In Rabbi Andrew Ergas’ recent piece about “Teaching Hebrews Rather than Hebrew,” he relates that in day schools throughout North America, we encounter different varieties of Hebrew, each stemming from a different historical period of Hebrew’s evolution. Rabbi Ergas suggests that each requires distinct educational goals. “Our task as a community of educators is to appreciate both the connections between the different aspects of Hebrew language learning and their distinctions,” he says. “Unleashing the ways this dynamic language can serve as a key to unlock a multiplicity of pathways toward an enriched Jewish life and community.”
Rachel Mohl Abrahams’s piece, "Enabling Student Agency," was recently published in The Lookstein Center's Jewish Educational Leadership.
In the article, she highlights a few day schools that created opportunities for student independence during the pandemic. She calls on schools to continue to find ways to give students agency over their learning as we move forward.
“We are pleased to join with other foundations dedicated to excellence in Jewish education by supporting the work of Jewish Day School Standards and Benchmarks,” said Mayberg Foundation Executive Director Todd Sukol upon the announcement of JTS’s relaunching of its program.
“The program’s outcomes align closely with the ultimate goals of the Jewish Education Innovation Challenge (JEIC), which we launched almost a decade ago to catalyze radical improvement in Jewish day schools. The Standards and Benchmarks team has supported teachers in an important shift in instruction with a focus on Jewish texts' relevance to the individual learner,” he continued.
“We see this as a crucial component of effective day school education that will have lasting impact on each child and, ultimately, the Jewish people.”
Amanda Pogany, Head of School at Luria Academy of Brooklyn, began a journey to create an environment of unconditional respect among students, parents and other schools, applying design thinking in a year-long process that resulted in ‘Four Commitments,’ a framework for “how we communicate and how we function in relationship with one another in our school community.” They came up with four commitments: I will be Kind * I will be Strong * I will be Curious * I will Contribute
In Rachel Mohl Abrahams' recent blog on collaborating to sustain innovation, published in eJewish Philanthropy, she maintains that “allies to create field change may be closer than you think.”
In his op-ed, Rabbi David Stein argues that after a year of “many questions but no obvious answers,” “whatever challenges or opportunities lay ahead must be met with a clear vision of the central goals of Jewish education.”
In Rachel Mohl Abrahams’ “Making Pesach Personal” article in The Yeshiva of Flatbush Alumni Network’s newsletter, she articulates: “ As we prepare to fulfill the mitzvah of “you shall tell your child,” it behooves each of us to consider how we make space for God in our families’ lives. How do we continue to feel that God is caring for each of us? How do we convey that in our homes? The notion of developing one’s own relationship with God needs to be at the core of Jewish education today. We need to ensure that we are helping our children establish and cultivate the feeling that God is actively involved in their lives. Their understanding of God must mature as they grow.”
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z’’l writes in his book Lessons in Leadership, that “Jews became the only people in history to predicate their very survival on education. The most sacred duty of parents was to teach their children … Judaism became the religion whose heroes were teachers and whose passion was study and the life of the mind. The Mesopotamians built ziggurats. The Egyptians built pyramids. The Greeks built the Parthenon. The Romans built the Coliseum. Jews built schools. That is why they alone, of all the civilisations of the ancient world are still alive and strong, still continuing their ancestors’ vocation, their heritage intact and undiminished.”
Elaborating on Rabbi Sacks’ idea, Sharon Freundel maintains that “by “schools,” he means not buildings, but spaces, physical or virtual, in which learning takes place. Schools are made up of students, educators, parents and other interested individuals. They are not the buildings within which they reside, and this lesson has truly hit home since last March.”
JEIC managing director Sharon Freundel shares her article on “Grounded Meaning” in the winter 2021 Jewish Educational Leadership double-issue about meaning-making in Jewish education.
Day schools often teach students to recite prayers even before they can read. As students grow, schools expand the number recited and focus on the performative aspects of Jewish prayer and/or the siddur as text. While this knowledge and skill set has great value, this tendency to focus on the performative overlooks the most important landscape for a meaningful and transformative tefillah experience—the student’s inner life as the field for deepening a connection to God as a source of transcendent love and guidance.
During this webinar by the Jewish Funders Network — the third in a three-part series about remote learning and engagement — Rachel Mohl Abrahams, senior advisor for education grants and programs at the Mayberg Foundation, explores best practices and opportunities in Jewish education and day schools in the context of remote learning.
Learn about JEIC’s work to reimagine Tefillah, in partnership with the Jewish Federation of Broward County at Brauser Maimonides Academy and Shaarei Bina Torah Academy for Girls in this piece by Rabbi Arnold Samlan in eJewish Philanthropy, titled “Bringing a Spirit of Innovation to Town.”
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and with the rapid flip from in-school to on-line learning, I have heard countless statements that school as we know it, will change forever. I certainly understand why some would make these claims: broadly speaking, and with notable exceptions, Jewish day schools were able to pivot and provide a re-imagined balance to the 2019-2020 school year, and as of this moment, most of these same schools have pivoted again to provide Covid-conscious in-building education this fall.
Yes, many changes were made, but will this mean that the institution known as school will be forever changed? Despite extraordinary advances in technology, social upheaval, economic growth, and new understandings of the human mind, history has shown only limited lasting change in schools since the catalyzing events of the 1950s, namely Brown vs the Board of Education and the launch of Sputnik and the ensuing space-race. I add to this a concern that the desire for change is frequently counterweighted by a deep desire to return to the familiar and “normal.”
I would like to posit here that while I am skeptical that schooling has changed forever, I do think that there may be an enduring change in our feelings about school and the parental understanding of what school is and can be.
Here is what I think may have really shifted for good:
Chevy Chase, MD (October 26, 2020) – The Jewish Education Innovation Challenge (JEIC) has awarded a total of $80,000 to four Jewish day schools through Ignition Grants for God Expansion.
JEIC initiated its Ignition Grants program in late 2018 to continue to catalyze change in day schools by supporting creative, out-of-the-box programs through micro-grants to a wider population of schools. Ignition Grants for God Expansion were added in summer 2020 to advance distinctive, enduring approaches for elevating and deepening the God-student relationship.
“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 famous 12th century philosopher Maimonides tells us, “A person should always take care not to cast his thoughts backwards, for his eyes are placed on his face and not his back.” With this, Maimonides reminds us of the value of looking forward without dwelling too much on the past, or even the present. His words ring especially true in the midst of a worldwide pandemic.
With more and more schools committed to virtual learning for the rest of the school year, our minds are all occupied with questions about how to create community when we’re not together, how to engage students in authentic learning when behind a device, and how to support teachers through a process that is new to everyone. While these are all important questions in achieving our present goal of minimizing interruption for student growth and learning, we also must keep in mind the big-picture future of our schools.
If you google the words “God loves us,” the first page of hits contains all Christian websites. I don’t think this an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) problem; I think it is a statement that we are not good at reminding ourselves and our students through discussion or text study that God loves us. The sources are plentiful...
Mid-March was filled with a great deal of excitement and energy for Jewish day school educators, and I’m not simply talking about the festivities associated with Purim. Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools held its biannual conference in Atlanta, and I attended with my Jewish Education Innovation Challenge (JEIC) team and more than 1000 other colleagues in the field. The conference was heartening and inspiring for this diverse population of Jewish educators, funders, and influencers, evidenced by a wide range of blog articles written in the last few days and posts filling our social media feeds.
In the spirit of being a positive disruptor, JEIC conducted an audacious initiative at the conference. Taking the first page out of a design thinking playbook, we created a unique mechanism for connecting directly with Jewish educators and influencers to find out their hopes and needs.
How did we do it?
When an organization is facing a big change - the arrival of a new leader, a shift in strategy, rapid growth (or decline) - one often hears the well-worn reminder that “change is not an event, it is a process.” Well-intended advice, perhaps, but not helpful. It is not helpful because when change is at hand, hard work is needed, not sage advice. It is not helpful because with all new pressures, we have to focus on the work, not words.
And it is not helpful, most precisely, because it is not true.
After six months of full time work with JEIC I’m still seeing things with “newbie” eyes. One observation that stands out to me is what appears to be a replication of effort among many precincts, all of which share the cause of improving Jewish day school education. Many of us seem to be simultaneously re-inventing the wheel. Perhaps this is part of what The AVI CHAI Foundation recognized when they approached the various Jewish day school networks to propose the umbrella organization, which has since developed into Prizmah.
Below are three examples from the many I have recently encountered of what may exemplify a less efficient use of resources:
