Innovation in Jewish Education

by Evan Wolkenstein

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Evan is on the faculty of the Jewish Community High School of the Bay. A long time ago Evan was an experiential Jewish educator at Genesis at Brandeis (we miss him).

by Adam Lavitt

All too easily, educational settings become overly serious, and educators forget that building a learning community doesn’t happen as well in these environments.  Bringing the quality of playfulness into these places can change this.  In multi-lingual environments, playful activity helps break through language barriers.  It helps to include those who are usually excluded, and builds a sense of community.  Playful activity offers a collective experience, and, generally creates a playful atmosphere.

Play is spontaneous, exploratory, and fueled by curiosity and wonder.  It can often involve humor and lightness, but can also be quite sincere.  Play is something that is more process-oriented (especially in arts education), and doesn’t put a particular emphasis on an end-product.

In arts education, playing also allows the educator to engage with students in the creative process.  This helps stimulate the students’ creativity, as well.  No longer just an arts educator, but also actively modeling what it is to be an artist, the educator helps students produce and polish final products.

Playing involves intuition, rather than the intellect; it is an experience of “beginner’s mind,” letting go of “knowledge” rather than trying to acquire it.  In a playful setting, everything is a first draft, and there’s no pressure to “perfect” anything.  Playing is also a way for the educator, to have fun, and include him or herself in the good energy he or she is trying to generate for the learners.

Play is not necessarily a spontaneous activity.  Indeed, a playful moment – even if the experience, itself, feels spontaneous – can be planned.  And as much as playful activities put people on a level playing field, a playful experience in an educational setting doesn’t necessarily lack hierarchy, and make the educator a “peer” with his or her students.  A good way to experiment with play, and to create a rich educational atmosphere with it, is to be sure to vary the amount of structure that you bring into the classroom experiences that you design, and, when “playful” moments arise, reflect on how you did or didn’t create the conditions for a playful experience to occur.

In exploring this on his or her own, some good questions for an educator to ask him or herself are, how intentional can I be about spontaneity?  Do I create circumstances for it to happen (by structuring it, or creating an atmosphere for it), or do I make it happen?  What circumstances bring it about?  What are some experiences I don’t necessarily create, but observe play happening within?  What kinds of play did you see happening in your classrooms, or outside of them?  How did these moments of play come about/happen?  What is the “goal” of play in an educational setting?
Adam is currently a rabbinical student at Hebrew College and an intern at BIMA at Brandeis University where he spent the past two summers working as a Community Educator.

By Eli Terris

In the summer of 2009 I was an intern at Genesis at Brandeis University.  For the first time in my life, I assisted the instructor of the journalism course working with a small group of high school students. This experience challenged me as an educator and forced me to examine the crucial elements of creating an ideal learning environment. For my professional development investigation project (a project the interns work on throughout the summer), I chose to explore the relationship between educators and “quiet” students, and more specifically on how educators try and engage the quieter students in class discussions.

During educational programming, I spent time scribbling away in a notebook about the different pedagogical techniques I saw. It was fascinating to observe the methods educators practiced, ranging from using physical and eye contact, calling out on students at random, to changing the layout of the room and the way the students were grouped. After observing the variety of approaches it became clear that, although these techniques may have temporarily succeeded in getting a student to talk, they did not always seem to receive positive reactions from the students. Some students shut down, stumbled over words, turned bright red or showed other signs of discomfort by the act of being pushed into publicly talking in front of a class.

I wondered to myself, what is the real value in having students engage verbally in classroom discussions? Does this element of participating verbally in a class really trump the anxiety that may arise in a student as a result? By taking a step back from my initial question,  I decided to ask the educators why they felt it was important to have each and every student participate verbally in the discussions.  I was toppled with a wide range of responses, though each educator I questioned believed that involvement of all the students in class was essential. One educator explained that students’ verbal involvement is proof that they are listening, understanding and being challenged. Another educator stated that each student has a different view on any given subject and his or her involvement enriches the discussion.

After speaking with the educators, I wondered if the “quiet” students knew the philosophies of their educators.  I decided to interview them in order to find out why the students believed that the educators would try to involve them. Once again, the answers varied immensely. One student stated that everyone talking is the definition of a “good class.” Another student believed that educators want to know if they are being listened to.

It was interesting to see that there was often a gap between some of the students and their educators. For example, if a student only raises his hand to talk because he believes the educator is trying to gauge if he is listening, whereas on the contrary, the educator believes the student has something valuable to say, the level of conversation is restrained. I not only learned how education is far more complicated than I every imagined, but also that the communication and understanding of principles between educators and their students is crucial in maintaining a good learning environment. I also learned the importance of challenging your beliefs about being a good educator and the necessity to, at times, take a step back to challenge yourself and make sure that you feel comfortable with and understand the decisions and implications of the decisions that you make in the classroom.

Eli Terris is a member of the Brandeis University class of 2011. Eli was a participant at Genesis at Brandeis during the summer of 2004 and returned as a member of our staff for the summer of 2009.

by Zach Kaiser

One of the most central aspects of BIMA is its emphasis on the importance of community. BIMA is an intentional community of Jewish artists, and as members of the community, we all have responsibilities to one another. A sense of responsibility plays a key role in participant investment. Creating a sense of responsibility – asking participants to lead, to plan, to work with you or teach you, the educator (the “authority figure”), is a risk. It is a risk that needs to be taken immediately (and intentionally) in a communal setting. A community is profoundly affected by how the members of the community view themselves in relation to the work in which they are engaged. Do the participants in an activity see themselves as passive learners, as sponges, absorbing information but not shaping the experience or the content? How does that affect how they operate outside of the studio, practice room, or “classroom”?

As educators, we often have a variety of goals for a given activity. The goals can range from an emphasis on the learning of factual information (e.g. “Marcel Duchamp exhibited the world’s first ‘ready-made’ piece of artwork, Fountain, in 1919″) to a more process-oriented goal, such as team-building. These goals inform the vision for the activity – how it will work. The vision for the activity (and experiences in the community leading up to the activity) affect the participants’ and educators’ self-perceptions in relation to the activity itself. These self-perceptions affect (enhancing or detracting from) the educational experience of the participants and educators. Indeed, involving participants in the visioning for an activity invites them to be co-creators of their own educational experience and changing their self-perception in relation to the activity. No longer are they “along for the ride” in an educator-driven activity. Doing this early and often can engender an investment and a sense of responsibility to the community. It can create new and unexpected learning opportunities for educators and participants alike.

This is a most difficult balance to strike. To shape an educational experience without really shaping it, to catalyze its creation in some way, is the aim of the educator in such a community. It is an impossible task to do perfectly. But in trying, our community becomes vibrant and beautiful.

Zach Kaiser, a visual artist, was a Community Educator at BIMA during the summer of 2009.

By David Bryfman

Reposted (with permission) from David’s Blog: Bryfy.net

JESNA’s list of top ten achievements in Jewish education over the last decade provides such a level of debate and controversy, especially for those of us more immersed in Jewish education than the Collingwood Magpies.

And JESNA’s list is a great list. Who could argue with Birthright Israel or PJ Library as being major game changers in the Jewish communal landscape? But the point of such a list should not be only to congratulate the big names in Jewish education. The real point, in my opinion, should be to try and identify the trends that these listed organizations exemplify – so that this does not become merely a back-slapping exercise, but one where the community is able to identify what works, what needs further investigation, and what needs further communal attention and resources.

So, inspired by JESNA’s top 10 list I have created a top 5 list of: Bryfy’s Pick for the Top 5 Trends in Jewish Education in the Last Decade. (this list however, offers more questions than answers, and in doing so it is admittedly a list that creates more opportunities for lists)

drum roll please:

1. Choice: When does too much individual choice signify the end of community? Can we simultaneously offer both a concierge model and a sense of Clal Yisrael?

2. Community-wide/Pluralism/Cross-Trans Denominationalism: Are we seeing the beginning of the end of denominational life in North America? Or, at the very least are we seeing the end of denominational institutions as a primary location for Jewish education?

3. Globalization: Now that there seem to be no geographic boundaries – what does this really mean for the Jewish People? How are relationships between people and communities changing as communication and networking begin to equalize us all?

4. Educational Providers: How does a new generation of Jewish educational providers, often divorced from institutions, settings and traditional leadership models continue to challenge authority and authenticity in the Jewish educational world?

5. Innovation: When will the established Jewish community and the world of Jewish innovation be seen as one entity instead of two artificially divided contructs? Only once this synergy occurs will true systematic change that benefits us all be able to happen.

So there it is – a list of the top 5 trends in the world of Jewish education today as seen from my myopic vantage point. These are things that I have noted as being important today (mostly exemplified within JESNA’s list) – but more importantly I am daring to prophetically proclaim that they will all become hallmarks of JESNA’s next decade of top ten achievements in Jewish education.

By Dvora Goodman

With every new online social tool that becomes popular, I feel more and more like an old school Jewish educator. I’ve been trying hard to keep up with things because that is where many of the Jewish teens are and I know that to continue to be able to relate to them and reach them educationally, I at least need to understand this part of their world.

But to use these tools as the primary means for Jewish education – that is too much for me to handle. I thought that volunteering to pilot a new curriculum with timeless Jerusalem that takes place in Jewish Second Life was pretty out of my comfort zone. But then came the idea of a “Social Sermon” posted on Darim Online’s blog. I stewed over it for awhile – how can you imagine engaging in Torah study on the fly in 140 characters or less – and then forgot about it. But the latest post on “Twebrew School” –put me over the edge.

I read an article from Reform Judaism Magazine interviewing Jan Katzew about recent surveys of Reform congregations across the country. Many of the conclusions resonated with my experiences, such as “children who form a close peer group in a Jewish learning environment are much more likely to stay involved” and “the degree to which students are active participants in the congregation, means that they are more likely to stay connected with the synagogue beyond bar/bat mitzvah.” He also mentioned personal relationships with professionals in the congregation as being present in high retention schools.

I am sorry if this makes me “old school” and not in with the current popular ideas, but I can’t sit back and watch in-person communities shrink away because we are offering alternatives that mean that you never have to leave your home and step foot inside a “Jewish space.”

I do think there is a role for social media in Jewish education, but I see it more as a teaser or something that attracts children and adults to want more. Since technology is so much a part of everyone’s life, it needs to be a part of Jewish life as well. But when a project uses social media as THE way of engaging Jews I think it is going too far.

Are there other Jewish educators like me still out there?

Dvora Goodman is the director of Genesis at Brandeis University.

By Daniel Crane

During my summer at Genesis, I dedicated myself to exploring the community aspect of being a Community Educator.  While making meaningful relationships is essential to the entire Genesis experience, I challenged myself to discover the educational potential of developing different kinds of relationships.

My investigation led me to understand myself much better and to shape myself as an educator by reflecting on my interactions with participants.  Always keeping the participants’ perspective in mind, I hoped to see myself through their eyes and to interact with that image in constructive ways.  I found some of my most engaging encounters while sitting at the lunch table, and these lessons managed to find their way into my lesson plans more and more as the summer progressed.

Ultimately, I pushed myself to incorporate the participants into my planning itself, giving over my final workshop to them entirely.  Trusting in their ability to foster their own collaborative learning environment and their willingness to accept me in a new role, I allowed myself to experience the lesson as a participant and not as a Community Educator, and I learned a tremendous amount about the participants’ learning experience and their translation of that experience into a teachable moment.

During my time at Genesis, I expanded my comfort, flexibility, and effectiveness as an educator, and I still continue to remind myself of the important lessons that the participants taught me.

Daniel was a Community Educator at Genesis at Brandeis University during the summer of 2009. Currently Daniel is a rabbinical student at the Hebrew Union College in New York.

by Dvora Goodman

I recently read an article written by a Jewish educator in California about youth groups which argued that parents need to fight the fight to get their kids to go to youth group despite them being overextended with other activities.  The article resonated with me based on my experiences working with Jewish high school students.

Last year I began to work one evening a week with the small group of high school students attending the supplementary school at which I once worked­ full-time, a wonderful school that children really love.  I told the director that I would make personal calls to potential new students for this year (new 9^th graders) to invite them to come try out the high school group at the school.

The first phone call I made to a parent, whose child I taught years ago, went like this:

Me:  “I’m calling to invite Jerry to try out the high school program at the school.  We meet once a week on Thursday nights”

Mom:  “Thank you for calling – I think that Jerry could be very interested.  He really enjoyed his time at the school.  But I’m not going to tell him about it.  We never see him at home as it is.  He is on three different soccer teams”

I felt defeated, and it was only my first phone call.  It didn’t get better after that.  Most of the responses were something like, “well, my daughter is not sure if she wants to come,” or “you are welcome to speak to her and try and convince her.”

Does this sound familiar to you?

In the Jewish educational world there is always talk about bad supplementary Jewish education, especially beyond elementary school, that is dis-engaging our Jewish children and turning them away from Judaism.  There is a call for innovation, for experiential programming, for immersive Jewish experiences like summer camp, and for boosts in day school attendance.   But my experience has shown that even in the case of the most engaging supplementary programs, organizations are still struggling to recruit and retain students because they are over extended; pressure for doing well in school in order to get into a good college has reached an all-time high, and teens are just not choosing to attend Jewish educational experiences.

I believe that in order to address the problem at its roots, we need to take a two-pronged approach.  Jewish educators need to do their part to continue to make their offerings attractive and the experiences high quality, but parents also need to step up and make Jewish education for their children the highest priority.

As a parent of young children, I know how important it is for me to make decisions for my children in terms of what they should be eating, what they should be learning.  Even when all my son wants to eat is sweets, I must enforce healthy eating and say no to the junk.

The same thing, I argue, goes for Jewish education.  We can’t leave the choices up to the teens themselves.  We also need to send the message to parents of Jewish teens that they need to make Jewish education a non-negotiable activity – the one thing they must do (and they can choose any other activities they wish to pursue).

It is too easy just to admit defeat with the teenagers who are not choosing to come and concentrate on developing our programs for those who are attending.  But if we continue like this I think more and more Jewish teens will not be engaged in any sort of Jewish learning experiences during high school, and that should not be something we let happen without a strong enduring fight.  I believe that as Jewish educators working in communities, we need to work closely with families and teens to make sure that we provide educational opportunities that fit their busy schedules, and then we need parents to make sure that their children attend.  Alternatively, for anyone completely over-extended with school and activities that they feel are absolutely necessary for their neshama, their soul, then we need to convince parents that they need to make sure that instead that their children take part in interesting and engaging Jewish experiences each summer.  Which program is their choice.  That they participate in one each summer should be non-negotiable.

We can’t let these teens slip away from us.  We need to all work together to continue to send out the strong message to parents that Jewish education is a number one priority, and then we can continue with our contribution of providing high quality, engaging Jewish experiences for the teens so that they keep coming back.   What will it take to get this message out there…

Dvora Goodman is the director of Genesis at Brandeis University.

by Joshua Rabin

By Rabbi Harry Sinoff
Herzl/RMHA has developed a new model for connecting our students to Israel. It is really a simple idea: our 10th grade lives for 6 weeks in the Environmental High School on Midreshet Ben Gurion. While their Israeli peers are in classes our students have ulpan, or, if their Hebrew is adequate, they attend regular Israeli high school classes. After classes our students are folded into the high school extracurricular activities and spend their free time, as well as meals, with their Israeli peers.

You can imagine the dramatic effect of this program on Hebrew language improvement. But, equally profound is the deep and enduring relationships that result. The isolated, beautiful setting conduces to socializing and excursions into the desert for entertainment.

The students’ quantum jump in Hebrew language skills allows us, when they return, to offer a course, other than Hebrew Language, in which the language of instruction is Hebrew. This is the second year of such a course: Critical Questions Facing Israel. There is strong interest both on account of the content and the fact that it gives students another forum in which to speak Hebrew. If only we had a geometry teacher who spoke Hebrew!

Rabbi Sinoff is the Director of Judaic Studies at the Herzl/RMHA day school in Denver, Colorado. Rabbi Sinoff is a past faculty member of Genesis at Brandeis University.