What to do about textbooks?

For the last decade or so, I have been strongly against the use of 'textbooks' in Religious School classes.  All the evidence points to the fact that children gain almost nothing - intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, or otherwise - from reading through textbooks and doing textbook-based work during Religious School.  Kids often forget whatever content they may have once learned, they frequently find textbook work dull, and they simply don't engage in the learning in the same way that they do in more active / experiential programs.

At Temple Isaiah, we have a history of innovative approaches to Jewish education, including creating our own curricula.  Several of our teachers have written their own curricula in such a way that does not require the use of textbooks almost at all.  When we do use textbooks, we typically have a 'class set' that lives at Temple Isaiah and the students use while they are on our campus.  For example, our 3rd and 4th graders study Torah as part of their programs (whether through art, storytelling, or nature), and they sometimes use kid-friendly Torah textbooks to read the stories (instead of reading the text from a JPS Torah translation or other version geared toward adults).  However, since we don't use the other activities in the textbooks (just the stories), we have not typically purchased a textbook for each child to own and eventually take home.

In the last few months, something has changed in my thinking about textbooks and Religious School.  A parent mentioned to me that she had wanted to practice Hebrew with her daughter over the summer, so she took out a Hebrew workbook her daughter received from Religious School several years ago and it really came in handy.  Another parent mentioned to me that he wished he had had a book at home to work on with his child (again, it was related to Hebrew learning).  As these parents spoke, I was reminded that in my own Religious School experience, we were given at least one or two textbooks per school year (on Torah, prayer, history, etc).  We used the books at Religious School through the year, and then took them home at the end of the year.  I really didn't like Religious School and wouldn't advocate going back to that type of learning; that being said, those books did sit on my bookshelf at home and from time to time throughout my childhood and adolescence I would go back to them (or my parents would).  If I had a question about something related to Judaism - Torah, prayers, history, or otherwise - I could often find answers in those books (written in kid-friendly language).

So that got me thinking... even if we never return to textbook-based learning in the classroom, I wonder if we should be giving 1-2 textbooks to kids to bring home at the end of the year, to help build their Jewish bookshelves / home libraries?  The PJ Library is an amazing program that seeks to build the Jewish libraries for families with kids ages 6 months to 7 years, but what happens after that?  How can we help families have good Jewish resources at home for the children ages 7 and up?  Even if our programs don't follow a textbook exactly, there are certainly textbooks out there that speak to the content we're teaching.  So maybe we should nevertheless order books to send home at the end of the year? 

Thoughts about this?  Would it be a complete waste of paper and money, given the ubiquity of the internet?  Something tells me it's different to have a book on your (actual) bookshelf vs. looking things up online when the need arises. I feel like I'm doing a 180 on this topic, from a Jewish educator point of view...

Reflections for the HHDs

One of the challenges of the High Holy Days is making time to do the reflection and introspection asked of us.  Believe it or not, it's even difficult for me - as a rabbi no less! - to carve out the time to do the inner work that's crucial for us as humans and Jews this time of year.  I recently learned of an organization called "10Q" that can help with this problem.  This organization (which as far as I can tell is a start-up website of sorts) sends you an email each day of the "10 days" (i.e. the Days of Awe, from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur) asking big life questions.  You then write in your responses - however serious, introspective, funny, thoughtful you want to be.  10Q will store them in a 'vault' for a whole year, and will send them back to you just before the HHDs next year as a way to review where you were and what you were thinking in the past year.  I'm really excited to give it a try, and I encourage all of you to do the same! 

It might be an interesting exercise with kids, too, in a modified way... For example, parents could decide on 10 questions for their children to answer.  Each day of the "10 days", the parents could help their children answer the questions either verbally or in writing. (If the kids answer verbally, parents can write down what their children said).  Then store the answers in a safe place in your house, and pull them out next year for your children to see and hear what they said last year!  Here's the website: http://doyou10q.com/

As they say on the website... 10 Days.  10 Questions.  Reflect.  React.  Renew.

Are you ready?

New School Year!

It's time for a new school year!  The last few weeks have been crazy-busy getting everything ready, but I think we're good to go!  I'll be updating on a regular basis now that school is back in session, so thanks for hanging with me in the summer months when I've been away from my blog. 

We have some very exciting things in store for this year... I promise to keep you posted!