A Floor, But Not a Ceiling

The Transparency Files: Community of Kindness Parent Survey

First off…here is some exciting news:

MJGDS Teacher Selected to Become

“Google Certified” at Google Teacher Academy

Google has selected Andrea Hernandez as an attendee at the next Google Teacher Academy, to be held in Mountain View, CA on December 5, 2012. The Google Teacher Academy is a free professional development experience designed to help K-12 educational leaders get the most from innovative technologies. Each Academy is an intensive, one-day event where participants get hands-on experience with Google’s products and technologies, learn about innovative instructional strategies, and receive resources to share with colleagues. Upon completion, Academy participants become Google Certified Teachers who share what they learn with other K-12 educators in their local regions and beyond.

Google Certified Teachers are exceptional K-12 educators with a passion for using innovative tools to improve teaching and learning, as well as creative leaders and ambassadors for change. They are recognized experts and widely admired for their commitment to high expectations for students, life-long learning and collaboration. The Google Certified Teacher program was launched in 2006 with the first Academy held at Google headquarters in Mountain View. The program has since held several academies across the US, expanding the ranks of Google Certified Teachers. The Google Teacher Academy is produced by Google, in collaboration with CUE an educational non-profit organization.

There will be 62 attendees from all over the US as well as Canada, Mexico, India, Singapore, Ukraine and Dubai.

Of course we know how much we are leading the 21st century learning revolution at the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School, but it certainly is nice to be recognized by Google for the groundbreaking work we do! You can see it in the video Mrs. Hernandez made as part of her application:

I look forward to reading her reflections on the experience and to the impact it has on her work and on our school in the weeks and months ahead.

The Community of Kindness initiative at Galinsky Academy is well under way. We have, with our partner Jewish Family & Community Services had trainings with Preschool Faculty, sessions with Religious School, Makom and Day School classes, and we are prepping for our first parent forum. And at least as important, the language of “community of kindness” is making its way into the common vernacular. Last Shabbat, for example, it found its way (un-prompted!) into a Bat Mitzvah speech. It has also come up in our Parent University courses [you may click to enlarge].

In fact, in one of the courses, we are reading excerpts from a book (and author) very much connected to this topic that I met through my experience at Harvard’s Independent School Institute (which I blogged about, here.) We are currently reading [you may click to enlarge] Richard Weissbourd:

As the work continues, survey data is also coming in. For the sake of transparency, I wanted to share some preliminary results and indicate the first tangible result. Here are some data from the Parent Survey:

Parents with children in multiple schools were encouraged to fill out one survey per child. We had a fairly decent (25%) return rate, although higher is always better. Here is the first critical data point:

Although we would have preferred the answer to be unanimous that “I don’t think there are any issues,” I think it is interesting that “bullying” scored on the low end that “social exclusion” scored the highest. This was something that we intuitively predicted at the beginning and correlates to results we published year (click here). With “social exclusion” and “improved awareness in accepting others” as high scorers, the feedback we are getting from the Weissbourd book, and in combination with what is bubbling up from our ongoing work, we have decided to move forward with the following parent forum:

We are looking forward to strong turnout and an even stronger program. Working together we will ensure that “Community of Kindness” is not a slogan, but a way of life, at the schools of Galinsky Academy. More results and more programs to follow

BTW – if you are a Martin J. Gottlieb Day School Middle School parent and your child is still singing “Schnupencups”…thanks to Hazzan Holzer rare footage of the story is now available. And if this makes no sense to you at all? You had to be there (or with me in any camping setting since 1989)…

“We left as a family and came back as a community…of kindness.”

Wow again.

Last year, I blogged here, about our annual Middle School Retreat to Camp Ramah Darom calling it “We left as a school and came back as a family.” The intent was to bond us together more closely and I believe we succeeded.

This year the goal was to build on feelings of family and emphasize the moral imperative of community. Therefore, the theme of the retreat was “Community of Kindness” and in addition to social activities (apple picking, corn maze, horseback riding, campfire, zip-line, etc.) our educational activities focused on how our middle school can function like a true community of kindness. We visited the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Site in Atlanta. We engaged in informal educational activities on topics such as “gossip”, “conflict resolution” and “friendship”. Our tefillah incorporated the theme as well. Everything we did was in that spirit – a spirit we intend to keep alive now that we are back in school.

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 do the talking – for now.

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 have more than made up for it with the photos published on our website, here. 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.

Found in Translation

I blogged, pretty extensively (even for me!) two weeks ago, here, about the exciting opportunity the AVI CHAI Foundation provided me and six other Jewish day school heads to attend the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Independent Schools Institute. As I explained, our experience of the institute was intended to be twofold: as a participant and as a cohort exploring the applicability of the institute to the field. The latter is a continuing project and, as such, is not available to share. I look forward to the ongoing collaboration this project calls for and am sure it will enrich and impact my practice. And when it becomes suitable for publication, I look forward to sharing and reflcting in that context.

However, for the context of this blog post, I want to reflect (using the authentic apps I used during the conference) as a mere individual participant, share a little of my experience and see how it might impact our work here at the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School.

First a global thought.

As a doctoral student in Jewish education, I learned through the literature review process that one of the great challenges in making the leap from theory to practice is the number of translations invovled. Because most research in education begins in public schooling, the translation often flows from Public School Education to Indpendent School Education to Jewish Education – and as we know, things tend to get lost in translation.

Beyond any one professor or idea I encountered at Harvard, to simply be able to hear the latest theories straight from the theorists’ mouths was a professional development experience like no other. It is one thing to read a book by Howard Gardner or to hear someone else describe Gardner’s work at a conference – it is something else altogether to sit with Howard Gardner and hear it straight from his lips. We had that experience and almost 10 other opportunities with other Harvard professors over the four days of the institute. (And for the bibliophiles? Free copies of all their latest books! Check out my Shelfari page for my new reads.)

It would take way too long to summarize all the research and ideas I was exposed to last week. What I would like to do instead, is pick and choose ideas that connect to ideas and projects we are currently working on and reflect on how my thinking has been impacted.

DISCLAIMER: In light of the above, all losses in translation are the sole responsibility of this blogger who heard it directly from the source!

The very first lecture of the institute was Howard Gardner:

“Educating for the Virtues in the Era of Truthiness and Twitter”

Overview:

Many of us take for granted that we know what is true, beautiful and good – and that we should simply try to realize these virtues. Whatever validity this assumption may once have had, it no longer goes unchallenged. One challenge comes from philosophical and humanistic perspectives: postmodernists and relativists are skeptical about the nature or even the existence of these virtues. Another challenge comes from technology: in our highly connected, ever changing digital world, the status and stability of these virtues is undermined. In Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed, Howard Gardner analyzes these challenges and shows how the traditional virtues can be powerfully reframed for our time. He also indicates the specific steps that educators can take to introduce and nurture viable notions of truth, beauty and goodness.

My takeaway:

When it comes to PORTFOLIO, I think we have a pretty decent foundation with our BLOGFOLIOS; although we presently do not use it in the way Gardner is suggesting – as a way of cataloguing and helping cultivate student’s aesthetic intelligence (to borrow from his most famous theory).

I am most intrigued about the idea of a COMMONS. In some way our blogs and ning function as a virtual commons, but I don’t think we do all we can to seriously engage our students as agents for change. I will be thinking about this more in light of ongoing initiatives, particularly Community of Kindness.

Another interesting professor was Richard Light:

How Great Independent Schools Can Become Great Learning Organizations to Enhance Students’ Experiences

In this session, Richard Light will describe what it means for any school to be a “learning organization.” Light will then offer an example that leaders of a strong independent school might want to consider adopting. The example capitalizes on modest efforts from school leaders and the faculty.

Its goal is to broaden and deepen the experiences of students who are fortunate to attend a strong, independent school. Leading colleges and universities, including Harvard, MIT, Duke, Georgetown, Middlebury, Macalester, Williams, Amherst, Haverford, Bowdoin and Davidson, among others, are making wonderful efforts to become such “learning organizations.” Their goal is to enrich all of their students’ on-campus experiences. Light will illustrate in a concrete way how a strong, independent school can play a leadership role and innovate in this effort, so its students can benefit at no additional cost, and at a time of tight resources.

Two great questions Richard Light asked were…

“Who in our school is systematically measuring the effectiveness of what we are doing for our students?”
“What things are our school doing well and not so well and what tweaks and adjustments will improve the experience of students?

My takeaway:

His advice is to convene experts in your school and from OTHER schools to help generate the questions to answer those questions. Then, conduct interviews and surveys. Interviews yield anecdotal evidence which should be used for publicity. Data should lead to policy changes.

And the last one (at least for this blog post!) is Richard Weissbourd. [Yes, that is my actual handwriting…you can see why I needed to become a doctor.]

My takeaway:

The primary goal of parenting and teaching should not be our children’s happiness or self-esteem but their maturity and their morality. And I need to read his latest book, The Parents We Mean To Be.

Phew.

I could continue with any number of other lectures, but since I am already over 1,000 words for this blog post, I should probably leave well enough along. Suffice to say that I am grateful to AVI CHAI for the opportunity and look forward to sharing more as our work continues.

As a final note, I should make mention that I am very proudly finishing my 100th official blog post! Thanks to everyone who has read a word and especially to those kind enough to comment.

Reflection Leads to Achievement

Our mission is to achieve the academic benchmarks and standards that define success. Our philosophy is to provide each student with “a floor, but no ceiling” representing each student’s maximum success. Our pedagogy is this “thing” we’ve been calling “21st century learning” (but is really just excellence in “teaching & learning”). Our product are students who are lifelong learners.

We can never confuse our product (academic success as defined by standards) with our process (“21st century learning”). So with that context in mind, please consider the following:

Blogging is process, not product.

I was tempted to be extremely hyperbolic, as an attention grabber, and title this post, “Students who blog are more likely to get into Ivy League colleges, nab their dream jobs, and live happily ever after.”

Not to suggest there is any evidence (yet!) that this is true, but to try to shine a light on this fundamental truth operating at the core of our school; that we believe reflective learners achieve at a higher level than non-reflective learners. It is both that simple and that complicated.

It is why reflection is embedded into all subject matter. It is why students have blogfolios. It is why teachers have classroom blogs and responsibility for blogging on a faculty ning.

It is because we believe that the process of reflection leads to the product of achievement.

If I accomplish nothing else in this post, it will hopefully be to have you click on Silvia Tolisano’s blog post on our 21st Century Learning blog, here, in which she lays out in the most compelling and convincing way the why of blogging at the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School. It is as good a post as you’ll read this year. With clear analysis and data, she explains how blogging catalyzes achievement. Not just for students, but for their “text-people” – their teachers.

Or as I put it in a comment to a teacher’s blog post:

..if your students don’t see “blogging” as integral to their ability to learn math – if they don’t realize that blogging helps them learn math better – then why should they want to blog about math?

…and to draw the larger point…if we teachers don’t see blogging as integral to our ability to be effective teachers – if we don’t realize that engaging in collaborative reflection helps us become better teachers – then why should we want to blog about teaching?

Our teachers blog because the process of blogging makes them better teachers. We teach our students to blog because blogging makes them better students. Better students will achieve higher academic success than non-better students. Our students want to be successful. Our teachers want to be successful.

Reflection breeds success.

Crimson and Shofar (Over and Over)

Yes, that is a horrible pun to kick off this week’s blog post. And in case you were wondering, I am more inclined to the Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’ cover than the Tommy James & the Shandells’ original, probably because their drummer lived down my block in New Jersey in 1981 when it came out.

All this to give me the opportunity to ask, “What do “crimson” and “shofar” have to do with each other (besides not really rhyming with “Crimson and Clover”)?”

Well, I hope to find out later this month when I attend Harvard University’s Independent Schools Institute (ISI) along with a small cohort of other Jewish day school leaders as part of a new initiative by the AVI CHAI Foundation.

From the ISI page (click here for a fuller description):

Designed specifically for independent school leaders, the institute provides a practical perspective on current research about independent schools guided by expert Harvard faculty. The curriculum covers topics ranging from personal leadership to innovative instructional strategies to financial sustainability, providing a rigorous and intellectually challenging experience. You will look closely at the challenges of strategic and instructional leadership with top researchers in the field and learn how to apply these findings in your school.

The Independent Schools Institute combines large group sessions with small-group peer discussions. The smaller working groups create a forum for thoughtful discussion, helping you to synthesize new ideas and gain unexpected insights from your colleagues.

For a taste of how extraordinary this opportunity is, here is the full ISI Faculty:

Howard Gardner is the Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Senior Director of Project Zero. Among numerous honors, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981. He has received honorary degrees from twenty-six colleges and universities. In 2005 and again in 2008 he was selected by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines as one of the 100 most influential public intellectuals in the world. The author of twenty-five books translated into twenty-nine languages, and several hundred articles, Gardner is best known in educational circles for his theory of multiple intelligences, a critique of the notion that there exists but a single human intelligence that can be assessed by standard psychometric instruments. He has also written extensively on creativity, leadership, professional ethics, and the arts. His latest book Five Minds for the Future was published in April 2007. His latest co-authored book Multiple Intelligences Around the World was published in the summer of 2009.

Monica Higgins is Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She joined the Harvard faculty in 1995. Her research and teaching focus on the areas of leadership development and organizational change. Prior to joining HGSE, she spent eleven years as a member of the faculty at Harvard Business School in the Organizational Behavior Unit. Her recent book, Career Imprints: Creating Leaders Across an Industry (2005), focuses on the leadership development of executives in the biotechnology industry. In education, her research interests straddle higher education and urban public schools. Specifically, she has a multimedia project underway on the careers and social networks of the Harvard Business School Class of 1996. In addition, Higgins is studying the conditions that enhance the effectiveness of senior leadership teams and organizational learning in large urban school districts across the United States. While at Harvard, Higgins has taught in the areas of leadership and organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, self-assessment and career development, and strategic human resources management.

James Honan is Senior Lecturer on Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Honan’s teaching and research interests include financial management of nonprofit organizations, organizational performance measurement and management and higher-education administration. Honan serves as a consultant on strategic planning, resource allocation and performance measurement and management to numerous colleges, universities, schools and nonprofit organizations, both nationally and internationally.

Susan Moore Johnson is the Jerome T. Murphy Professor of Education. She studies and teaches about teacher policy, organizational change, and administrative practice. A former high-school teacher and administrator, she has a continuing research interest in the work of teachers and the reform of schools. She has studied the leadership of superintendents, the effects of collective bargaining on schools, the use of incentive pay plans for teachers, and the school as a context for adult work. Currently, Johnson and a group of advanced doctoral students are engaged in a multiyear research study, The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, that examines how best to recruit, support, and retain a strong teaching force in the next decade. The project, which is funded by several foundations, includes studies of hiring practices, alternative certification programs, new teachers’ attitudes toward careers, and new teachers’ experiences with colleagues. Johnson served as academic dean of HGSE from 1993 to 1999. She has taught in the school’s summer institute programs for administrators and teachers since 1989.

Richard Light is the Walter H. Gale Professor of Education. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard in statistics, and in recent years has focused his work on higher-education policy analyses. Light has been invited by four Harvard presidents — Derek Bok, Neil Rudenstine, Lawrence Summers, and now Drew Faust — to lead a team of faculty and students to explore the effectiveness of undergraduate education, and how to strengthen it. His most recent book, Making the Most of College, won the Stone Award for the best book of the year on education and society. Light has been elected president of the American Evaluation Association, elected to the board of the American Association for Higher Education, and elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences; he was also appointed to the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. Currently, Light is chairing a project at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences that explores the changing demographics at American colleges and universities. He also is currently chairing a new project at Harvard that works to help 14 distinguished colleges become “learning organizations.” Light received the Paul Lazarsfeld Award for distinguished contributions to scientific practices, and was named by Vanderbilt University’s Chancellor Lecturer Series as one of America’s great teachers.

Leah Price is Professor of English at Harvard University, where she teaches the novel, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British culture, narrative theory, gender studies, and the history of books and reading. Price is Humanities Program Director at the Radcliffe Institute; she also co-directs the faculty seminar on the History of the Book at the Harvard Humanities Center. In 2006 Price was awarded a chair in recognition of exceptional graduate and undergraduate teaching. Price’s books include The Anthology and the Rise of the Novel and (co-edited with Pamela Thurschwell) Literary Secretaries/Secretarial Culture; she has also edited (with Seth Lerer) a special issue of PMLA on “The History of the Book and the Idea of Literature.” She writes on old and new media for theNew York Times Book Review, the London Review of Books, and the Boston Globe. Unpacking My Library: Writers and their Books was published by Yale University Press last year; How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain is just out from Princeton. Price is at work on a new book, Book Fetish: How Rethinking the Printed Past Can Transform our Digital Future.

Richard Weissbourd is currently a lecturer in education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and at the Kennedy School of Government. His work focuses on vulnerability and resilience in childhood, the achievement gap, moral development, and effective schools and services for children. For several years he worked as a psychologist in community mental health centers as well as on the Annie Casey Foundation’s New Futures Project, an effort to prevent children from dropping out of school. He is a founder of several interventions for at-risk children, including ReadBoston and WriteBoston, city-wide literacy initiatives led by Mayor Menino. With Robert Selman, he founded Project ASPIRE, a social and ethical development intervention in three Boston schools. He is also a founder of a new pilot school, the Lee Academy, that begins with children at three years old. He has advised on the city, state, and federal levels on family policy and school reform and has written for numerous scholarly and popular publications. He is the author of The Vulnerable Child: What Really Hurts America’s Children and What We Can Do About It (Addison-Wesley, 1996) and The Parents We Mean to Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children’s Moral and Emotional Development (Houghton Mifflin, 2009).

So, you can see that it would be amazing enough to have the opportunity to attend ISI. What is really exciting, however, is that AVI CHAI is sending us five Jewish day school leaders along with what they call an “LRP Facilitator” – “LRP” being “AVI CHAI-speak” for “Jewish literacy (L), religious purposefulness (R), and peoplehood (P)”. The facilitator is Jonathan Cannon, Head of School of the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, MD, and I am very excited to have an opportunity to work with and learn from him.

Why is AVI CHAI making this investment?

According to new Program Officer Rabbi Steven M. Brown, Ed.D, and connected to the subject of my blog post last week (click here):

Day schools have been fairly successful in the cognitive domain, seeing student learning accomplishments of high order in Jewish studies and Hebrew language. But I raise some questions:

How can we create Jewish day schools or summer camps which truly affect students’ commitments to seeing the world through Jewish lenses (in whatever denominational form), making Jewish life and practice part of their daily lives now and in the future?

If you are connected to a Jewish day school or summer camp, what are examples of religious purposefulness that you can see and can describe in your school or camp?

What are the biggest challenges in cultivating religious engagement and purposefulness in the Jewish educational context you know best?

So the investment in sending Jewish day school leaders to ISI along with an LRP Facilitator is being made to begin to answer those questions. Because…

Independent schools can address character education and values in school
AVI CHAI is looking to see if this cohort can create an LRP wrap-around for future ISI cohorts
We can explore how the sessions can contribute to Jewish Day School Leadership

Needless to say, I am beyond excited to be attending ISI, to be attending with other Jewish day school leaders, to be working with AVI CHAI on creating this “LRP wrap-around”, to working with colleagues to translate ISI into the field and to applying what I learn to my practice.

You can expect lots of blogs and tweets October 16-19!

Journey Through the Jewish Holidays Update:

We had more students (nearly 45% of the school) in attendance over Sukkot on both days! We offered a special program on each day to accommodate the large number of students. It was wonderful to see so many families in synagogue…let’s see if we can keep it up next week!

Religious Purposefulness: A Community of Kindness Reframe

First, let me thank those who offered encouraging, and candid, feedback on my first attempt at vlogging. [If you want a recap, pop a dramamine, and click here!] Separate from the technical feedback (perhaps staring at myself in the webcam was not the most useful technique) and the performance feedback (perhaps rocking incessantly back and forth in my chair was not the best staging), useful as it is, it is the form and content feedback that I found most interesting. Awkward as it may have been to watch (and shoot), I think the occasional vlog post will be a helpful way to ensure the tree of my voice finds its way through the forest of words I generate most weeks. There is an intimacy that sound and image brings that no typed sentence can match. I may have plenty of room to grow as a vlogger, but I think I am convinced that it is worth the investment of time and energy to accomplish. I imagine the blog will remain my primary vehicle of communication, but supplemented with targeted vlog posts.

And I promise to sit still next time.

Second, as I am typing the afternoon that will soon become Erev Yom Kippur, let me take this opportunity to offer my sincerest apologies to any and all I may have inadvertently harmed or hurt during this last year. I will try to do and be better in the new Jewish year just begun.

Third, let me offer my annual hope for parents to make Sukkot as much a part of your annual attendance as Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur. Please click here for an impassioned plea for marching with fruits and vegetables. New this is year is an incentivization program that will provide an extrinsic motivation designed to ensure sufficient attendance to allow for the much preferred intrinsic motivation of celebrating the joy of Jewish holidays with friends and community.

If any parents have questions about the new program, please email or call me at your convenience. We are looking forward to seeing you on our most joyous of holidays.

Now onto the business at hand…

Dr. Steven Brown, now a Program Officer at the AVI CHAI Foundation, wrote a wonderful blog past last week called “Religious Purposefulness on the High Holidays” (click here for the whole post), in which he issued the following challenge:

Day schools have been fairly successful in the cognitive domain, seeing student learning accomplishments of high order in Jewish studies and Hebrew language. But I raise some questions:

How can we create Jewish day schools or summer camps which truly affect students’ commitments to seeing the world through Jewish lenses (in whatever denominational form), making Jewish life and practice part of their daily lives now and in the future?

If you are connected to a Jewish day school or summer camp, what are examples of religious purposefulness that you can see and can describe in your school or camp?

What are the biggest challenges in cultivating religious engagement and purposefulness in the Jewish educational context you know best?

He then asked the field to contribute examples of religious purposefulness in Jewish day schools, and I said to myself, “Community of Kindness“!

Utilizing the questions Dr. Brown asks provides me with the perfect opportunity during this period of reflection to reframe “Community of Kindness” as an example of religious purposefulness in action. As we move from the initial phase into surveys culminating with calls to action, I find it helpful to remind ourselves of why we are doing this in the first place. Although there is nothing new in what follows, I find the reframe a useful way to reorient and refocus on what is most essential. Without further adieu…

Religious Purposefulness Vignettes

Goal: To begin a national conversation on the nature of religious purposefulness in Jewish day schools by providing succinct examples in the form of vignettes about practices in our schools.

What is the activity or learning experience? What does it look like?

I am pleased to share the first-ever initiative of the new Galinsky Academy [the home for all the schools of the Jacksonville Jewish Center including the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School, the DuBow Preschool, the Bernard & Alice Selevan Religious School and Makom Hebrew High] will be an exciting pilot program called “Creating a Community of Kindness”! We launched at the beginning of the school year and are partnering with Jewish Family & Community Services to create a sustained, meaningful, comprehensive program that will not only include our schools, but also our clergy, to ensure the fullest participation and the maximum impact possible.

Why is this an example of teaching or modeling religious purposefulness?

The purpose of this program is to create a community of kindness amongst students, teachers and parents at Galinsky Academy. This is intended to support what is already being taught with the message of chesed throughout the religious institution. Jewish schools are in the character-building business. It is a significant motivation for parents to enroll their children in our schools. We care at least as much about who our students are as we care about what they can accomplish. We utilize Jewish value language across the curriculum to reinforce the idea that being a mensch is not something one does only in certain classes, but something one is all day long. Our teachers, along with our clergy, work hard all day to ensure that our school lives up to the ideal of being a community of kindness. And even during school we struggle to achieve our goal. That’s precisely why we launched the “Community of Kindness” initiative in the first place. We recognized that in order to become that community it required all of our schools working together with our clergy to build the safe, loving environment our children deserve.

Where and when does it sit in the life of the school (classroom, shabbaton, school-wide, extracurricular, one-time occurrence, ongoing) and to whom is it directed?

Our plan from the beginning, has been to avoid the one-shot assemblies or training that have some, but fleeting impact on the lives of our students, teachers, and parents and move to something deeper and more powerful.

We began last month month with teacher workshops during “Preplanning Week” and “Faculty Orientation”. We also presented information at PTA-sponsored “Back to School” brunch. Student, parent and teacher surveys are in creation and are scheduled for October. Depending on the data, programs, trainings, workshops, town halls, etc., are scheduled to begin in November.

What is the context enabling this activity to happen? How does the school administration and staff lead and manage this activity? How do you measure success?

Prior survey data from our schools indicate that the most prevailing form of “bullying” or “mean” behaviors throughout our institution are those of social exclusion. Our students, academically, know what the right thing to do is. But many suffer from a pervasive “by-standerism” that prevents rightful action from occurring.

The schools are capable of responding appropriately once behaviors happen. The reactionary system is working appropriately, by and large. We need to create a culture that reduces, if not eliminates, those kinds of behaviors from happening in the first place. We lack a proactive system. It will take students, parents, teachers, administrators, volunteers, and clergy working together to create a common vocabulary and to build a culture where a child of 3, a teen of 15, and a parent would each be equally willing to come forward when faced with “mean” behaviors and articulate that this is not how we behave here.

We will know we have succeeded when we hear peers tell each other that…

“We don’t let friends eat by themselves here.”

“We don’t let our classmates play by themselves on the playground.”

“Of course you could be my math partner!”

“No one works by themselves on class projects here.”

“We invite all our friends to birthday parties in our community.”

You can supply your own appropriately positive quote. But we will know the culture has shifted when those kinds of expressions are voluntarily offered, not teacher prompted.

Vlogging What You Preach

I was meeting on Friday with Andrea Hernandez, our Director of Teaching & Learning (formally “21st Century Learning” – we are trying to message that “21st Century Learning” is synonymous with “Teaching & Learning”), who chided me for not role modeling what was expected of all our faculty. Namely, where was my evidence for my own summer learning!

I blogged, here, about our faculty’s commitment to summer learning. I blogged, here, about my own. Silvia Tolisano, our 21st Century Learning Consultant (yes, I recognize the conflict with the above parenthesis; it is an imperfect world we live in!) wrote an amazing blog post on the edJEWcon website presenting a mosaic of our entire faculty’s summer learning. You can click on it, here, and I have insisted it move to the front of the website. It is a great post.

There is great diversity in how teachers presented evidence of their student learning. One methodology that inspired me, pushes me a bit outside my comfort zone…so it is probably a good one for me to experiment with – vlogging. It sounds simple, instead of sitting at my desk, writing, writing, writing and writing, I can simply look into the camera and speak. But when the light goes red…so do I! Not so easy…and you’ll be able to tell when you watch it. But I did try! [Another problem…I’ve become so accustomed to hyperlinking, that each time I mentioned a name, I mentally paused to hyperlink!]

[NOTE: I apologize if watching me rock back and forth in my chair made anyone seasick!]

Thanks for suffering through my first (and possibly last!) vlog post. As we enter the season of repentance, you will surely find it in your hearts to forgive me. 🙂

A Sweet & Happy New Year to All!

Do I have a stake in who my students are when they are not in school?

Hebrew-brothers-keeper — (Am I my brother's keeper?)

We are completing our third week of school today (!) and I wanted to take an opportunity to reflect on a question that bubbles up from time to time that I struggle to provide a clear answer to. It gets asked in lots of different ways, but essentially boils down to the same idea: Do I or does the “school” have a responsibility to address behaviors that take place outside the bounded times and spaces of school?

Typically the question is specific to an incident of negative behavior, although it is just as fair to ask about positive behavior as well, and I intend to address both.

Jewish day schools are in the character-building business. It is a significant motivation for parents to enroll their children in our schools. We care at least as much about who our students are as we care about what they can accomplish. We utilize Jewish value language across the curriculum to reinforce the idea that being a mensch is not something one does only in certain classes, but something one is all day long. Our teachers, along with our clergy, work hard all day to ensure that our school lives up to the ideal of being a community of kindness. And even during school we struggle to achieve our goal. That’s precisely why we launched the “Community of Kindness” initiative in the first place. [Click here for a recap.] We recognized that in order to become that community it required all of our schools working together with our clergy to build the safe, loving environment our children deserve. But even this important new initiative emphasizes what happens under our watchful eye.

What about the text sent out at 9:00 PM?

What about the play-date on Sunday? Or the ones some children are not invited to?

What about the hallways during Shabbat services?

Let me be clear that I am purposefully leaving parents out of this behavioral equation. Not because I either blame parents for their children’s behavior nor because I abdicate parents of their responsibility to effectively parent. I am simply asking a different question. If I witness or discover noteworthy behavior of my students when we are not technically in school, what exactly are my responsibilities to respond or react? Do I have a stake in who my students are when they are not in school?

The simple answer is “yes”. I care deeply about who our students are when they are not in school because how they behave when no one is watching matters a whole lot more than how they behave under close supervision. That’s the true measure of character. That’s derekh eretz.

OK, that part is simple. I am proud when students behave well outside of school and disappointed when they don’t. But do I share those feelings with them? Do I share those feelings with their parents? Is it my place to hold them accountable for those behaviors?Those are the vexing questions I struggle to answer effectively – especially when the behaviors are grey.

The black-and-white ones are easy; they always are when the level of behavior is so significant it cannot be ignored. We already engage parents when we discover social events where students are excluded. We already employ effective discipline when students bully outside school walls and times. We already impose consequences if the physical facility is harmed after hours. And on the positive end of the spectrum, we already celebrate students who are honored elsewhere. We already praise students for their outside academic achievements (i.e. high school placement). We already highlight students who perform significant acts of lovingkindness outside of school.

The grey ones are more complicated; they always are when the level of behavior is insignificant enough that it can be, and often is, ignored. We don’t always engage parents to ensure all our students have access to frequent play-dates and smaller social opportunities. We don’t always praise students for their random acts of lovingkindness outside of school. We often ignore disruptive behavior on Shabbat and holidays because we are ostensibly “off-duty” and we surely do not call those students to account for those behaviors when next back in school. And we don’t properly incentivize participation in Shabbat and holiday celebrations so important we are willing to close school.

I am no longer willing to stand on the sidelines.

With regard to “community of kindness” we say that we will know if the program is taking hold if students on their own are willing to address their own behavior or that of their friends. That children will be willing to say to themselves and to each other that “we do not behave like that here”. To me this is no different. We need to do a better job instilling pride of school, pride of academy and pride of self in our students so that they feel the responsibility of representation outside our direct reach. A Galinsky Academy student simply does not behave like that. A Galinsky Academy student behaves with derekh eretz whether they are in school, synagogue, the football game, or the mall.

I have a role to play and I am working up the courage to empower myself to do it. If I am made aware of discouraging behavior, I will share my disappointment regardless of when or where it took place. If I am made aware of positive behavior, I will share my pride regardless of when or where it took place. They will know that I have high expectations. They will know that we treasure their participation in Shabbat and holiday celebrations and have announced a new program to incentivize it.

The older ones will know that I don’t issue a character reference or a principal recommendation lightly. If you want me to recommend you to a high school, an honors society, or even to babysit, you will earn that recommendation by making for yourself a good name.

My students will know that I care who they are and that who they are matters.

Our Civic Responsibility

Typically when I prepare to write a blog post, I do a little bit of research. I am very rarely, if ever, writing about something that someone else smarter or more experienced hasn’t already discussed elsewhere. I enjoy that research, even if it does require quite a bit of time and a lot of cyber-linking! But as we move out of the Republican Convention, into the Democratic Convention, and towards a hotly contested presidential election, I wanted to inoculate myself from outside information and speak purely from the heart about what role I believe all schools, Jewish day schools in general, and our school specifically should play in educating our students to appreciate and exercise their civic responsibility as members of a democratic society.

This will be my second straight swing state (say that five times fast!) election. Four years ago I was in Nevada and now I live in Florida. I recognize how passionate people are. I appreciate how emotionally-laden the conversation can become. The issues of the day are serious – war, the economy, social issues, etc. It is no surprise with the stakes so high that people can become extremely sensitive. Politics can also be personal and defenses automatically are raised. Watching the discourse fly back and forth on Facebook or Twitter, even with people I know well, can be disconcerting. It doesn’t take much for a conversation to veer off course into unkind territory.

Our responsibility as a school seems 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 American 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 honor the office of president regardless of who holds it.

I can hear alarm bells ringing in people’s minds. We are not here to promote a political ideology. Our students should be largely, if not entirely, unaware of a teacher’s personal political leanings. We respect that our families represent the full spectrum of political viewpoints. But no matter how many times I’ve reread the above paragraph I cannot find anything in it remotely partisan or worthy of disagreement. And if you do, by all means write a “quality comment” and let me know.

For me, as an educator, the most difficult trend in political discourse, 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 role. 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 “fact” any hope for intelligent debate fades away. What is a school (or society) to do?

Presidential elections are an exciting time to be an American citizen. As an American Jewish day school, it is a powerful opportunity to demonstrate how to have complicated and important conversations in accord with our highest values. We are all made in God’s image, regardless of political affiliation! At the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School we will remind our students of that fact while encouraging their informed opinions.

To stay on the sidelines for fear of political correctness would be an abnegation of our responsibility. So 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 our democracy.

Shofar so good!

The very first thing we do at the beginning of each school year is gather together as a school community and celebrate the ceremony of Havdalah. Havdalah literally means “separation” and is the ceremony that marks the transition between Shabbat and the weekday. Because of its length (short), melody, and prominence in Jewish camping, Havdalah is a relatively popular ritual even with those who are less ritually observant. Part of what makes any ritual powerful is its ability to infuse the everyday with transcendent meaning. My small way to lend transcendence to the typical “Back to School” assembly is to use the power of Havdalah to help mark the transition between summer and the start of school.

And so this past Monday morning, the students and faculty of the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School marked the transition between the summer that was and the school year that is presently unfolding with a heartfelt Havdalah.

I told my faculty during “Pre-Planning Week” (click here for a reflection of that week) that I had never been this excited for the start of a school year in my 8 years as a head of school. All the work of the last two years combined with a cast of talented, dedicated, loving, enthusiastic returning and new teachers (click here for a list) has led us to this point. We are as ready as we have ever been to deliver on the the promise of “a floor, but no ceiling”. And this first week has more than lived up to my expectations.

It has been wonderful to walk the school, to feel the positive energy oozing through the walls and see the smiling faces of our students and parents. As we say this time of year, “Shofar so good!”

Our newest faculty members are acquitting themselves with great aplomb and our returning teachers have plenty of new tricks up their sleeves to mix with their tried and true excellence. We are focused on ensuring that we take the time at the beginning of the year to create classroom communities of kindness. We have added 33% more faculty to lunchtime supervision to make sure the good work of the morning doesn’t fall through the cracks of lunch. The first week of the departmentalization of Grades 4 & 5 has been a success (with the normal amount of confusion newness brings) and evidence of the power of looping (click here for a fuller description of how we approach Grades 4 & 5) is already manifest. Dedicated science instruction in the Lower School (click here for our Lower School schedule and rationale) is a success. And in my meetings with faculty to lay out their professional development plans for the year, I can see the impact their summer reading (click here) is already having on their practice. If the next thirty-nine weeks go as well this one, the 2012-2013 school year will, indeed, be a very special one. Be excited.

Two business notes and a personal one…

Our annual PTA Magazine Drive kicks off next week with an assembly. This year’s drive, one of our biggest fundraisers, will take place over two weeks. It will, like last year, have incentives to encourage student participation. [It won’t be frogs this year and no one is being “kidnapped”, but I can’t give the schtick away here!] We took in a lot of feedback last year, the first one in which the administration and faculty actively participated, and based on that feedback have made a few adjustments to ensure the most positive experience possible. Although it is a fundraiser and the only way those funds are raised is through the selling of magazines, we have worked with our vendor to put “literacy” out in front as the primary motivation for purchasing a magazine. It will be, we hope, as much a literacy campaign as anything else. And, therefore, in addition to earning tokens through sales, students will also have opportunity to earn tokens through reading. In addition, we have scaled back the opportunities for trading and the overall length of the drive to reduce distractions and to prevent student enthusiasm from encroaching on academic time. Finally, in a developmentally appropriate way, we will explore how to explain to students why our schools, like most schools, engage in fundraising activities. That will, we believe, provide meaningful context. We are looking forward to our best magazine drive yet!

The “book” on edJEWcon is out! Thanks to Silvia Tolisano for compiling this amazing document of edJEWcon 5772.0’s tremendous success.

edjewcon5772-0

Save the date: edJEWcon 5773.1 – April 28-30, 2013!

And on a personal note, lots of people have asked me if the cover girl on the newest volume of “Voices of Conservative Judaism” (click here for the whole PDF) is my oldest daughter, Eliana. It, in fact, is! United Synagogue asked all the Schechter schools to submit photos over a year ago for possible publication and without any notice, my daughter wound up in people’s mailboxes this week. I can ensure you that no nepotism was involved, but we certainly appreciate seeing our daughter (circa two years ago when she was in Kindergarten) on the cover. As you can tell from the picture above, she gratefully takes after her mother.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to let us know that they saw it!