He responded, “Most restaurants just feed their customers. Here we are enjoying a dining experience.” Needless to say, since then, our family evaluates restaurants in terms of feeding or dining.

I’m sure if you asked, most restaurants are certain that their customers are dining, while the customer experience feels more like being fed. When I asked Joaquin to say more about the difference, he explained, “Feeding is what most restaurants do – the food can be fine, but the delivery of the food is another story. It’s that feeling that the service accommodates the waitstaff, not the customer, and they don’t convey any interest in curating a custom dining experience. Feeling cared for and special leaves the customer wanting to come back. The diner feels meaningfully counted and not just another body to be fed.”

And this illustrates our challenge in Jewish education. If we take an honest look, are we providing a student experience that is more like dining or feeding? How is the design of Jewish studies intentional in yielding graduates who can’t wait to come back for another taste rather than full stomachs looking for a more satisfying atmosphere? I think the challenge starts with how we think about our students. Do we “feed” students information and skills for immediate wins and short term success? Or do we deliver a curated top quality experience with the life trajectory of the student and potential of a whole human being in mind?

Let me put some context around this: at one of our early Innovators Retreats in Bal Harbour, Rabbi Berel Wein was our keynote speaker. He delivered a message that was hard to hear: he said that the last 70-80 years has been a failed experiment for Jewish education. What he meant was that we just aren’t doing an effective job in developing the potential of our kids with a system that evolved from the industrial era. We’ve quoted Rabbi Wein many times as a basis for JEIC’s efforts to stimulate innovation and change in the field. And now I found concrete corroboration from change makers in the general field of education. The co-founders and chief learning officer of Transcend, a leading non-profit in school innovation, wrote a book called Extraordinary Learning for All. They say:

“Schooling as most of us know it today, is the result of design choices made more than a century ago that continue to dictate how young people and adults experience learning. The industrial model made mass education affordable and scalable, providing unparalleled pathways of opportunity. However, decades of research has consistently shown that the industrial era schooling model perpetuates societal inequities, marginalizing generations of young people and failing to cultivate the full potential and talent of our nation.”

What are the hallmarks of the student experience in today’s typical school? Departmentalized subjects and standardized testing with a focus on metrics. The educational model is designed to win – get those kids into the best universities! And for our day schools, add admission to top yeshivas and seminaries to the list of competitive colleges sought after.

And the very, very bad news and challenge for us here today is this Industrial Age model has been copied and replicated in Jewish studies. It’s bad news for the future of the Jewish people. Listen, if I asked you how to design Jewish education to yield students with strong Jewish identities and self esteem, I don’t imagine I would get a lot of votes for an antiquated, factory-style cookie cutter system. And where do Jewish values fit into a school that literally stresses the system with a priority of academic achievement? Where does the value of each unique soul have a place in a school that chronically compares one student to another? How does a culture of competition honor the intrinsic value of each student’s unique strengths and challenges?

Let’s take a moment and appreciate each of us here. We are a super impressive and eclectic group. When I scanned the attendee list, I marveled at the breadth of perspectives coming together here to group think on how to make the mission of excellence in Jewish studies possible. We all want to figure out how to yield the strongest and most committed future generation of Jews possible. And this has been my point for the last 15 years of Innovators Retreats. We in the field of Jewish education: the educators, the influencers, the funders – we share a meta goal in common. While each of the 900 day schools in North America has its own mission statement, unique community dynamics, professional staff and board, we are all rowing in the same direction. We just sometimes get lost in the challenge of getting through the waves and forget we have a destination.

Speaking of destination, six years ago at IR19 our theme was “Bringing God Into Our Classrooms.” I took the audience on a journey with a GPS. I pointed out how the GPS knows where you are, what direction you are going in, and how to get you back on track if you take a wrong turn. It helps you deal with unexpected obstacles you didn’t anticipate and assesses regularly if you are on track or about to experience a bump in the road. But you can only access this assistance by knowing where you are going. You must tell the GPS your destination. Imagine if schools had a GPS: a God Powered System! The GPS could get us back on track when policies, curriculum, and pedagogies misalign with Jewish values.

But now we don’t call our navigation tool simply GPS anymore; now we have Waze and Google Maps. There’s a more sophisticated application of data to make our journey more direct and precise. I’m personally loyal to Waze. I am a believer that it knows better than I do how to navigate a drive. While the old Garmin could get me from here to there, it was challenged to give options and shifts in real time. Waze gives me route options from the start. I can compare the miles and time differences of each route. The route even adjusts according to conditions in real time. We take this for granted because we’re used to it, but it’s truly amazing. It’s the “how” to get there – it’s the design of the drive and it makes all of the difference which route you choose. Once the destination is set, the route choice does the work. The more refined GPS applications quickly became our standard because it gives us so much choice and control of how we get to our destination.

Yesterday, we went through a process of illuminating the goals of Jewish education and the changes we would like to see. While yesterday we focused on the “what” – what is our destination? – today we will delve into the “how”: how do we get there? How do we create a student experience that is more like dining than feeding? What are the best routes to choose to reach our desired destination?

We actually will offer tangible route suggestions for Jewish education, based on our experimentation with innovative models in the field. The JEIC team emerged from a strategic planning process last year with an unexpected clarity on routes. We want to share with them with you today: They are called God Centered, Student Centered, and Culture Change.

This is the route we prescribe to take a Jewish day school from moving in the right direction to exactly on target. You will find once you understand these terms and get comfortable with them, they apply to every Jewish day school across the spectrum.

Wait, you say! This isn’t one route–you mentioned three: God Centered, Student Centered, and Culture Change.

It’s true but the amazing thing is that these components comprise one route. Just like in Waze, a route consists of small roads, commercial streets and highways – the best route to our destination is a combination of strategies that all speak to our shared values.

Remarkably, God Centered and Student Centered really emanate from the same space of relationship. Consider that the capacity to connect with God is only as available as capacity to connect with another human being. So when we talk about strategies to create a God-Centered school, it’s completely aligned with strategies to create a Student-Centered school. In fact, there’s a flow between the two. When we prioritize the needs of the student, we are aligned with the Jewish values from which God connection can flow.

And let’s think about how assessment choices honor or violate objectives of Jewish education: we know from Pirkei Avot that the reward is in the effort, not the accomplishment. If we were to design student assessments that are consistent with the principles of intrinsic motivation, now, we’re talking Student Centered and alignment with Jewish values. We could rid the system of negative messaging that a grade shows deficiency – “I’m not good at X” – and embrace that everyone has areas to improve. The outcome of exams sends students on a roller coaster ride of feelings for the teacher, the subject, the school, and most damaging, toward other students and themselves. Even for the students who easily score As, exams limit developing potential in a student. Have you ever thought about how crazy the concept of GPA is? How do we hold kids up to a standard of perfection in everything? It’s not normal. We don’t do that to adults. We admire people for their strengths and know that no one is good at everything. Yet a kid in school today feels “less than” if there are not As across the report card. And some just feel defeated and give up. Experiences have long been framed in school as a means to an outcome; the activity you did in class was to prepare you for the exam. But it is proven that learning experiences in and of themselves are critical for students. Take a moment and think back on a wonderful learning experience you had. It’s the “how,” the experience, the feeling you came away with that you remember. And if you can remember any content, it’s because the experience itself was effective, not a means to an end.

God Centered reminds us that limudei kodesh should not be a Jewish copy of general studies. The destination is completely different – that’s why it’s called kodesh! While both general and Jewish studies develop intellect with tons of information and insights, Jewish wisdom becomes part of us differently than subject knowledge. We grapple with values, relationships and prayer. This is the beauty of Jewish learning that needs nurturing. God centeredness, student centeredness – they are both avenues to a fully developed human being. The Jewish studies experience in our day schools will impact the strength and commitment of our future leaders and communities. Culture Change is the vehicle. It’s impossible to shift gears without culture change. Bring everyone along who needs to be there: school professionals and students, parents, community builders and influencers. The whole ecosystem, as we call it, needs to get on board.

We know that our kids crave connection and relationship. The guru said to the rabbi, “Jewish kids are very spiritual. Our ashram is full of them.” Our kids – the very ones we had right in our classrooms – seek spiritual fulfillment elsewhere when they aren’t empowered by the school experience. After they graduate, how many travel to other cultures to find a spiritual light? How many land in the Aish hospital in the Old City to revive their souls? How many report back, “I never knew I could enjoy learning until I got here, now that I don't have to study for exams and worry about grades”? How many disappear into the landscape of Western culture, never given the opportunity to develop the relationships as the fuel for their Jewish journey? How many graduates would not know what we are talking about if asked was your school God centered or Student centered? I don’t know how many, but I know it’s many and I know that even one lost is too many.

Historians say we must know from where we come to know where we are headed. As the Transcend team explains in their book,

“Industrial-era schooling has resisted change despite major reform efforts. Schools were designed to increase literacy, yielding a set of experiences that are often narrow, inflexible and confining. Early 20th century schools were characterized by compulsory education laws, teacher certification and standardized curricula, aligning with the factory model of efficiency. The 1950s and ‘60s Civil Rights Movement brought legal and legislative changes aimed at desegregation and ensuring educational equality. The ‘90s and 2000s saw new reforms focused on high academic standards and accountability to address quality and consistency.”

Remember the “No Child Left Behind”...

But here we are in a new day, with a new generation that is reeling from an unpredictable world. A world of false images, blurred boundaries, and waning models of civil discourse. We must have the courage to experiment and innovate – to create a school experience that leads with dignity, gives moral clarity, and nurtures the soul as well as the intellect. Our kids live in a storm of platforms that convey upside down priorities and corrosive on-line personalities. Those kids will emerge as adults who will fare as well as we build their self esteem and confidence in themselves. To accept that less than perfect is perfect and in God’s image. To self-assess and not depend on someone’s judgement or a subject grade to develop a healthy self image. To learn by intrinsic motivation, which is a lifetime asset consistent with our Jewish legacy. To develop potential in a Student Centered environment, according to each one’s unique composition. The route choice we make is the key to those meta outcomes. The Jewish people should be known for the best quality education. We have the wisdom and values that have sustained us through every adversity for millennia. And we have all of the creativity, wisdom and brilliance that we need to assume that rightful place.

So, let’s get going with the HOW to get there: God Centered, Student Centered and Culture Change. Let’s use our God Positioning System, engage Waze, and discover the route that will take us to the authentic destination of Jewish education. Let’s remember to make the Joaquin evaluation and set our students’ tables for a long term dining experience embraced by the values that unite us.