A Floor, But Not a Ceiling

And Now For Something Completely Different: Annual BlogCloud

Normally I save this annual exercise in running my blog through a word cloud app or website until the end of November. When I was living in the States, it was because of the short week of Thanksgiving. When I moved to Canada, it was because of my FOMO on American Thanksgiving (and because if you commit to writing a weekly blog post, they ain’t all going to be masterpieces.) This year, however, considering my state of mind as an expat living through the ongoing federal election in the USA, I’m physically and emotionally exhausted! So rather than wait a few more weeks, this seems like the perfect week (for me) to turn away from cable news and the constant refreshing of political websites, and return to a tried and true friend.

If you missed last year’s punny post…

I genuinely do enjoy this annual exercise in “word-clouding”. If you are unfamiliar with the idea, in a nutshell, word clouds (through an algorithm only they know) take 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. Another great feature is that, not only can you cut-and-paste in any written document, you can type in blogs, websites, etc., and it will go back and search them for content, add it all up, and spit out a word cloud representing the sum of all its written content.

This is my fourth such annual post here at OJCS and I have done them each, as stated above, in November. So, what does this year’s BlogCloud look like and what does it reveal? [If it is too small on your screen/device you can go ahead and zoom in. Or just scroll up!]

I just put last and this years’ butterflies side-by-side to do a little comparison. “Jewish”, “Teachers”, and “Students” are about the same size, but “Parents” is much smaller this year. My only thought is that I spent so much time in March-April-May-June writing blog-length emails to parents that, perhaps, I didn’t feel the need to duplicate in this blog. I surely don’t believe it is an intentional de-emphasis. “Community”, “Learning” and “Time” continue to hold strong and I think it is interesting that “time” has so much focus. Time really is one of the critical variables in learning and how we choose to use it has tremendous impact on teaching and learning. “COVID” and “Coronavirus” make their obvious debuts.

What words would you have expected to see? What words are you disappointed to see?

If you see something interesting in my OJCS BlogCloud, let me know in the comments!

Expat Files: Do Civics & Civility Begin At School?

Canada’s last federal election was just about a year ago (October 21, 2019) and as the head of a Canadian Jewish Day School – located in the federal capital no less – I have exactly no vivid memories of the election.

It isn’t that I don’t remember the run up, or the campaigns, or that there weren’t lots of spirited workplace conversation. It isn’t that I don’t remember the election itself or the results or that people didn’t have feelings or opinions about the outcome. All of those things happened. But I cannot identify any specific moment or memory that stands out as noteworthy.

I was the head of an American Jewish Day School in 2008 (Las Vegas) and in 2012 (Jacksonville). [In 2016, I was working for Prizmah.] I have clear and distinct memories of both, and here I mean in terms of my normal workaday life in schools, not in my overall awareness. I remember fraught and painful conversations as both faculty and parent communities tried to reconcile strong partisan feelings (and sometimes rancor) with our work to create safe, nurturing, inclusive school communities that were supposed to foster critical thinking skills. The day after those elections were either funerals or celebrations depending on which team you were on. You could see the secret high-fives and commiserating glances up and down the hallways.

I don’t recall a single parent last year expressing a concern about how we were teaching or talking about the election. Our Grade 8s had opportunity to meet with candidates and parties by virtue of our geography and I don’t recall a single parent asking that their child not be exposed to that person or that party. In 2008, Senator Joe Lieberman (who at that point in his career was a John McCain surrogate) came to visit our tiny school in Las Vegas. Let’s just say that people (including my father z”l) had feelings. When Barack Obama became President and wanted to offer anodyne greetings as part of a “back to school” message, not only did we have to secure permission slips, we had families insist that their children be pulled out of class so as not to hear it. In 2012, the most beloved teacher (Judy Reppert, z”l) in our school was bombarded with questions and criticisms as she tried to navigate “current events”. When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to our Jewish Community Campus in 2018 for a Rosh Hashanah program, it raised exactly no eyebrows as community leaders – some of whom strongly oppose his politics – welcomed him and happily posed for selfies (guilty!).

PM Justin Trudeau Visits Ottawa Jewish Community Campus, 2018

Why? Why this stark disparity in both civics and civility? It is very tempting to be reductive (Canada, Good; America, Bad), but I neither feel that way nor is it true. Political scientists will rightfully point to differing founding narratives, a huge disparity in homogeneity, surprisingly (to an uneducated American) different political systems, among other explanations. But I am a school-person – my expertise is in education and my milieu are schools. And so let me humbly suggest perhaps that civics and civility begin at school…

An illustration…

…I am usually the first person to arrive at school each day, after the security guards. More often than not, I come in to find our two security guards engaged in high-level political discourse, not only about local and national politics, but about American and world politics. They are well-read and well-informed. I would wager that these two Canadian security guards know way more about American politics than any two average Americans. I cannot be more clear that this is not a backhanded compliment or a knock on “security guards”. What it is, is an indictment of civic engagement and information literacy in the States.

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

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

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

Teach, that’s what.

We lean into civic engagement and information literacy. Here, in our nation’s capital, we are blessed to have lots of opportunity to connect our school and students to the political process. Our teachers (primarily, but not exclusively, in Social Studies) take this work seriously. It is not extracurricular; it is curricular. We are also blessed here with a wonderful librarian who has serious information literacy chops. Brigitte Ruel has the best OJCS blog that you are not reading often enough. Our students are provided with the tools they need to determine what is and what is not a credible source, how to be a “fact finder” in a time of misinformation, and how be an ace fact-checker. And those are just examples…

Civility is not merely a concept, but a value, and one that schools should be able to model as well as teach. We certainly do our best here. Elections are an exciting time to be a citizen. As Jewish day schools, they are powerful opportunities to demonstrate how to have complicated and important conversations in accord with our highest values. All we can do is our best. We try to live up to our ideals. We teach facts. We provide respectful space for opinions. We encourage civic participation.

We witness history and celebrate the miracle of democracy.

Ken y’hi ratzon.

The Coronavirus Diaries: Preparing the Pivot

This blog post is not intended to indicate any inside information about impending school closures! I know no more than anyone else about how long we will be blessed with in-person learning at OJCS. Despite all the challenges – the daily stressors on families when symptoms and exposures occur, the life juggling required to accomodate unplanned learning from home and the extraordinary responsibility our teachers have assumed with grace and care to provide seamless hyflex learning – we are doing remarkably well! I can’t visit classrooms like I used to, but from what I can see with my own eyes or on a screen, we are delivering on our promise.

Part of what happens at the beginning of each year at OJCS, is that I meet with each teacher to develop an individualized Professional Growth Plan (PGP) for the year. We believe deeply in lifelong learning and our teachers all establish growth goals to help them be the best teachers they can be. Through those conversations, we have come to believe that one thing we can be doing now – ahead of any pivot to distance learning should it come – is to role-play distance learning here in school. We didn’t have any time last year to experience distance learning from the back-end (what does it look like from the student’s perspective?) or to do specific skill-building or troubleshooting, especially at the youngest grades. We are encouraging all our teachers to take the time now, while we have it, to dedicate a period, a block, a half-day or even a full day to role-play “Distance Learning in Grade X”. Let’s have the teacher teach from his or her device while students learn from theirs. Let’s have the teacher create asynchronous lessons that students should (even in K) be able to navigate without (or with limited) parent support and see what happens.

What does this mean for me now?

Great question! Not much. You may wish to pay attention to how and when your child(ren)’s teacher(s) schedule these simulated days. If your child is in Grades K-3, you may see a request from teachers that those students who do have access to devices (tablets or laptops) begin to bring them to school (if you are comfortable). Whereas we are BYODevice in Grades 4-8, we rely on the school’s iPads in Grades K-3. Although we are looking to add to our current supply, if you have a device that your child in Grades K-3 would likely be using in the case of a pivot, you may wish to send it for these scheduled practices.

Besides access to devices, how else are teachers preparing for the pivot?

We are seeing a direct result of the learning teachers did during our Pre-Planning Week and an increase in successful asynchronous and hyflex learning. Please revisit this post to see why and how your child(ren)’s teacher(s) are beginning to embrace platforms like Classkick and Nearpod.

How else can we – as parents – prepare for the pivot?

Another excellent question! Here, I would advise you to revisit this post from last spring that clarified home expectations. Our goal is NOT to provide materials for homeschooling! Our goal is to allow high-quality, rigourous, OJCS learning to happen at home.

We don’t know if and when this is coming, but we do know that we want to be as prepared as we can. If we do these things now when we have ample opportunity to correct, adjust and adapt, it will make any kind of pivot that much more seamless and successful.

If you were playing the COVID “pivot” drinking game, please find a comfortable place to rest for the rest of the day!

This is normally the time of year where I post an update of our school’s philosophy with regard to standardized testing as we prepare to take this year’s exam. This was the year that we were scheduled to pilot the CAT-5 (we have been taking the CAT-4) and to again expand the grades who take it. The eventual goal is for each grade to take this exam each year so that we have the most actionable data. This year, however, the CAT-5 will not roll out due to COVID and most private schools have decided to pause standardized testing. We, too, shall pause although I would have loved to see the data. Our theory of the case is that we did not see too much slippage last spring because of our response. I would love to see if the data bore that out, but even figuring out the logistics of proctoring these exams in compliance with safety protocols is not a good use of our resources. We look forward to resuming standardized testing in 2020-2021.

OJCS Launches “Life & Legacy Circle”

It feels like a million years ago, I know, but it was only last February that we announced that our school would join fourteen other local Jewish organizations in a commitment to work together to support the future of the Ottawa Jewish Community. Under the leadership of the Ottawa Jewish Community Foundation (OJCF), our community is in its second year delivering and implementing the Harold Grinspoon Foundation (HGF)’s “Life & Legacy” initiative.

We had only just begun our work when it – and the world – was interrupted by COVID-19. If you want a quick refresher on the big idea, please watch this very short and excellent video produced by OJCF:

We feel passionately at OJCS that our value proposition could not be more clear – or more needed – than now. In these uncertain times, the stability, excellence and innovation of our program; and the love, care and talent of our teachers are critical to the present and the future of not just the OJCS community, but the Ottawa Jewish Community. Investing in Jewish school is investing in Jewish community. The future leaders of this community are being developed within our walls – and for our virtuals learners on our screens – just as the current generation of leaders were. A legacy gift to OJCS ensures a legacy of Jewish continuity for Ottawa – for your children, their children and future generations of children to come.

As the work of educating our community to the need, the value, and the ease of legacy giving, we are thrilled that we already have a number of families who have stepped forward to make their intent known. We want to acknowledge and thank the first members of the OJCS Life & Legacy Circle:

Thank you, merci, and תודה רבה Life & Legacy Circle Members

Jessica Greenberg
Rabbi Eytan Kenter & Staci Zemlak-Kenter
Richard Roth and Dr. Riva Levitan
Ian and Estelle Melzer
Jeff and Rhoda Miller
Lisa and Mitch Miller
Dr. Jon and Jaimee Mitzmacher
Ilana Albert-Novick and Mitchell Novick
Joel Sachs
Lorne Segal
Fred Seller and Stacey Steinman

What do all the above have in common? NOTHING! That’s the point; other than a deep connection to OJCS, this list has all kinds of ages and income levels. Every family can leave a legacy and secure the future. Trust me, I’m on that list and I can assure you that you don’t need an estate or a measure of wealth to ensure the future of organizations that you care about. But don’t take it from me, here is what another member of the Circle shared with us:

OJCS (aka Hillel Academy) has been a part of my life from as far back as I can remember. My spouse and I have included OJCS in our Life and Legacy plans because we want to ensure that Jewish education is a strong and thriving part of the Ottawa community now and long into the future.

As we look to grow our Circle, let’s end with another “circle” through the famous story of Honi ha-M’agel or Honi the Circle Drawer:

One day Honi was journeying on the road and he saw a man planting a carob tree. He asked, “How long does it take [for this tree] to bear fruit?” The man replied: “Seventy years.” Honi then further asked him: “Are you certain that you will live another seventy years?” The man replied: “I found [already grown] carob trees in the world; as my forefathers planted those for me so I too plant these for my children.”

Want to come plant with us? You are invited to a special OJCS-OJCF (say that 5 times fast!) Virtual Parlour Meeting on Sunday, October 25th at 7:30 PM hosted by Roz and Steven Fremeth! To get the link or to ask any Life & Legacy questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Staci Zemlak-Kenter, our Director of Development, at [email protected], or 613.722.0020 x 378.

Expat Files: Why Don’t We Make Hand Turkeys?

I distinctly recall during my first year here in Canada, as the calendar moved into October, being excited to celebrate my first Thanksgiving in Canada – or as we call it in the States, “Canadian Thanksgiving”. I kept waiting for the teachers in the youngest grades to start teaching the (Canadian) Thanksgiving story, primarily so I could learn it, and for the school to start to fill with hand-turkeys and whatever the equivalent of Pilgrim hats and Native American headdresses would be.

Nope!

Depending on who I spoke with and what their understanding was, I learned two things pretty early:

Canadian Thanksgiving ain’t American Thanksgiving.
Jews don’t really do Canadian Thanksgiving.

Now neither is technically nor universally true. There is a LOT that is the same between how Thanksgiving came to be in both places and what traditions have built up around them. You have an origin story centered around a ship’s arrival to a new land. You have a deep connection to the harvest. You even have football (if you want to call the CFL “football)! For my American friends who want a primer on competing Thanksgivings, this is my recommendation.

And there are Jews who celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada (and not just American expats who do it November)! However, it does play out differently here. Some say it is because it so much closer to the Jewish High Holidays and Sukkot that the big ideas – harvest, family and gratitude – have already been addressed and so there isn’t a need to do it all over again so soon. (Sometimes it falls during the Jewish holidays.) Some say that it – in Canada – had or has Christian overtones that make it feel less comfortable for Jews to fully embrace. But there are plenty of Jewish families in Canada who will do up the whole thing. For my American friends who want a primer on why Jews are less likely to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving, this is my recommendation.

More important than of this, of course, is the opportunity that Thanksgiving grants me to write a blog post of gratitude. (When you commit to writing a weekly post, you have to take your inspiration when it comes.) I focus my energy around Rosh Hashanah to do a bit of annual reflection. I focus my energy around Yom Kippur to lean into forgiveness. I focus my energy around Sukkot to encourage new practices and traditions. Starting now, I think it will be my tradition – my way of connecting to Thanksgiving in Canada – to have an annual opportunity to focus my energy on gratitude. (That way, I can still make the focus of American Thanksgiving – which my family still celebrates – on overeating and overwatching football.)

What I am grateful for this Thanksgiving:

I never get political in my blog, but I don’t think it will make huge waves to say that I am very grateful that we are living here in Canada during this most interesting of times on our continent.
I am grateful for the technology that keeps me connected to friends and family. Living through a pandemic 20 years ago would be unimaginable without FaceTime and Zoom and Google Meet. That we get to “see” parents and grandparents across closed borders and thousands of miles is truly a modern-day miracle.
I am eternally grateful to have a wife, Jaimee, whose Type A/perfectionist mothering and wife-ing creates so much space for me to dedicate my time and energy to my work and my passion.
I am thankful to have landed in a Jewish community that is extraordinarily capable and generous; a community that is committed to its future by its support for Jewish day school.
I am grateful to have landed in a Jewish day school that is full of committed, talented, caring, innovating and hardworking teachers. A school is only as good as its teachers and we have a pretty great school!

I could go on, of course, but let me just say that I am also grateful to anyone and everyone who has ever read, shared, or commented on one of my 350+ blog posts over the years. You often wonder/worry that you are speaking into the wind, but every now and again someone takes the time to let you know that they are, in fact, paying attention. And that always feels great.

Feel free to share what you are grateful for in the comments or, more importantly, with friends and family. Happy Thanksgiving!

Marching With Fruits & Vegetables (The COVID 5781 Remix)

I am not going to lie. (I mean, we just came out of Yom Kippur!) As much as I was able to find workarounds for a joyful Rosh HaShanah, and as much as I secretly enjoyed (that’s probably not the exact right word) Yom Kippur from home, I am already devastated by what will be a very different kind of Sukkot.

If you read my annual Sukkot post (or ever read it just once), you know that Sukkot 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 is pretty much the one and only thing I actually can and do build), with handmade decorations from your children (or their childhood), 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.

COVID has not entirely rendered this part of the holiday moot. We did build a sukkah and it has all those visuals, smells and tastes. It remains an incredibly tactile holiday, which normally adds to its allure. But this year, of course, is complicated. Our inability to physically come together in close proximity makes it hard to invite guests into our (however porous) sukkot. It definitely makes sharing a lulav & etrog more complicated as well. (Do they make disinfectant for produce?) And even though I focus (in my posts) more on Sukkot than on Simchat Torah (which here in the Diaspora comes immediately afterwards), thereto, singing and dancing with the Torah will rightfully be verboten in 5781.

The calendar is also weird, right? I cannot recall a time where we have been in school for all five days of Chol Ha’moed (the Intermediate Days of) Sukkot. We both have the most time we have ever had to celebrate this time of great rejoicing and the least opportunity to actually do so!

We are still looking forward to celebrating this holiday at school. [By the way, it seems like whenever we discuss the timing of the fall Jewish holidays relative to the start of the school year, we always describe them as coming “early” or “late”. They don’t ever seem to come “on time”!] Great thanks to Morah Ruthie and all our Jewish Studies Faculty on their planning of COVID-friendly Sukkot activities that will be done in our cohorts during Jewish Studies time. We will do our best and even if it isn’t all that we would normally do, it will be what we can do.

It is the second half of this annual post that I am less capable and comfortable writing this year. Here is where I try to gently point out that if you had to pick just one (you don’t!) Jewish holiday for your children to experience on the Jewish Calendar, you would probably be well served choosing Sukkot (or Simchat Torah or Pesach or Shavuot) and not Yom Kippur. Or as I ask it each year, “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?”

I know that I know what I think the answer is to that question, but part of why I ask it each year is that I don’t see that answer reflected in behavior. Meaning, the answer – to me – is obviously Sukkot, but Yom Kippur still wins out. (Again, you don’t have to pick just one.) The reason why I think that is true remains a fundamental lack of adult education (does everyone know how to celebrate Sukkot?) and of partnership (will someone help me learn how to celebrate Sukkot or help facilitate a Sukkot experience?). And my normal response to that is to offer up the school and its resources to be that partner in both education and experience. And in a pre-COVID world maybe that is as good as it can be…

This year, of course, is that different world. Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, for many, if not most, were virtual or blended experiences. There were newfound frustrations in relying on technology or missed opportunities for the gathering of friends and family. There were newfound joys in creating new traditions and gatherings or including friends and families who live far away and who in a normal year would be missed. I know what worked well for me and my family and what didn’t, and I imagine that you do as well. And as I said above, for me it is Sukkot and Simchat Torah that is really going to feel less-than.

In the spirit of trying to turn etrogs into etrog-ade, for those for whom Sukkot’s exotic traditions create an annual barrier for participation, let me invite you to think of this year as an opportunity to pick one new tradition and experiment with in the comfort and (likely) seclusion of your sukkah or home. Shake a lulav and etrog. Eat in the sukkah (or in something sukkah-adjacent). Zoom a service. Dance with the Torah like nobody’s watching because nobody will be watching.

Let’s not let this holiday season end with self-denial and forgiveness – as important and meaningful as those things are. Let’s end with joy. From my family to yours: Chag sameach!

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…