Showing posts with label Wendy Grinberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wendy Grinberg. Show all posts

Sunday, October 18, 2015

The Jewish Educational Theory of Everything, Part II

This piece actually is from January and was written by my friend and colleague Wendy Grinberg. It was originally published on her blog Jewish Education Lab (not to be confused with JEDLAB on Facebook). I think she has a good handle on some very important aspects of ToE (Theory of Everything).

Here’s my latest article in eJewishPhilanthropy. Looking forward to your responses.


There is a lot of talk about changing the name, the times, the locations and the format of synagogue schools. But calling something experiential, changing the hours or even inviting the parents is not enough to make deep change in religious school. What is needed is a change in thinking.

Is school the right model for what we are trying to do in our synagogue education programs? Why do they exist? There is a lot for students to learn in order to be knowledgeable in Jewish practices, values and traditions. But children who can “get an A in Judaism” are not our ultimate goal. A person can become an expert in these areas without even being Jewish. Our goal is mastery of “applied Judaism,” demonstrated by students who are part of a Jewish community and can face the challenges of this life in a Jewish way. Let me give you an example of what this can look like within the bounds of a typical third grade Sunday morning religious school class structure. Here’s how the teacher described it:

In the synagogue kitchen, nineteen third graders gathered around the stainless steel island upon which was heaped bunches of leeks, onions, carrots, turnips, parsnips, and bundles of parsley and dill. On the stove behind them, four free-range chickens were simmering in big soup pots. Mamma Barbara, grandmother to one of the students and the guest of honor for the morning, stood at the head of the island, handing out peelers, instruction, and encouragement to eager hands. Within minutes, the floor was a mess of carrot tops and parsnip shavings that missed the compost bags. The smell of chopped onions brought tears to some sensitive eyes.

A sense of community, sometimes so hard to foster in a classroom setting, was everywhere one looked in this overheated kitchen. Kitchen tools were shared without a teacher’s guidance. One child held a hard–to-cut vegetable for another to chop, while, across the way, another student warned his new friend to “be careful of the splashing soup” as she put her cut up celery into the pot.

Cleanup over and soup gently simmering on the stove, the class climbed the stairs back up the classroom, where Mamma Barbara told them the story of the recipe, passed down from her own great-grandmother through the daughters of her family, from a Russian shtetl to the suburbs of New Jersey. The soup (“Jewish penicillin,” Mamma Barbara called it) would now be strained, frozen, and ultimately delivered to the ill in our community by the sixth graders of our synagogue as part of their bar or bat mitzvah projects.

More than a kitschy hands-on activity, this effort coordinated by Jessie Losch at The Barnert Temple Congregation B’nai Jeshurun of Franklin Lakes gets to the heart of what applied Judaism in a school setting looks like. A few key components:

  1. The school is not separate from the greater community. In our scenario, students function as a class community within the context of the synagogue community. Mamma Barbara brought her family recipe and became part of the effort. In addition, the students planted chicken soup herbs in the synagogue garden to harvest for their soup under the direction of a synagogue member who is also a master gardener. Another group of expert adults facilitated the students in creating a Matzah Ball Mensches logo which will adorn the labels of every package of soup. As a mitzvah project, a sixth grader will serve as the liaison to the caring committee, coordinating delivery. K-2nd graders will create cards to go with the soup.
  2. Judaism is not confined to a time of the week or a room of the synagogue.
    The boundaries that often segment children’s Jewish life (Sunday mornings at the synagogue) were permeated by people and activities around making the soup and delivering it. Community members and older students joined in. The sick people who will receive the soup are not necessarily third grade classmates. Deliveries will occur on different days and in other places, and cooking and planting took place outside of the classroom, albeit on synagogue property.
  3. Jewish values are put in action to solve real problems.
    Students learned about taking care of the earth, dietary laws, and preventing the suffering of animals and then discussed how to make the soup in an ethical way. They studied Rabbi Akiva’s teaching on the power of visiting the sick: “He who does not visit the sick is like a murderer!” A connection to Jewish history and heritage was made real through Mamma Barbara’s recipe and family story. Empathy and care for the sick went from theoretical to real as eight year-olds did what they could to help and provide comfort to those in need.
     
  4. There are widening circles of involvement.This project has grown since it was first initiated. The excitement of participating in real and meaningful Jewish acts that make a difference is contagious. Director of Lifelong Learning Sara Losch has invited other classes to be a part. Now the fifth grade class is involved in creating a book that will tell the story of this project to the recipient, including the mitzvot it teaches and the recipe for chicken soup. Students become teachers to community members and spread their learning.

Under the direction of Senior Rabbi Elyse Frishman, this synagogue has been in a constant cycle of experimentation, assessment and improvement. That being said, this experience of applied Judaism did not require a full restructure of the synagogue school. Jessie understands the world of her classroom as a part of a greater Jewish community. She incorporated the enduring understandings that were articulated for her class and asked herself: What would a student who integrated these ideas know/do/understand in the real world? Others were able to get involved and see how this project could connect to their efforts as well.

Applied Judaism is my term for a way of thinking about Jewish learning and its purposes. Judaism is not a subject matter to be mastered in our schools; it is a salve for the human condition. At the heart of Jewish education is a belief that being Jewish, living in a Jewish way, makes life more meaningful, more enjoyable, and more beautiful. With the right approach, children can experience this and enrich the whole community, even within the context of a conventional Sunday morning program.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

I've Got Sunshine!

Me and Barb at a
NATE Leadership meeting
Barb Shimasky, a wonderful educator at Temple Sinai in Milawaukee who blogs at http://onthebarbedwire.wordpress.com/ – and a former student of mine (oy.) – nominated me for a Sunshine Award. It is an interesting award, since there is no actual competition. If you are nominated, all you need to do to win is to accept. And that is where the catch comes in. You have to follow the five rules.
  1. Acknowledge the nominating blogger.
  2. Share 11 random facts about yourself.
  3. Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger has created for you.
  4. List 11 bloggers. They should be bloggers you believe deserve some recognition and a little blogging love!
  5. Post 11 questions for the bloggers you nominate to answer and let all the bloggers know they have been nominated. (You cannot nominate the blogger who nominated you.)

Responding to something like this is not strictly speaking why I maintain this blog. I began it three years ago to create a conversation about Jewish Education and to crystalize my own thoughts.

Doing this feels a bit self-promotional – not my favorite thing. So I gave it some thought before deciding to accept and follow the rules. And it seems to me the best reason for doing to is to introduce anyone reading my blog to 11 of my favorite bloggers who write about Jewish Education. So I am going to start by listing those bloggers (in order of the individuals’ first names) because that is the important stuff. The rest is just because I want to honor the spirit and intention of the awards which require me to share something about myself. Feel free to skip all of that and just visit the 11 blogs listed.So let's talk about what these bloggers are talking about!

Blogs I am nominating and hope you will visit (in addition to Barb’s):
  1. Community Organizer 2.0 – This is Deborah Askenase's blog. Her main gig is as a digital strategist, non-profit executive, and community organizer. She occasionally writes about Jewish education, but I think every educator can learn from her organizing and digital repertoire.
  2. eJewishPhilanthropy – Dan Brown (not the author of several best sellers) lives in Jerusalem and does a remarkable job of collecting articles from a wide variety of people on a wide variety of topics: Jewish philanthropy, Jewish education and Jewish Peoplehood to name a few.
  3. Jew Point 0  – This is the blog of Darim Online, which includes Lisa Colton's brilliant team. 
  4. ayekah — where are you? Conversations about how we respond to the world through a Jewish lens – Rabbi Fred Greene of Temple Beth Tikvah in Roswell, GA is a great friend and colleague. And I love the way his mind works.
  5. The Gris Mill – Joel Lurie Grishaver's Blog. Joel was one of my inspirations to get into Jewish education and is one of my dearest friends. And he has some pretty interesting ideas.
  6. The Torah Aura Bulletin Board – Includes a lot of Joel's writing, but also a group of terrific educators writing about technology, early childhood education, art and other great stuff.
  7. Muse for Jews – Debbie Harris is the director of educational technology at the Sager Solomon Schechter Day School in Northbrook, IL and teaches religious school at Lakeside Congregation for Reform Judaism. She is also one of the most gifted at bringing technology to Jewish education.
  8. Itzik's Well – One of my oldest friends, Irwin Keller serves as Spiritual leader of Congregation Ner Shalom in Cotati, CA. He is also founder/performer with the Kinsey Sicks, America's Favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet (www.kinseysicks.com).
  9. Or Am I – Rabbi Paul Kipnes was one of my classmates at the Rhea Hirsch School of Education at HUC-JIR in LA. He is the Rabbi and Congregation Or Ami in Calabasas, CA and one of the most thoughtful people I know.
  10. Jewish Education Lab – Wendy Grinberg is a terrific educator and consults with Jewish educators all over.
  11. Sects and the City – My bunk mate Rabbi Liz Wood's journey through life and learning.
11 Questions for those I am nominating:
  1. If you had an extra million dollars lying around that had to be spent on Jewish education, what would you do?
  2. What is your favorite holiday and what do you do to make it uniquely special?
  3. If you only had time to visit one place in Israel, where would you go and what would you do there?
  4. If you only had time to visit one place NOT in Israel, where would you go and what would you do there?
  5. What is one piece of advice you would give to someone beginning their first full time job as a Jewish educational leader?
  6. What is the best general release (i.e. not specifically Jewish) film you have seen in the last eleven months and what is one thing you liked about it?
  7. What is your favorite Jewish song (at the moment)?
  8. What made you choose to pursue the career you have chosen?
  9. If you were given a six month sabbatical and more than enough money to fund it, what would you do? Where would you go?
  10. What is the one Jewish food - that if your doctor told you had to stop eating it - you would be most upset ?
  11. What is the best book you have read lately?
11 random facts about myself:
  1. I love to cook, but my son is better at than I am.
  2. Every time I watch a film, I cannot help but look for the scene that will help me teach something Jewish. It is a curse. And a blessing.
  3. I have played quiddich. Really. http://iqaquidditch.com/about/rules
  4. A part of me never leaves Jerusalem.
  5. I have too many books next to my bed.
  6. I am very handy with power tools. Habitat for Humanity considers me a skilled.
  7. I believe that latkes are made with grated potatoes. Shredded potatoes yield hash browns.
  8. While I could not keep up with their scientific conversation, I could otherwise hold my own with Leonard, Sheldon, Howard and Rajesh.
  9. I am a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity. Not four years, but a lifetime!
  10. I once danced in a paid (not to me) performance of the Twyla Tharp Dance Company
  11. I love what I do for a living.
Answers to Barb’s questions:
  1. What is one change you try to be in the world?
    To be a good father, husband and teacher.
  2. What is your favorite drink from Starbucks?
    Five shot Grande Americano with room (I add some skim milk).
  3. What is the best thing that has happened in your life during the past week?
    Both sons are home for Thanksgiving and they are filling us with joy!
  4. If you had $100 and were required to spend it on yourself, what would you buy?
    Tickets to a Cubs game, a hot dog and a frosty malt.
  5. What was your favorite childhood movie?
    The Great Race
  6. Where is a place you would like to travel that you have not yet had an opportunity to visit?
    England (Incl. Scotland, Wales and Cornwall)
  7. How many tabs do you have open in your browser right now?
    Four
  8. What is your favorite board game and why?
    Clue. Professor Plum, in the Dining Room with the Lead Pipe. Need I say more?
  9. What is your favorite website?
    Evernote.com
  10. What is something that makes you weird?
    To whom?
  11. What size shoe do you wear?
    12B

Monday, April 19, 2010

Emerging Voices in Jewish Education

Ever since Abraham and his father Terach, children have learned to overthrow the idols of their parents, to question their values, to challenge their operating assumptions and to recreate their institutions.Through this intergenerational process Judaism has evolved and devolved, it has reviewed and renewed itself and above all it has continued to live. Even though the story about Abraham destroying his father’s idol shop is legendary, it proffers a timeless truth, a truth unto which this issue of Torah at the Center attests.

Rabbi Tali Zelkowicz, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Jewish Education at HUC-JIR’s Rhea Hirsch School of Education, initiated a correspondence and made a symbiotic proposal. In a course she teaches entitled “Sociology of Jewish Education” students are required to write an article for a publication to which reflective practitioners of Jewish education are invited to contribute. Each article strives to meet three criteria:
  1. Address a dilemma, concern or problem facing Jewish education
  2. Provide some social scientific context for the issue
  3. Offer a creative, refreshing, compelling analysis of the issue and propose a course of action and/or vision for change
Intrigued by the prospect of providing the students with a targil ratuv, a live simulation, so to speak, editor Wendy Grinberg engaged Tali in correspondence and conversation, perhaps a contemporary Pirkei Imahot, and as collegial partners they arrived at terms of agreement. We are grateful for Tali and Wendy’s inspired partnership and for the bikurim, the first authorial fruits of aspiring Jewish educational leaders. The students’ voices are included in Torah at the Center as new members of the educational choir. Accompanying them in the same issue are experienced and insightful mentors, educational practitioners with expertise in the areas the students are seeking to influence for the better.

The result is a harmony that leaves the integrity of each voice. Out of this conversation emerges a masechet, a type of web, a web that links dor holech to dor hemshech, the current generation of Jewish educators to the next generation of Jewish educators. The web intended to catch you, the reader, in it. Indeed, if the web stops within the pages of Torah at the Center, we will have
failed to accomplish a major aim. The web of Jewish learning should include you, your teachers, your colleagues and your students. At stake are not only our livelihoods as Jewish educators but also our lives as Jews.

When Abraham proverbially overthrew his father’s idols, he “created” Judaism. When the next generation of the Jewish people follows Abraham’s lead, they too will be [re]creating Judaism in their image. The process is sometimes painful and radical. It is always predicated on a measure of faith and trust. Terach could not control Abraham and we cannot control our children or our students. Instead, we have endeavored to keep the intergenerational conversation alive, to pursue a dialogue that is as respectful of our differences as it is of our commonalities (if not more so). We are truly children of Abraham when we question the wisdom of our predecessors, when we dare to think differently from them.

When our children and students do the same to us, may we have the ability to enjoy the process and love them for it. Eventually Abraham learned to engage in respectful dialogue, even when his partner was divine. When he had his own scion, Abraham learned to love and to realize that love and sacrifice are always intertwined. May the spirit of intergenerational correspondence in this issue prove to be worthy, not only for the sake of our students but also for the sake of heaven. As we approach Sinai once again on Shavuot and celebrate our students that confirm their Jewish identity, let us affirm the hope we have that the next generation will not only succeed us, but also exceed us.

Ken y’hi ratzoneinu! Ken y’hi ratzon Eloheinu! Kayitz naim! 
Have a lovely summer!

Rabbi Jan Katzew, Ph.D., RJE

Please click here to load the pdf of this issue of Torah at the Center.

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