Viewing entries tagged
Educational Leadership
In this blog, Rabbi Dr. Jay Goldmintz maintains that, “Now, more than ever, there is a need to help students find their personal connection to the Torah they are learning, to find themselves but within the context of tradition and community.”
“This requires a shift in pedagogy,” he relates, further expounding on how he envisions this shift.
Mayberg Foundation Trustee Manette Mayberg was recently published in eJP. Her article, “The invaluable role of a Jewish educator: A funder’s perspective,” maintains that the most important resource in Jewish education is the educator. “The long-term goals of Jewish education,” she writes, “are to shape a committed, thoughtful, ethical generation of Jews.”
JEIC managing director Sharon Freundel writes about the power of Jewish education and about her personal journey as an educator and beyond. “Three years ago,” she tells, “I left the classrooms and hallways of the Jewish day school and entered philanthropic work with the idea that I could perhaps make an impact on the world of Jewish day schools beyond the walls of the school in which I was working. And let me tell you; it has been a challenge.”
What can foundational Jewish sources teach us about grading practices in Judaic studies classes?
Ethics of the Sages 2:1 teaches, “רַבִּי אוֹמֵר... וֶהֱוֵי זָהִיר בְּמִצְוָה קַלָּה כְבַחֲמוּרָה, שֶׁאֵין אַתָּה יוֹדֵעַ מַתַּן שְׂכָרָן שֶׁל מִצְוֹת. Rabbi [Judah the Prince] said...And be as careful with an easy commandment as with a difficult one, for you do not know the reward for the fulfillment of the commandments.”
Conversely, 5:2 teaches, “בֶּן הֵא הֵא אוֹמֵר, לְפוּם צַעֲרָא אַגְרָא. Ben Hei Hei said: According to the labor is the reward.”
These statements appear contradictory. Either we don’t know the reward for a given action, or we realize that the greater the effort, the greater the reward. How do we reconcile these two ideas?
“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” ― Albert Einstein
Curiosity is the engine of education, fueling growth of the mind in students. Children have a neurological desire to seek answers, when confronted with a gap of knowledge. Therefore, it is crucial that educators encourage their students to be critical thinkers, always wanting to seek more knowledge. We as educators cannot allow our lessons to be driven by success and grades, as that dynamic impedes the growth of our students. In Jewish education specifically, this results in reduced curiosity, resentful feelings, and dulled minds in relation to our most sacred possession: our spiritual inheritance. In order to create intrinsic motivation and positive associations with our ancient wisdom, perhaps we need to reconnect with curiosity and infuse it into our Judaic disciplines.
The trust-fall — it’s the quintessential team-building go-to game. I love feeling exhilarated and terrified all at once! The key to its success is obvious; you must trust that people will actually deliver on their promise to catch you. It’s not enough just to hear, “We’ve got your back; we won’t let you fall.” Action transforms a promise into proven trustworthiness.
Trust in school leadership is important to productivity, innovation, loyalty, positive morale, and more. There is no shortage of research and opinion pieces citing the ways leaders can earn trust. Clarity, consistency, contribution, compassion, and other traits that don’t begin with a C are essential for building leadership trust.
A slightly interesting twist in the trust game surfaces in a recent article about trust in leadership in the Harvard Business Review by Holly Henderson Brower, et al. “Trust begets trust,” the article’s authors noted. To build trust FROM others, leaders need to show trust IN others.
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.
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.
