Empathy

This video was created for a hospital setting, but it makes me think about empathy in synagogue life too.  How would our work / our schools / our programs look different if we really tried to see the world through others' eyes?  Or... if we could at least acknowledge the very limited scope of our understanding of what another person is experiencing at any given moment... it's a very humbling exercise to think in this way...

Project Based Learning (PBL) in Action

We have been experimenting with Project Based Learning (PBL) in our Religious School this year.  Ron Berger is one of the leaders of PBL in the secular world of education, and his book An Ethic of Excellence is truly inspirational.PBL is - and is not - what it sounds like.  It is learning that involves a 'project', but not just any project. 

PBL is a form of education that leads to "good work," or work that is...

• Good in Quality
• Has academic rigor, accuracy, craftsmanship, beauty
• Good for the Soul
• Is engaging & fulfilling for students and teachers
• Good for the World
• Contributes beyond the classroom (has an audience beyond their teacher / class)
• Builds character, citizenship and 21^st century skills

There are four characteristics (or principles) that make a given project "PBL":

• It is work that matters in the world (authentic, not contrived) – has a real audience and purpose
• The teacher offers support for student discovery (print and online resources, and experts to consult when needed) - i.e. constructivist learning
• The teacher builds a supportive and challenging culture of critique which involves multiple revisions of the work (a first draft is never the final draft!)
• There are opportunities for public presentation of work that makes a difference in the world (should be work that matters, does good, and has an impact on the world)

To get a better sense of the third bullet point (creating a culture of critique), check out this video of Ron Berger showing students how a first grade boy named Austin learned to draw a butterfly:



Austin's Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work - Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback from Expeditionary Learning on Vimeo.


Our Omanut (art) students were the first to experiment with this type of learning, as they created a "Guide to Art in Israel."  While the project was chosen by the teachers, the students did everything else - the content, the layout, the research, illustrations & text, etc.  The students created multiple drafts of each illustration, using the technique of 'peer critique' to learn how they could improve their work.  We are publishing the book and will sell copies in our Temple gift shop and online.  

Our Teva (nature) students followed suit with a Guide to Teva (nature) in Israel.  Their book has already been published and looks fantastic!  The Teva students did not go through the process of peer critique / multiple revisions, and I am hoping that if we do similar PBL-work in the future that we will give the project more time to allow for multiple revisions and a somewhat higher 'quality' in the final product. That being said, the students really loved working on something that has real-world significance and has a real audience outside the classroom.

Another class did something that might fit under the heading of "PBL" as well... our Shira (music) students studied the teachings of Pirkei Avot as well as the history of Jews immigrating to America in the 19th /20th century, and they wrote their very own musical called "Life's Lessons"!  The play (a piece of 'musical theater') involved an original script as well as three original songs - all composed by the students (with the help of their teachers, one of whom is a professional composer).  Here's the performance they did for our whole Religious School on April 28th.  They did an amazing job!

If you are an educator thinking about incorporating PBL in your program, I would be happy to speak with you.  We learned a lot this year about what works, what doesn't work, and what the challenges are in using PBL in a part-time Jewish educational context.  It's been a fun road, and despite the challenges, I think the students found great meaning in creating things that have real-world value.

Re-thinking the "School Year"

In the past I've written about why I can't stand the term "Religious School" - because what we do in Jewish education is not described well by the word "religious" or by the term "school."  However, in one way we are exactly like a "school": we have a "school year."  I have caught myself using that term over and over again in recent weeks - "We are almost at the end of the school year."  "I am busy planning for next (school) year."  "We just opened registration for next (school) year."  As I sit with the notion of ending one year and starting another, I am struck by how stuck we are (and I am) in this mode of a "SCHOOL YEAR."

As a rabbi and mom, I wish there weren't a 'school year' for Jewish education.  I wish I could take my kids to synagogue every week for both study and prayer, in age-appropriate settings.  I look to my Mormon sister-in-law who goes to church with her family every Sunday - rain or shine, winter or spring, holiday or not.  From what I understand, the members of the church spend about an hour in communal prayer (with childcare / programming available for the very youngest kids who can't sit that long) and about an hour in learning / educational programs divided by age and gender (they have adult men's learning, adult women's learning, and kids programs for various age groups).  They join together for worship and study no matter which Sunday it is in the calendar year.  It could be a 'holiday weekend' (like Labor Day or Presidents Day weekend), a school vacation (winter break, spring break, summer break, etc), or just a regular old Sunday.  No matter what, the community is there to gather, pray, and learn.

I know this exists in the Jewish world.  In my congregation the best parallel is our Friday night worship, as we have Shabbat services every single Friday night of the year, and you will always find a critical mass of people together to worship.  The times vary, and the style of worship varies a bit, but there will always be a community there to gather and pray.  We have Shabbat morning study and prayer as well - our (adult) Torah study is pretty well attended, though our Shabbat morning worship does not draw a large number of congregants on a regular basis (it's mostly the friends and family of b'nai mitzvah students).

That being said, our Shabbat programming is not always feasible for families with young kids.  We do our best to offer kids programs on a regular basis (monthly, for example), but the piece that's missing for me is the whole-family, whole-community gathering for weekly study and prayer.  We arguably have that, but it takes place on Sunday mornings, is geared toward children ages 5-13, and is called "Religious School."  We have ~375 kids in our Religious School, along with about 50 teen TAs and ~25 adult teachers.  Kids participate in their educational programs, and parents frequently join in for a 30-min worship service (tefillah).  So we do have a weekly gathering for study and prayer for families with kids.  But it takes place during the "school year" and we take frequent breaks.  We never have Religious School on secular holiday weekends (like Presidents Day), during most school vacations, or for ~ 4 months during the summer.

Our Religious School schedule is determined by design - for logistical, practical, and financial reasons.  We know (or assume) that many of our families will not come on holiday weekends.  [We even went so far as to stop offering Religious School on the Sunday of Mothers Day because attendance was so low for many years in a row.  Mothers Day is now an official "Jewish holiday"!]  We know (or assume) that our families will not come during the summer due to vacations, summer camp, etc.  We also have a professionalized staff of teachers (unlike Mormon churches which rely on members to do the teaching, un-paid)... and our teachers need a break, time to plan their curricula, etc. (Side note: I, too, really enjoy and benefit from the down time that a break in the school year affords me!) Last but certainly not least, we only budget for a certain # of weeks of Religious School per fiscal year - somewhere in the range of 25-28 weeks of classes.  Again, that is due to the fact that we have a professionalized staff. 

However, given all these realities, I have found myself coming back to the question, "What if we did away with the notion of a 'school year'?"  After all, I assume that we do Jewish education during the 'school year' because we based our model after the public schooling model.  But we have already moved away from the public schooling model in many other ways.  And isn't Jewish learning a lifelong, year-long commitment?  Why do we abandon ship for four months every year?  What makes us so different from the Mormons, who commit to weekly worship and study as a family?  We are the "People of the Book," after all!  Could we consider a different model?  If we offered Jewish family learning on a weekly basis all year long (maybe on Shabbat?), would anyone but me be interested?  Has anyone in the world of Jewish education asked these questions before?   If so, where did the conversation lead?

Follow-up on 'literacy'

Perfect follow up to last week's post about Jewish literacy... check out Thomas Friedman's article about higher education.  The key point for me as a Jewish educator is his spot-on comment that " increasingly the world does not care what you know. Everything is on Google. The world only cares...what you can do with what you know."  I'd emend his statement for Jewish education to say "Increasingly it doesn't matter what you know about Judaism.  Everything (you're wondering about can be found) on Google.  It only matters what you can do with what you know."  In other words, what kind of Jewish life do you live?  How do you find Jewish knowledge and apply that knowledge to living a meaningful Jewish life?  It's not about what you know anymore - in the secular world or in the Jewish world.  It's about what you do.

Jewish Literacy vs. Identity

One of the things I've been thinking about recently is the question of goals in Jewish education, and more specifically, the goals for Religious Schools (also known as "part-time supplementary congregational educational programs"). If you could boil it down to one thing, what is the primary goal of Religious School? 

From what I gather, in the past - perhaps 50 or 100 years ago - the answer was likely related to Jewish knowledge.  Parents sent their children to Religious School so they could improve their understanding of Judaism.  They wanted their children to learn Hebrew, prayers, Jewish history, Torah stories, etc.  However, I think the goal has shifted in the last 10 or 20 years from Jewish literacy to Jewish identity.  In previous generations, Jewish identity was more of a 'given.'  You might have more or less knowledge of Judaism and its traditions, but there was a clear sense of Jewish identity.  Today, identity is multi-faceted, and we all make choices about which of our identities matter most.  Given the rise of inter-faith marriages, along with the notion that each of us makes choices as a "sovereign self", it is not a given that all children raised by one or two Jewish parents will necessarily view themselves as Jewish.  Therefore, our Religious Schools have begun to emphasize Jewish identity above everything else. 

This is certainly true at Temple Isaiah.  We say in our Religious School Program Vision that our goal is for "our children, our families, and all members of our community... to be challenged, exhilarated, and energized by the power of Jewish ideas and traditions."  In other words, we want them to WANT to be Jewish.  We want our families to identify as Jews and find meaning in our sacred tradition.

Of course, you cannot teach Jewish identity with teaching Jewish content.  We hope our students will learn Jewish knowledge and improve their 'literacy' as Jews.  However, there is sometimes a tension between the goal of Jewish literacy and the goal of Jewish identity. 

And so I ask you, dear blog readers - what do you think?  In what ways does the tension between the goals of teaching Jewish identity and Jewish literacy play out in Religious Schools?  In what ways are those two goals complementary?  If you are a parent, what are your goals for your child/ren?  What are the benefits and what gets sacrificed if we were to focus more on identity than literacy?  And vice versa - what are the benefits and what gets sacrificed if we were to focus more on literacy than identity? 


P.S. Coincidentally, David Brooks wrote an article for the NY Times today which talks about Western vs. Chinese views of learning.  The article addresses, at least in part, the tension I outline here.  He describes the difference between seeing learning as an 'academic' / knowledge-acquisition process, vs. learning as a moral process... there's definitely a parallel with my thoughts here!

Purim Videos for Kids

The other day my colleague was lamenting the fact that it's hard to find Purim videos that are age-appropriate for young kids (i.e. those that don't have bad language, too much sexuality, etc).  The irony of her complaint is that the "real" Purim story (i.e. the Book of Esther found in the Hebrew Bible) is definitely rated R.  There are many details that we avoid (or re-write) when we tell the story to children in order to make it a G or PG version instead of the R version it actually is.

All that being said, I did come across two very simple versions of the Purim story that are appropriate for  preschool or early elementary school kids.  Without further ado...

The Purim Story from Shalom Sesame:

From G-dcast, The Purim Story for Kids and Other Double Dutch Jumping Hipsters:

Soaking Oneself in Torah

It's been a long time since my last blog post, and it's been even longer since I wrote something original (i.e. not just cutting and pasting from elsewhere in the blogosphere).  I'm sorry to say that the dry spell is going to last a little longer, except that I want to share another article from the blog called "Kol Isha: Women Rabbis Speak Out."   It's about studying Torah, and I especially love the part at the end in bold:

[To study Torah] all you need is an hour. A partner. A commitment. An openness to struggle. A willingness to learn.

 Without further ado...

La’asok B’Divrei Torah: Soaking Oneself In Torah

by ravlinda

Dan Nichols' sings la’asok b’divrei torah is as sweet as honey on our tongues. The ending of the traditional blessing for Torah study is translated in our prayer-book  Mishkan T’fillah as: “to engage in words of Torah”. We also might translate it as busying ourselves, or working with Torah. But most of all, I love Arthur Waskow’s wordplay: “to soak” (la’asok) in words of Torah. Torah for me is like taking a warm bath. It adds a comforting glow, provides a focus or refocus, so that I can approach the world with new vitality.

A confession: Torah for me has become an addictive regular habit. Every Wednesday at 1pm half-a-dozen women congregants gather in my office to become my study partners for an hour. This year we are slowly reading Abraham Joshua Heschel’s The Sabbath.  The structure I have struck with these ladies is the same one that I have with my other Torah enablers, my one-on-one rabbinic study partners, the ones with whom I tackle Zohar or Hasidic Commentary or Talmud.

Such study is very different to “teaching” in the congregation, where I might be viewed as the “guide” or “expert” in the subject matter we tackle. That learning takes preparation and is goal oriented. Study is different.  I have fixed guidelines for study which have allowed me through the years to make this endeavor part of my daily routine.

My study rules are as follows:

1. Study should be done in true partnership.
2. Partners should agree on a topic to study that has an equal amount of unfamiliarity to all.
3. Study is time limited to a regular hour or hour-and-a-half on a specific day of the week.
4. Study should be viewed as a non-negotiable appointment, and the only reason not to study is in the case of a true emergency or vacation/conference time.
5. No partner should pre-prepare to enter this sacred time. All learning is done there and then.

In study, we are all journey-folk , learning from one another, wrestling with the text and gleaning from its pages. Study in such a way means letting go and making struggle part of the process. The immediacy allows for first-time revelations and insights. The unprepared but open study table allows the text to speak to us and through us. The text becomes the direction and guide and a mirror.

I share this, because so often I hear from folk that they wished they had the time for Jewish learning. They lament they cannot because life feels more urgent.  Or they feel time poor. They are discouraged by the enormity of the task or their lack of expertise.

But all you need is an hour. A partner. A commitment. An openness to struggle. A willingness to learn.