A Floor, But Not a Ceiling

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!

Putting it All Together

What a week! I want to use this week’s blog post to add some closing thoughts to recent weeks’ blog posts, tying some threads together, as we officially open school on Monday.

Thread #1:

I blogged last week, here, about what we would be doing this week in our annual Faculty Pre-Planning Week and writing on a Friday afternoon, it has been a tremendously positive, energizing, motivating and informational week culminating in Thursday’s “Meet & Greet” for Grades K-5 and today’s “Middle School Orientation”. We are ready to go!

Here we were on our opening World Cafe (click here for more info):

The lead question was about “mentoring” and here is one sample of how our conversation unfolded:

We collected all the creative output of our cafe and uploaded it to our faculty ning for further conversation and collaboration.

Another highlight was an opportunity to gather with our Galinsky Academy colleagues in the DuBow Preschool for some team-building activities:

We had a fantastic week and cannot wait until Monday!

Thread #2:

I blogged a few weeks ago, here, about our amazing cast of new and returning faculty & staff. There were a few gaps that I updated through postscripts in future blogs, but one gap had until now been left unexplained. While I was on vacation, Jessie Roman, who had served ably as our secondary support staff person in the Day School for over seven years, informed me that she had accepted an opportunity too important to her family’s well-being to pass up. We understood and continue to wish her well in her new endeavor. She is missed.

We have quickly gone through a search and interview process to find a capable replacement. I am pleased to announce that we have identified a new employee and have signed her to a contract. Technically we are still awaiting background data to confirm her employment, so I cannot, as of now, share her name. But pending a surprise, she will begin her work a week from Monday. I will share her name as soon as she clears!

Recognizing we have been one person short in our office this month and next week, we appreciate your patience. We’ll be back to full speed soon.

Thread 3:

I blogged more recently, here, about the official launch of the first Galinsky Academy initiative: Creating a Community of Kindness. It began this week with our teachers, and continues next Monday at our annual PTA-sponsored “Back to School” brunch for Preschool and Day School parents with information sharing on the new project. [NOTE: This will be repeated for teachers and parents in the Bernard and Alice Selevan Religious School at their upcoming Faculty Orientation and PTA-sponsored “Back to School” brunch. All Makom Hebrew High teachers also work in another Galinsky Academy school and received their information there.]

In the spirit of transparency, I wanted to share with you the overall vision for that program as has been worked out by the professionals of the Academy, the clergy of the Jacksonville Jewish Center, and our partners at Jewish Family & Community Services. It is a starting point – a work in progress – not the entirety. As data is collected (surveys in September across the Academy), we will revise to keep the project moving forward in the right directions. Here, however, is at least where we will begin:

Outline for Curriculum for 2012-2013

Galinsky Academy

The purpose of this program is to create a community of kindness amongst students, teachers and parents within Galinsky Academy. This curriculum is intended to support what is already being taught with the message of Chesed throughout the religious institution. The plan would be to kick-off this program prior to the beginning of the school year with teachers during pre-planning week and we would be available to do similar with parents.

For the DuBow Preschool:

Facilitating classroom activities based upon the themes of the monthly Character Words. Examples of activities include assisting teachers in creating a monthly classroom bulletin board and leading an activity that corresponds to the monthly reading of a PJ Library book.
Utilizing the book Conscious Discipline by Dr. Becky A. Bailey as a resource to develop classroom activities to support teachers plan/agendas
How to take home what is being learned and processed in school: Examples include facilitating conversations with parents and teachers about how to create a community of caring, implementing specific projects that can be done at home with their children and brought back to school, classroom projects with teachers (i.e.; creating Tzedakah boxes)

For the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School:

School-wide projects (part of this will include engaging the student council—attending the monthly meetings with them to encourage their support and involvement in activities) Examples include: creating themed bulletin boards about definitions/examples of caring, implementing peer to peer support groups, implementing a school-wide award system/acknowledgment of students acts of kindness, an award system for teachers, implementing a system/plan for parents to recognize teachers/staff
Classroom workshops and projects— would include an activity (with processing upon completion), then leaving teachers with worksheets/mini-projects for follow-up to do in classroom and/or send home with kids

For the Bernard & Alice Selevan Religious School & Makom Hebrew High:

Teacher workshops. Possible topics include: how to facilitate communication with parents and with students, how to recognize special needs and emotional issues in children, how to encourage peer to peer support amongst students, assertiveness training, bullying prevention ideas
In-classroom projects with follow-up activity for child to bring home and do with parent(s)
Teacher coaching–initial meeting with teacher about classroom issue(s), then observe classroom and make suggestions (behavioral management)

Examples of possible workshops for students

Value of friendship–how we choose friends
Hands-on sensitivity training—“walking in their shoes” (bring in guest speaker to help understanding physical and emotional disabilities—have students walk blindfolded, etc.) Focusing on accepting differences and strengths, what makes each of us unique
Self-esteem/empowerment topics
Communication—how to talk to your parents or those in authority
Why do we bully? (classroom and cyber)—what to do when you see bullying occur
Dealing with conflict
Healthy boundaries/healthy relationships
Assertiveness vs. aggressiveness
Role-playing—practicing kindness—what to say to peers, processing discussion
Classroom project/team-building—how to make the classroom a safe place

Examples of possible workshops for teachers and parents

Recognizing signs of bullying behavior (including cyber and classroom); threats to our children
Recognizing possible mental health issues/needs
Coaching on how to talk to parents about sensitive topics (for teachers)
How to talk to student/child in a way they will understand

Putting into Action/Other learning opportunities

Field trips and Mitzvah projects: 1-2x a year kids will go off-site to volunteer with another agency which provides services to children (Sulzbacher, Community Connections, etc.)
Availability to meet with parents and teachers—before or after school day, during summer, before holidays, etc.
Acceptance of referrals for short-term counseling and/or crisis intervention
Availability for classroom management intervention/suggestions per request from staff
Availability for specific interventions with child and/or family related to bullying issue
Follow-up sessions with aggressors or victims of bullying on an on-call basis
Pre and post tests/evaluations of knowledge and resources available to students

Resources

Books by Dr. Becky A. Bailey—Shubert series and Conscious Discipline

Employee certified in training of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits

Stephen Covey— The Leader in Me

Tying those three threads, along with others, together helps create the fabric of what will surely be an amazing year in the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School and the Galinsky Academy.

Off to enjoy a restful Shabbat and to get ready for an amazing week!

The Transparency Files: Faculty Pre-Planning Week

Here we are again! It is the Friday before Pre-Planning Week and the building is full of energy and excitement as boxes are unpacked, files organized, plans established, etc., as we prepare for our teachers on the 13th and our students on the 20th. Another summer has come and gone and the 2012-2013 school year is ready to begin!

I blogged, here, about how we intended to use our summer vacation for personal and professional development. “Pre-Planning Week” is our first opportunity to come together as a faculty and staff to share the results and plan implementation into the next school year. It is a week for preparation, planning and motivation. It is a liminal week hanging between what was and what is yet to be. How will we take yet another step closer to being the school we are becoming? What new programs or ideas will take shape and impact the lives of children and families? How will we be better teachers and administrators this year? What will we learn from our students and parents?

The birth of a new year is always exciting because everything is possible!

In the spirit of transparency and constantly putting our schedule where our mouths are, I thought it would be useful to share a taste of what our teachers will be doing this week and link those topics to the major philosophical ideas that guide our school’s mission and vision.

We will begin our week with a protocol I use to kick off each year:

The World Café
Using seven design principles and a simple method, the World Café is a powerful social technology for engaging people in conversations that matter, offering an effective antidote to the fast-paced fragmentation and lack of connection in today’s world.

Based on the understanding that conversation is the core process that drives personal, business, and organizational life, the World Café is more than a method, a process, or technique – it’s a way of thinking and being together sourced in a philosophy of conversational leadership.

This year’s kick-off question: “How can our willingness to mentor and be mentored take our school to the next level?”

The DuBow Preschool (you won’t believe how beautiful it looks after its summer renovation!) will join us for annual team-building. This year we will unpack what it means for us to be joined together as part of Galinsky Academy by treating this Wordle as a piece of text:

Other highlights of the week will include a training with Dr. Mae Barker, a Senior Behavior Analyst at Florida Autism Consultants & Educational Services entitled “The Recipe for the Successful Inclusion”. This fits with our ongoing desire to meet the different needs of all our students – it is the very definition of “a floor, but no ceiling”. [For a fuller explanation of “inclusion” and what it means at MJGDS, click here.]

Our teachers will present their summer “homework” in our first-ever “21st Century Book Club”. For a refresher on what books our teachers read this summer and why, click here.

And in addition to the studying with our clergy, meeting in teams to plan curriculum and projects, and receiving training and coaching in iPad implementation, SMART Board instruction, blogging, etc., we will kick off our new “Creating a Community of Kindness” initiative (click here for a full description) with our first session with our partner in this project, Jewish Family & Community Services.

All of that AND a series of individual meetings with families, a “Meet & Greet”, and a Middle School Orientation…it will be quite a week!

Two quick bookkeeping notes:

Summers do bring their surprises. Whilst I was away on vacation, we made a change in the Fourth Grade Assistant Teacher position. I am pleased to welcome Sara Luettchau to our MJGDS family! She graduated last year from UNF with her degree in education and brings great enthusiasm and fresh ideas to our team.

On a sadder note, we also said goodbye to Jessie Roman who had been an administrative assistant for the Day School (as well as our Youth Department and Religious School) for the last seven years. We wish her well in her new endeavor. As I type, we have narrowed our search to three excellent candidates and look forward to having a new person in place by the start of the school year.

The flip-flops have been replaced by socks and dress shoes. It is go time! Can’t wait for Monday!

The Transparency Files: Lower School Schedule

For those of us in the Southeast, the snowball of summer has crested and is headed downhill towards the start of another amazing school year! Teachers report on August 13th and the first day of school is August 20th.

Really!

A housekeeping note before diving into this week’s post:

We are fully staffed for the 2012-2013 school year. I am pleased to introduce our “final four” who will round out the faculty of new and returning teachers I introduced here:

Cathleen Toglia will be teaching Sixth Grade Math & Seventh Grade Pre-Algebra. She comes certified for teaching math in both elementary and high school and a has a wealth of excellent teaching experience.
Kara Alford will be our First Grade Assistant Teacher. She comes certified for teaching elementary education and has experience as a lead First Grade Teacher.
Ryisha Flowers will be our Fourth Grade Assistant Teacher. She is currently a student at the University of North Florida where she is working on her degree in Special Education.
Megan DiMarco will be our Kindergarten Assistant Teacher. She is finishing up her Florida Teaching Certification at the Educators Preparatory Institute and has held a similar position at a school in South Florida for the last two years.

We welcome our final four and look forward to great things in the year to come!

Segue.

Well, it took a great deal of time to plan, plot and format, but as promised, I want to share the new schedules for Grades 1-5. Similar schedules for K & 6-8 are being finalized, by the way, but for those grades it is more a work of translation. Although I do not believe there is much new in these schedules, our desire to publish them stems from two places:

The desire to break down “General Studies” into “Language Arts”, “Math”, “Science” and “Social Studies”. It is important that we have accountability for a complete secular academic schedule, particularly for Science and Social Studies.
We want to dismiss once and for all the idea that students in (at least this) Jewish Day School have a “less than” secular academic experience than our friends at other secular independent schools or public schools. With our extended day, careful scheduling, and mission-driven choices, we believe our students have similar time on task with regard to secular academics as anyone else. To repeat – families who choose the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School are not sacrificing secular academics for the sake of Jewish Studies. They are choosing a full secular academic program (and a pretty excellent one at that!) with the benefit of a world-class Jewish studies program.

The proof is in the pudding…or, in this case, the schedule.

[Now this is our first go around with the new format so there are some kinks that need to be worked out. Not every teacher included every activity (recess) on the schedule. And a few teachers have some features unique to them. So please don’t sweat the small stuff or make assumptions…if you have a specific question about your child(ren)’s schedule, go right ahead and shoot me an email or make a call.]

Without further adieu…

I will be off next week on a family vacation, but back working and blogging the week after. Enjoy these last weeks of summer…but be excited by what will be waiting for you when you come back (I wonder if they did any work on the second floor this summer)!

The Official Launch of the “Creating a Community of Kindness” Initiative!

[NOTE: For a more expanded read of my blog on Jewish gaming from last week, here, please check out my guest blog for Jewish Interactive, here.]

I am thrilled to announce 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 will be launching at the beginning of the school year and partnering with Jewish Family & Community Services 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.

Thanks to Colleen Rodriguez and Rachel Weinstein from JFCS for working with our school professionals and clergy to draft a program and a curriculum we are excited to bring to life in the month and year ahead!

Our plan from the beginning (you can catch up on some of our early thinking on the subject, by clicking, here, here and here), 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.

Our assumptions are as follows:

Survey data from our schools indicates 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. We will begin next month with teacher workshops during all each school’s “Preplanning Week” or “Faculty Orientation”. We will also present more information at upcoming PTA-sponsored “Back to School” brunches for each of our schools.

I cannot think of a better first-initiative for our Academy to engage in. I am looking forward to taking a major step forward next year to becoming the Academy our students deserve. Parents looking to get involved are welcome to! Feel free to comment on the blog or email me directly at [email protected]. [Those interested in seeing the details of the plan are welcome to contact me directly for a copy.]

Enjoy the remaining weeks of summer, knowing that upon your return the work of ensuring our children a safe and nurturing environment to learn, to explore and to grow has already begun.