an MBA from the American Jewish University, which has come in extraordinarily handy in light of those two prior sentences.  So the good and the bad is that I have, as a head of school, had a fair amount of experience doing development and business operations without a lot of the training.  I am particularly interested in seeing how development directors, business managers, fundraisers, etc., respond to the ideas I am proposing.]

What are the 21st century pedagogies I am suggesting be applied to the business of schooling?

Transparency, collaboration, technology, reflection, global connectedness, authenticity, and prosumerism (which I will define as the paradigm shift wherein the learner is the producer, not the consumer, of content.)

How can these ideas increase the sustainability of Jewish day schools?

Please lend your voice to the conversation – comment freely and often or email me directly ([email protected]) if you are still a bitsocial media shy.  With your feedback, I look forward to exploring these and other ideas at the nexus of 21st century learning and financial stewardship that will be focus of this yet-to-be-named blog to be published however-often!

Sticks & Stones

It has been a big month for this blog!

The trouble with major initiatives and new programs is that it makes the “normal” weeks feel boring by comparison!  Over the last three weeks, I’ve introduced edJEWcon 5772.0 (with frequent updates via Twitter, @edJEWcon, about exciting keynote speakers and the application process); Jon’s #NoOfficeDay, which takes place this September 13th and will be the subject of next week’s blog post); and described The Inclusive Jewish Day School we are striving to be.  Who can keep up the pace!

This week, I have nothing quite as sexy to report on, but it may be of equal or even greater importance to the overall health and wellbeing of our students and our school.  I want to talk a little bit about “bullying” and how our school and synagogue is striving to keep our children physically, emotionally and spiritually safe.

“Bullying” (which I am putting in quotes to signify how loaded a term it has become) exists in all forms and in all schools.  It can be qualified (physical, emotional, virtual or cyber, exclusionary, etc.) as well as quantified (how many children affected, how often do incidents occur, etc.) – but it cannot be responsibly ignored.  The only relevant question is how to reduce it – how do we make our schools and synagogues as safe and nurturing as we can?

Surprise!  There is no magic bullet!  There are tons of books, programs, videos and assemblies of different qualities that schools often use to address this issue.  So why is it still so prevalent?

My guess?  It takes an institutional commitment that is hard to maintain in order to reduce bullying to its most minimal level.

Thanks to the hard work of two of our parents (one of whom has children in both our Day and Religious Schools) and our new Second Rabbi, Jesse Olitzky, we are in the process of developing just such an institutional approach to reducing bullying at the Jacksonville Jewish Center in all its schools and programs.  We will look to incorporate successful strategies from other schools, the latest research, survey data from our children, parents and teachers, and the synergetic partnership of our clergy to couch everything in the Jewish values we strive to live up to each and every day.

Consider this the teaser.

Together, we look forward to making our schools the safe nurturing environment for learning we have been entrusted to create.  Working together – parent, student, teacher, administration, clergy, Preschool, Day School, Religious School, Makom, USY, etc. – we will do more than any of us could accomplish alone.

This is not a “Day School” issue – you can be a parent in any of our schools or programs to participate (and the more variety the better).  You don’t have to be a parent at all, in fact.  If this subject speaks to you and you want to be part of the solution, please let me know and you can be part of the planning.

Next week: Video from Jon’s #NoOfficeDay!

Share

The Inclusive Jewish Day School

While the rest of the country is preparing to head “Back to School” after Labor Day, we are completing our SECOND WEEK of school already!

We have lots of exciting things going on:

  • You can check out the ongoing saga of the “Frognapping of Froggy Mitzhopper” by visiting our website and clicking on the videos here. (I think my acting chops are rounding into fine form!)
  • The MJGDS Marlins are about to make history by playing the first away game in our school’s 50-year history!  You can order booster shirts by emailing the School Office ([email protected]) and can read more about the Marlins on the PE Blog here.
  • Singapore Math Parent Night will take place on September 12 at 7:00 PM.  You can read more about our philosophical shift towards a new math curriculum here and about our move to Singapore Math here.
  • As announced in last week’s blog, my #NoOfficeDay will take place on September 13th.  I am excited to spend my day with teachers and students and I look forward to blogging about my experience.

But what I really want to write about this week is a remarkable development taking place within our school – our growing ability to become the inclusive Jewish day school our community and families deserve.  I wrote the following in a prior blog post at the end of last year:

“We have also taken great strides in our outreach to special needs families and in our current practice in putting together processes for dealing with the mechanics of delivering services.  We take it as a positive sign that KoleinuJax has gifted us (in collaboration with Jewish Family & Community Services and the Jewish Community Foundation of Northeast Florida) the monies necessary to expand our program next year by allowing us to hire and train additional support staff in classes where we have children with special needs.”

We are two weeks in and “shofar so good”!  (I only have until the High Holidays to enjoy my favorite pun…sorry in advance!)  We have, shofar (see how much fun that is!), sent out assistant teachers to a Duval County training and hosted a training of our own for our entire faculty.  We are presently meeting with prospective special needs educators for the purpose of scheduling observations of our classes and, then, targeting training specific to the needs of our children and our teachers.  We have been meeting and communicating more frequently with parents of special needs students in our school with the goal of being as proactive as we can as sacred partners.  And finally, thanks in large part to the hard work of two parents in our school, we are preparing to become eligible this month to receive McKay Scholarships.

The McKay Scholarship Program (according to its website) is defined as such:

“Florida’s school choice programs ensure that no child will be left behind by allowing parents to choose the best educational setting—public or private—for their child.  The McKay Scholarships for Students with Disabilities Program provided over 22,000 Florida students with special needs the opportunity to attend a participating private school during the 2010-11 school year.  The McKay Scholarships Program also offers parents public school choice.  A parent of an eligible special needs student may choose to transfer the student to another public school.”

The Martin J. Gottlieb Day School is committed to doing its part to serve the special needs children of the Jewish Community of Jacksonville.  Our eligibility to participate in McKay signals our desire to be in the conversation as a possible “best educational setting” for Jewish children with special needs.  It does not mean that we are automatically capable of handling each and every situation appropriately.  It does not mean that we are, in fact, the “best educational setting” for each Jewish child with special needs.  It is hard to imagine any (private) school that can possibly claim to be that – there is way too much variation in resources, mission and children for any one school to be the “best educational setting” for every child.  It does mean, however, that we have elevated ourselves into the conversation – we are invested in being capable to work with families to determine if we are the best setting, to prepare a structure for children to be successful when they enroll, to establish processes to evaluate our successes and failures, and to maintain healthy communication to take next steps as they occur.

McKay provides families who are usually already burdened with the additional expenses associated with special needs with funding that could make or break the difference between being able to afford private school tuition or not.  It is our sincerest hope that IF Jewish families in Jacksonville would like their children to have a Jewish day school education and IF our school is capable of meeting their needs, that McKay will allow those families a choice they may never have had available until now.

Disclaimer: My wife is a special needs educator whose academic and professional experience is with “special education inclusion”.

I recently reviewed my research in this area and I think this link, here, from the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) provides good definitions, a concise history of inclusion, decent explanations of federal law, a fair framing of the debate between “full inclusion” and “resource room”, and examples of academic research.  I encourage you to read the whole thing.  But for my purposes, let me quote a few highlights:

Inclusion 
Inclusion is a term which expresses commitment to educate each child, to the maximum extent appropriate, in the school and classroom he or she would otherwise attend.  It involves bringing the support services to the child (rather than moving the child to the services) and requires only that the child will benefit from being in the class (rather than having to keep up with the other students).  Proponents of inclusion generally favor newer forms of education service delivery.

This would be an accurate expression of our attitude and aspirations for the children in our school with special needs.  (Please understand that GIFTEDNESS is a SPECIAL NEED.  “Inclusion” includes our philosophy of how we strive to meet the needs of gifted students as well.)

I am being this descriptive because I want to address a common concern – how will having special needs students in my child’s class impact the experience ofmy child?  Or, won’t the teacher have to spend so much time focusing on the special needs students that s/he won’t be able to provide my child with the individualized attention we expect in private school?

First the research…

There is no evidence that the inclusion of special needs students has any negative impact on the academic experience of the other students if the classroom is structured and staffed appropriately.  This is why the conversation about whether or not a school is the “best educational setting” is so important.  We have to be honest with parents about our resources and abilities.  We should never bring in a child with needs we are not confident we can meet – that risks harm to the child and to the class. Each child and each situation is different and is handled case by case.  But with the right attitude, support, and training – we are moving to be more capable with more students.

So if there is no impact on the academic experience of the other students…might there be other extremely important and positive outcomes of having special needs students in the classroom?  YES!

While researchers are cautious in their conclusions, there are some positive signs.  In particular, students in special education and regular education showed several positive changes, including:

  • A reduced fear of human differences accompanied by increased comfort and awareness (Peck et al., 1992);
  • Growth in social cognition (Murray-Seegert,1989);
  • Improvement in self-concept of non-disabled students (Peck et. al., 1992);
  • Development of personal principles and ability to assume an advocacy role toward their peers and friends with disabilities;
  • Warm and caring friendships (Bogdan and Taylor, 1989).

Do these not seem like the kinds of values a Jewish day school ought to live by?  Would this not represent our highest aspirations for the moral development of our children? Does this not seem like a good way of making menchen?

We have a passion for meeting the needs of the Jewish children of Jacksonville – special or otherwise.  One doesn’t have to choose between meeting the needs of special needs children or the highly gifted (or the overwhelming majority of children who are neither). Our work with special needs children and their families does not detract from our work with all of our other children and families – it enhances it.

When my daughter graduates (please God many years from now) from the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School and I watch her walk across the bimah to receive her diploma, my wife and I will surely be proud of her academic achievements (whatever they may be). But we will be even more proud of who she will have become having learned to love and respect all her classmates no matter who they are, what they know or can do, or however quirky their personality traits might be.  And we will be blessed for having had the ability to have her educated in a place that doesn’t require families to have to choose between.

Share

Summer’s Forgotten Holiday

NOTE: I will be on vacation from July 27th – August 10th and will likely take the next two weeks off from blogging.  In fact, since I will be celebrating my 10-year anniversary during that time, let’s go ahead and say I will be taking two weeks off from blogging!

Each summer, nearer to the end than the beginning, comes the Jewish holiday of Tisha Be’Av (I am not providing a link because I will be defining and explaining below).  This tends to be one of the least-acknowledged and commemorated holidays, unless you are summering at a Jewish summer camp.  There are a variety of reasons for this, not the least of which, I am sure is that it is both a profoundly sad day and brings with it all the prohibitions of Yom Kippur, but with a longer and hotter day.

So in the spirit of encouraging exploration of this fascinating day on the Jewish calendar, I would like to provide you with some background and some suggested family activities that may, perhaps, allow you a way into summer’s forgotten holiday.  [I’ve adapted this material from a summer camp curriculum I wrote a few years ago.]

Tisha Be’Av – The Ninth of Av

The ninth of the Hebrew month Av is a major fast day in the Jewish calendar, when we lament the date of the destruction of both the First and Second Temples, with the subsequent loss of national sovereignty and exile from the Holy Land.  Tisha Be’Av is the culmination of a three week period of mourning, the last nine days of which are particularly intense, with observance of many customs similar to those practiced after a bereavement in the close family.  The “Three Weeks” begin on the seventeenth of Tammuz, the date on which the outer walls of the city of Jerusalem were breached during a Roman siege.  This is also the date which the Midrash claims Moses broke the first tablets of the Law when he came down from Mt. Sinai to find the people worshipping the Golden Calf.

On this day, the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple in 586 B.C.E., and the Romans burned the Second Temple in 70 C.E.  This date marks as well the day on which the Jews of England were expelled from that country in 1290.  The greatest catastrophe of medieval Jewish history, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, occurred on the ninth of Av in 1492.  It is also the date which marked the beginning of the Nazi deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto…

The day is marked publicly in the State of Israel by the closure of restaurants, places of entertainment, etc., from the previous evening, with food shops open only for morning hours.  The day is interpreted through its religious significance and/or its importance in connection with nationhood and national sovereignty-whether or not individuals choose to fast.

Traditional observance included the reading of Book of Lamentations, a 25 hour fast, deprivation of comfort and physical contact.  In Jerusalem, thousands of people stream towards the Kotel, the Western and only remaining Wall of the Second Temple to commemorate the destruction and pray for redemption.

 

Religious Observance

Tisha Be’Av is marked by strict mourning practices and the reading of the Book of Lamentations.  It is preceded by a meal called the seudah ha-mafseket (“the meal that interrupts”- that is, differentiates between a regular day and the fast day).  It is usually a modest meal.  Some people eat food that is customarily provided for mourners – hard-boiled eggs and lentils.

During Tisha Be’Av, as on Yom Kippur, the following are forbidden: eating, drinking, bathing, anointing with oil/perfume, wearing leather shoes, and sexual intercourse.  Unique to Tisha Be’Av is a prohibition against the study of Torah, since studying Torah is a joyous activity.  All that is permitted to be studied is the Book of Job, the parts of Jeremiah that describe the destruction of Jerusalem, and the sections of Talmud that deal with the destruction as well.  Even though work is not forbidden, we are encouraged by the tradition to minimize the amount of work we do this day.

The synagogue service begins after sundown with ma’ariv (the evening service), followed by the reading of the Book of Lamentations (Eicha).  It is customary to sit on the floor or on low benches during the reading, which is again similar to mourning customs.  Only a few lights or candles are left on in the synagogue.  The ark curtain (parokhet) is removed.  The ma’ariv service is recited in hushed tones and Lamentations is chanted to its own special melody.  At the end of Lamentations, the next-to-last verse is repeated by everyone so that the book will end on a hopeful note: “Turn to us, O God, and we shall be turned, renew our days as of old.”  Following Lamentations, a series of piyyutim-liturgical poems-are recited.  These prayers, known as kinot, describe the destruction of the Temple and the sins of the Jewish people.

While many people do not wear shoes all day long on Tisha Be’Av, others refrain from doing so only during services.  The next morning, tallit and tefillin are not worn.  This is another sign of mourning, because a mourner before the funeral does not put on tallit and tefillin.  The Torah is read, and the congregants sit on the floor and recite kinot.  The haftarah is from Jeremiah 8:13-9:23 and is chanted to the tune of Lamentations (except the last two verse, which are to the regular haftarah melody).  At mincha (afternoon service), tallit and tefillin are worn and the Torah is read again.  At the end of Tisha Be’Av, some people recite poetry by the medieval poet Yehuda Halevi which speaks eloquently about Israel and the Diaspora.

Extract from Lamentations:

In blazing anger God has cut down all

the might of Israel;

God has withdrawn God’s right hand in the

presence of the foe;

God had ravaged Jacob like flaming fire;

consuming on all sides.

Lamentations 2:3

 

Extracts from Yehuda Halevi

O beautiful one, joy of the universe,

City of the great King

For you, my soul has longed

From the furthest corner of the West.

 

My heart is in the East,

And I am at the farthest end of the West,

How can I taste,

How can anything in life be sweet?

 

Tisha Be’Av Values Clarification

Choose one of the following statements and answer the following questions:

  1. Since the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948, we have no reason to commemorate Tisha Be’Av…the Jewish State has been restored.
  2. It is important to use this day to remember the events which occurred in history on Tisha Be’Av, and the suffering of our ancestors.
  3. Isaiah 40:24
  4. Lamentations 2:3
  5. With the establishment of Yom Ha’Shoah as another communal day of grief and mourning, Tisha Be’Av is no longer needed.
  6. The destruction of the Temple was a blessing in disguise because it allowed Judaism to mature beyond sacrifice into prayer.
  7. A statement which summarizes the laws of Tisha Be’Av.

a)     Why did you choose this statement?

b)    Put this statement into your own words.

c)     Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

d)    How does this statement relate to Tisha Be’Av?

e)     What lessons can one learn from your statement?

f)     Describe one way in which the statement you chose explains your personal                           connection to Tisha Be’Av?

g)    Can you identify one new observance of Tisha Be’Av that you would be willing to                 experiment with this year?  Which would it be and why?