JEIC celebrates the successes of all our grantees.
We are proud of Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County for becoming the first Jewish day school in the tristate area authorized as an International Baccalaureate World School for the Middle Years Programme.
Unless you spend time in the same place as others, it can be challenging to create meaningful connections with them. Proximity matters in relationship building. When a school segments subsets of its population in areas of the building that are distant from peers, the students may not have the opportunities needed to develop strong friendships and grow from beneficial interactions with one another.
The same is true for stakeholders in the Jewish day school ecosystem.
I had the privilege of attending the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge (JEIC) 2018 Retreat –a wonderful gathering of educators, investors, and leaders in the world of Jewish day school education. Over the course of the retreat, we were asked to think deeply about the purpose of day school education. We were asked to reflect on our own values, and how we would bring those values to life in a school setting. And we were asked – in an uplifting keynote by philanthropist and visionary leader, Manette Mayberg – to consider the importance of distinctiveness as an enduring Jewish spiritual value.
Her words brought to mind one of my favorite midrashim – a rabbinic commentary from Vayikra Rabbah inspired by a verse from this week’s Torah portion, Acharei Mot-Kedoshim: “You shall not copy the practices of the land of Egypt.” [Leviticus 18:2]
As we merited to make the journey, yet another year, from slavery to freedom, from the constraints of Egypt to the open desert, it is incumbent upon us to find the relevance of Passover in our lives.
There is a remarkable piece in Gd’s method of preparing the Jews to leave Egypt. Gd commands every Jewish household to take a lamb into the home for a few days, then slaughter it and mark the doorpost of the house with its blood. Imagine being in that place for a minute. Take a lamb, the very animal that is worshipped as a deity in the hostile society in which you live…care for it, then risk your life to kill it so that its blood will protect you from Gd’s final devastating blow. To take this action required such a deep trust in Gd, that most of the Jews didn’t do it. Most assimilated and were lost and only a minority followed Gd’s word and left Egypt.
This marking on the doorpost – it was the first mezuzah! Jewish Egyptians were challenged to distinguish their homes, not with a subtle mark, but with a bold, emphatic and risky statement. Gd clearly had an eternal message in this and it applies to us today.
As educators and investors in Jewish education, we are partners with the holiest institution since the beit hamigdash stood – that is the Jewish home. Many Jews, I would guess, the vast majority, have no idea that the holiest place is in fact, not the synagogue, but the home. Some even think, “I am a bad Jew because I don’t go to synagogue!” When in fact, every Jewish home has equal potential to instill the Jewish identity and values that sustain the Jewish people. The Jewish institutions that we devote ourselves to are extensions of the home. School is not a substitute for, but an essential limb of the home. When families choose to entrust their children’s education and direct their dollars to Jewish day schools, they expect an experience that, like their homes, is distinctly Jewish. Distinction is in our DNA and has enabled our survival throughout the ages. Scattered to all four corners of the Earth, distinction is the unifier that has made survival possible. Gd said, “mark your houses” because the values that you hold inside, are the hallmark of the Jewish family that will distinguish you for all time. When Gd commanded us to make ourselves distinct, it was by the unit of the home, not the individual.
This past summer, driven by a desire to create a sustainable system of innovation in our school and supported by a grant from the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge, Akiba-Schechter began the process of creating the first Research & Development Department in a Jewish Day School.
The Akiba R&D Department studies, develops prototypes, researches, and scales new teaching and learning approaches, practices, and systems that advance relevant learning for our students and the field of education. Our R&D system ensures new programs, models and ideas are thoughtfully studied, implemented, and sustained. In many companies, R&D departments play an integral role in the life cycle of a product. For us, at a Jewish Day School, we believe the R&D Department plays an integral role in the lifecycle of teaching methodologies and student learning.
The R&D Department researches and develops approaches, practices, and systems that:
are driven by global trends
have a strong relevance to our school’s mission and core values
have potential to significantly transform teaching and learning
have sudden urgency or meet unexpected needs
The R&D Department focuses on five areas:
Research for new programs or models
Development of new programs or models
Updates in existing programs or models
Quality checks on existing programs or models
General research on educational trends and innovations
Part I: The Intensive Summer Beit Midrash
At Fuchs Mizrachi School, we are privileged to have a Judaic faculty who love to think, collaborate, reflect and innovate. We have worked individually and in groups, through meetings and professional development days, to develop meaningful projects, powerful co-curricular programming and a shared set of skills/standards we hope our students will develop. At the same time, it has been challenging to bring individual teachers’ work together to develop a more systematic approach that insures both consistency and continuity for our students.
As open and reflective as our teachers may be, they still often find themselves in the daily grind of preparing lessons and marking assessment as they also try to build relationships with students outside the classroom and manage their own families’ needs. We, therefore, wanted to find a way to build more systematic, year after year cycles of improvement into our school culture. We didn’t want to build one specific curriculum or implement one particular pedagogic tool; we needed to find a way to ensure that a cycle of action, reflection, and improvement became part of our teachers’ and school’s culture.
With this in mind we proposed-- and were excited to receive a grant from JEIC to support-- a different approach to teacher collaborative time. The Teacher Torah Collaboratory program will fully begin this summer with an intensive Summer Beit Midrash for Fuchs Mizrachi faculty. We believe that dedicated intensive time outside of the regular school year for faculty to learn and think deeply together can alter the lonely cycle of Judaic teachers individually preparing curriculum and planning meaningful activities from day to day. Through reconnecting with their passion for Torah learning, teachers will also be given the time and space to approach familiar texts through new lenses -- considering what both they and their students need in today’s world. Through intense learning, curriculum development and broad conversations about needs, priorities and next steps, teachers will be better positioned to build off of their comradery and shared work for next school year.
Social connectedness is the degree to which a person has and perceives a sufficient number of positive, reciprocal relationships including emotional support, a sense of belonging, and fostering growth. Some people may think that schools’ primary goal is solely to teach content and skills, however, I believe school communities should consider social connectedness a top priority. Not only that, educators should focus on exploring multiple ways to leverage social connectedness as an element of the learning process.
Giving students the right to make choices in their education is not a new idea. In fact, it is one of the foundational ideas of Maria Montessori’s and John Dewey’s systems of education. Over the years research has also confirmed (Goodwin, 2010) that giving students a greater role in directing their own education increases motivation and student learning outcomes.
While in secular education progressive educators have long been moving in the direction of increasing student choice, Jewish education has been slow to adapt.
Schools have both structural and cultural elements. Structural elements deal with top down school laws or expectations by which a person can be held accountable as a driver of behavior. Cultural elements deal with bottom-up or socially-driven behaviors. Both have strong influences in a school. The knowledgeable head of school knows that the right combination will help a school succeed.
The key is knowing when to build capacity by creating a more resilient and adaptable school and when to use that capacity to solve challenges. The structural side helps keep the school on one consistent plan. The best a school can achieve with only that lens is compliance. The cultural side invites a rejuvenating energy and a feeling of solidarity. The best a school can achieve with only that lens is mission-driven collaboration with the danger of going in a wrong direction. When the two sides work in sync, you get the best of both.
Recently, The Jewish Federation of North America released a report prepared by Rosov Consulting detailing the Challenges and Opportunities on the Jewish Day School Landscape.
The published findings provide a beautiful picture of what Jewish Day School is, [...] but those examples are not the primary reason of why it's important.
There are many positives and benefits to a Jewish education, but this blog article is not to highlight our successes. Consider this an acknowledgement of a couple areas that need improvement and use this as a resource to help identify areas where we can progress.
Recently, the U.S. Department of Education announced the top 342 schools for 2017, receiving the National Blue Ribbon Honor. One of our Day School Educators’ Challenge grant recipients, Bi-Cultural Day School in Stamford, Connecticut received this honor - the only Jewish school in the country and the only private school in all of Connecticut to achieve this.
Every year we award grants to programs that can fundamentally change Jewish education, inspiring students to learn, grow and connect as part of our Day School Educators' Challenge. We received 48 proposals and after careful review, we are excited to announce our 2017 grantees.
Jewish Education Innovation Challenge (JEIC) convened nearly 100 Jewish educators and community leaders from across North America to participate in its 5th annual Innovators Retreat – Oases of Change – at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
Video updates from our 2015 and 2016 Day School Educators Challenge grant recipients.
Guest blogger Rabbi Michael Ribalt discusses the three relationships to tefilah, including one’s relationship with Klal Yisrael through Halakha, one’s personal relationship with Hashem, and one’s relationship with “self.”
Ultimately, caring about the holistic student necessitates prioritizing identity development over textual engagement. While the two do not mutually exclude each other, the notion that Judaism bases its construct exclusively on text loses the core of community and the soul of the individual.
HaKaveret Designer, Ruchel Green, is a teacher and technology specialist at the Silver Spring Learning Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. She brings an interesting perspective to the work group as the only designer working in early education.
Recently, eJewishPhilanthropy published an article about Jewish literacy. We wanted to share this article because it underlines two JEIC focus points.
We encourage you to read the full article and share your thoughts.
What do you find most enjoyable about working in Jewish education?
I think that Jewish day school education is one of the bed rocks of the Jewish community, and to be able to spend each day trying to make it better and more accessible is something I'm really lucky to be able to do.
