Meet SESL

This is from a letter I shared with the parents in our school this fall.

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Something New
I am working with a group of colleagues from around the country with Doctors Jeffrey Kress and Evie Rotstein. Jeff is a professor at the Davidson School of Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Evie—who many of you met last May when she spoke here-is director of the School of Education at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion.

We are studying something called social, emotional and spiritual learning (SESL). Like cognitive (knowledge) and affective learning, they each distinct ways in which we perceive our world and make sense and meaning of it. For the last several years our faculty and I have been developing lessons that utilize something called experiential education—which focuses on things that happen as we learn, distinct from information on a page or screen. SESL actually provides us with the philosophical underpinning to experiential and many other kinds of learning.

We need your help. During the course of the year, we will be constructing a lexicon—a list of words that we will use to describe things that reflect how learners’ social, emotional and spiritual selves are nourished. We will share that vocabulary with you in the weekly e-mails. Please use some of those words when you ask your kids to describe something they experienced or that their teacher or classmate said. Lots of people talk about the importance of spirituality, but because we don’t really have a common language, it is very hard for us to actually do anything about it.

Something Old
Last year, in this space I told you about a week I spent learning in Los Angeles in an immersion program for Jewish educators, rabbis and cantors at Beit T’shuvah. It is the country’s only Jewish residential facility for people in recovery from all kinds of addiction.

At Beit T’shuvah, they breathe spirituality. The rabbi there, Mark Borovitz – is crazy for the work of Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the great Jewish thinkers of the 20th century. We spent considerable time studying Heschel’s work. He said:

“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”

In our school we continue to work on radical amazement. Our growing Tefillah – worship – curriculum is one example, as is our new Hebrew curriculum. Both were developed to respond to the educational and spiritual needs of our students and set them on the road to radical amazement.

In Tefillah, each grade spends part of the service time learning about a prayer. Why do we say it? What is the point? What does it mean to me? Then we pray together.

In Hebrew, we use Modern Hebrew instead of the prayer book – to teach the same levels we used before. The vocabulary and the content are different, but the linguistic skills develop at the same rate. And the content integrates with the rest of our curriculum, covering holy days, values and Israel.

We invite you to be a part of the process as we seek ways to help our learners discover radical amazement in their lives! 

Saying "Hineini" on the 6 Train The Ethics of Street Tzedakah

The young man[i] on the number 6 train to Grand Central looked clean in his olive drab jacket. And he was visibly uncomfortable as he apologized for interrupting our journey under the streets of Manhattan. He told a short story of being an honorably discharged army veteran who was suffering from PTSD and unable to work to feed and shelter himself. He asked for some of whatever food we might have.

As he spoke I asked myself if I thought his story was true. I never answered myself. I reached into my wallet and pulled out a dollar. When he was finished, I gave it to him and I said thank you. So did he.

Before going to into the subway, I had been in a meeting at HUC-JIR. On the way out of the College-Institute, I had picked up free copies of Moment and Lillith Magazines. What follows is a wonderful article by Letty Cottin Pogrebin (I believe most if not all of what she writes is wonderful). B’shert? Kismet? One of Kusher’s Invisible Lines of Connection? Maybe. Maybe not.

In either case, I had said “Hineini” when this young man called – perhaps as the voice of God, perhaps not. Thank you Letty for sharing a story that gives me a sense of context.

And for teachable moments, my colleagues, Arthur Kurzweil’s piece “Brother Can You Spare A Dime: The Treatment of Beggars According to Jewish Tradition” Still stands up. We use it with our tenth grade Confirmation class most years.

As always, if you have comments about Ms. Pogrebin's article in particular, I urge you to make them on the Moment site.

-Ira

[i] When did someone in his twenties become a “young man” to me? Yikes. But then again, my oldest son is now 21, so I guess I need to face facts, even though I do not feel like or think that I am an “old man.” 
 

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The Politics and Ethics of Street Tzedakah

By Letty Cottin Pogrebin

There are many reasons not to give to the homeless, but we should do it anyway.

When I was young, it was axiomatic among radical leftists that one should resist the humanitarian impulse to give to beggars because handouts “postpone the Revolution.” Only when the poor become utterly hopeless and destitute will they rise up and rebel.

I haven’t encountered that reasoning for a while—nowadays, political arguments against giving to the poor are more likely to come from Paul Ryan and his cheerleaders in the House and Senate. But I’ve heard plenty of excuses for not giving money to homeless people on the streets:

• “I can’t give to everyone, can I? There are just too many of them.”
  
• “How do I know they won’t blow the money on drink and drugs?”
  
• “I prefer to give to social change organizations that work on a macro level.”
  
• “I don’t believe in tossing someone a fish; they need to learn to fish.”
  
• “We pay taxes to maintain city services like shelters and soup kitchens. Why don’t these people use them?”
  
• “That young panhandler looks fit and strong. I’m sure he could get work if he tried; maybe he’s just too picky.”
  
• “It’s obvious the guy with the crutches is faking his injuries to get sympathy.”
  
• “I hear stories from subway beggars that break my heart: he lost his veteran’s benefits; someone set fire to her apartment; their kids are sick. I never know what to believe so I don’t give to any of them. I give to the Red Cross.”
  
• “Some chutzpah to ask me for spare change when he’s wearing $200 sneakers I can’t afford myself!”
  
• “I get annoyed when I see this woman in front of my office building with a German shepherd lying on a ratty blanket at her feet. If she can’t afford to feed herself, she shouldn’t own a dog.”

A few of these thoughts were familiar. Until three years ago, I used to calibrate which beggars seemed most worthy and genuine and which ones might be exploiting the kindness of strangers. But in 2011 on Rosh Hashanah, with evidence of the economic downturn still visible every day, a congregant at my Manhattan synagogue, B’nai Jeshurun, delivered a short commentary that changed the way I saw things.

Longing to feel God’s presence in his life, the speaker remembered that when God called to Abraham, Abraham answered, “Hineini”—“Here I am”—signaling his willingness to trust and his readiness to act, and thus his entry into the relationship we call “covenantal Judaism.” The congregant, whose name I never knew, told us he had decided that the presence of homeless people on the streets of New York was God’s way of calling out to him and that by changing his response to panhandlers, he, too, could say, “Hineini.”

From then on, in addition to his regular charitable donations to organizations with IRS bona fides and boards of trustees, he resolved to give a dollar to any human being who asked him for a handout. However many beggars might cross his path in a week, that’s how many dollars he would give out that week. He would stop judging, stop trying to distinguish the authentic needy person from the phony, stop worrying about enabling alcoholics and drug addicts or being scammed or hoodwinked. Of everyone with a hard-luck story or an outstretched hand, he would assume the best, not the worst.

Somehow his remarks struck a deep personal chord, and right then I made the same Jewish New Year’s resolution.My motives, I’ll admit, were not entirely selfless. Deciding to give in this across-the-board, quotidian, non-judgmental manner liberated me from an image of myself that I deplored. I’d always felt guilty about sizing up beggars before giving them money. I loathed the cynicism that fueled my suspiciousness. Who was I to second-guess the truth of another human being’s circumstances? What if I were wrong in my assessment and the person really was hungry, the shelter was a scary place, the dog was the person’s only source of love, the apartment had really been torched? Could I even imagine what I would do in the face of similar desperation, fear and loss?

Since making that resolution, I can’t count the dollars I have deposited in upturned caps and open palms. Because I live in New York City, where nearly 65,000 people are homeless, 22,000 of them children, and one child in six suffers from hunger or “food insecurity,” it’s a rare day when I don’t tap into my supply of singles. On an average stroll through my neighborhood, I’m likely to be asked only three or four times. But when I walk around other parts of town, I may have to cash a $20 bill to make good on my promise. A buck, obviously, isn’t even a drop in the bucket for most of these needy people, and I wish I had the means to make each dollar a five or ten. But for me, giving each dollar is an act of consciousness and an affirmation of human dignity. The point is to never pass a beggar without stopping, to look the person in the eye, to make conversation if possible and to give without judgment, resentment or disdain.

Practicing this minimal but unwavering street tzedakah has had a relatively small impact on my cash outflow, but it has returned to me a thousand blessings—literally. When I give, I almost always get three words back. Not “Here I am,” but “God bless you.” 

They Will Take us to the Next Level Ch. 3: A Challenge to Change

And here we are with our third installment of reflections from HUC-JIR NYSOE students.
Yes Virginia, there is hope for Jewish Education!

- Ira

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A Challenge to Change

By Arielle Branitsky

In reviewing blog posts from the calendar year thus far, it is clear to me that those who think about Jewish education are thinking about change. There have been discussions about informal versus formal education, religious school versus camp, and new models of Jewish education involving more individualized approaches to achieving goals. There is discussion of multiple intelligences, and the need to offer something compelling.

To me, all of this can be summarized as "what we are doing is not working" and "we need to regroup." Neither of these ideas is new or surprising, but they continue to reinforce the mindset that the system, as it currently exists, is not achieving its goals. Our challenge as a community of educators is to begin transitioning from "needing to regroup" to actually regrouping. Whether we apply ideas discussed previously or think of entirely new ones, we need to experiment with change.

Change is scary. It's difficult. In order for change to occur in these environments, not only do we need to change, but we need to convince others to change as well. We need to inspire our colleagues, the families we serve, and the leaders we partner with to join us in creating this change. Even if all of these individuals agree that change is necessary, inspiring them to join us in creating that change will be an uphill battle. There will be resistance. But despite this, as leaders, it is our job to manage this change and the resistance it might engender.

Jewish education takes place in many different environments. While the Day School model can offer the broadest and most in-depth offering of topical content, other models must spend more time deciding what to teach. I do not think this has to be the case. All Jewish education can and should include opportunities to learn Hebrew, Torah, customs and rituals, Jewish history, and ethics. In the schools that already do this, the question becomes: is it working? Are student actually learning the material or are they merely skimming the surface of it as a means to an end?

There are many educators who are implementing new models of Jewish education in their educational settings. There are religious schools trying Shabbat models and offering alternative options to students, including monthly trips to camp. There are schools shifting their curriculum to an experiential format, and programs are being created to allow the learner to design their own course of learning. However, there are also many who are being held back from trying out new ideas by fear. Fear of the many hours, months, or even years that it might take to change the culture of their institution. Fear of the nay-sayers in their communities and fear that what they achieve will not be any better than what currently exists.

I understand that often big ideas exist in a world of "easier said than done," but as we move through 5774, I offer this challenge to my colleagues: stomp out these fears. If you believe that what you are currently doing is not working, create something new and implement it. Test out your new and improved ideas for Jewish education. The more we test, the more support we can offer for the change we want to see. The sooner we learn what works in our changed models, the sooner we can improve them and get closer to a system that works.

My hope for this year is to learn about the new and innovative things that educators are doing. I hope that when I use the word "unique," I use it confidently, assured that a program truly is one of a kind. I want to know that the field of talented people I am joining is not just one where people talk about their challenges but rather, one where people work towards change and challenge me to join them in making Jewish Education work. 

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Arielle Branitsky is in her final year of the Joint Masters in Jewish Education and Nonprofit Management at HUC-JIR's New York campus. Arielle grew up in Toronto, Ontario, where she attended Jewish Day School, and graduated from York University with a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies and Communications Studies. Prior to her studies at HUC-JIR, she worked for Hillel at the University at Albany, and was the Ontario Region Director for USD/Hagshama. Arielle is also a fellow in the MA Concentration through the iCenter, and is thinking a lot about Jewish camp and leadership development.  

They Will Take us to the Next LevelCh. 2: Media Portrayals of Disabilities.

Welcome back to a series of posts by Education students HUC-JIR's New York School of Education. I asked the director, Evie Rotstein to provide some context for this next piece:

This is from an assignment in a course on Diverse Learners taught by Rabbi Richie Address; which is the very first course we are offering around this topic.

Choose a text, film, book, play, TV episode that deals with issues related to diversity, inclusion, or disability, What is the dynamic involved? How do you related to it as a rabbi, educator or cantor?

Please continue to comment! The response to Ch. 1 was lovely!

- Ira

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Media Portrayal of Disabilities 

Brian Nelson

"About 20 percent of people have disabilities, but only about 1 percent of speaking parts in television portray disability." - RJ Mitte

Walter “Flynn” White Jr., one of the main characters in the television show Breaking Bad, has Cerebral Palsy. From the very outset of the show, Walt Jr. is portrayed as a fairly typical teenager, although one of the earliest episodes depicts him being relentlessly teased while shopping because he has difficulty putting his own pants on in the dressing room. Walt Jr. is clearly upset by the harassment, and tries to ignore it. In that particular scene, Walt’s mother tries to discourage him from responding to the harassment, a suggestion he ignores.

At other various times throughout the run of the show Walt Jr. confronts the limitations of his disability as he lives a typical teenage life. One striking example of this is when he starts learning to drive a car. Walt Jr. struggles to learn the mechanics of driving without the full use of his legs. He eventually masters the task, eventually driving a Mustang.

Ultimately, Walt Jr.’s disability is not highlighted as a major obstacle in the narrative of this television show. Rather, Walt’s disability is portrayed as simply a part of his life, and his family’s life. What’s more, the actor selected to play Walt Jr. is an actor with Cerebral Palsy. According to an interview with RJ Mitte, he was in the right place at the right time to be cast in the role and he considers it as an incredible opportunity to advocate for people with disabilities.[1]

The situations portrayed in Breaking Bad bring to mind the commandment “Do not put a stumbling block in front of the blind” because situations on this show demonstrate ways in which a family may remove potential stumbling blocks, instead. In our positions as Jewish Educators it is our responsibility to treat our students with disabilities in a similar way. We must support those in need of help, and do all we can to help them have a typical learning experience.

Brian Nelson is a rabbinic/education student in the New York School of Education with residency on the Cincinnati campus. Brian grew in Minnetonka, Minnesota and attended college at the University of Minnesota where he studied History and Political Science. During and after college Brian worked in the Twin Cities Jewish community at Temple Israel, Bet Shalom, and Mount Zion in a variety of capacities, and spent numerous summers at Temple Israel's summer camp, Camp TEKO, before attending HUC-JIR. This year he is working as an Education Intern at Isaac M. Wise Temple in Cincinnati, OH.

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[1] http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/ae/tv-radio/breaking-bad-actor-rj-mitte-finds-perfect-role-prepared-him-to-become-an-activist-238250/ 

They Will Take us to the Next LevelCh. 1: Getting to Know Our Students - Really.

I received an interesting e-mail this morning from my friend, colleague and teacher, Evie Rotstein. Evie is the Director of the New York School of Education at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religious in New York. She wanted to invite her students to participate in a national conversation around Jewish education. So she asked a few of the professors to assign reflection papers and asked me to post a few of them here. I will try to post a few each week and we will also post the link to JEDLAB on Facebook and to #jedlab and #jed21 on Twitter. PLEASE COMMENT!! These are some of the people who will be figuring out what's next and what;s vital about Jewish living and Learning in the coming decades. Please join in their education, and more importantly let them see how they are adding to ours.

Remember, from our students we learn most of all!

Our first posting is from Sarah Marion.

Ira

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Getting to Know Our Students - Really.

By Sarah Marion

Last week, I prepared and delivered a presentation for my Human Development class on systems theory and its role in educational contexts. I wanted to engage the class in a concrete discussion regarding the various systems our learners belong to, and the ways these systems might manifest in the classroom environment. 

I decided to facilitate an activity in which my classmates would receive a series of learner “profiles” and using the profiles, be asked to consider (a) which system(s) their learners belonged to, (b) how such systems might manifest in the religious school environment, and (c) the ways in which we might respond or react to such manifestations. For example, if student x’s family system includes a live-in grandparent, student x might connect especially well to lessons and values on honoring/caring for the elderly, and thus, a teacher might ask student x to deliver a presentation on that same topic.

In preparing for this presentation, my initial intention was to re-construct “real life” profiles of students I have encountered over the years as a religious school teacher in order to make the activity as realistic and relevant as possible. I wanted my profiles to be comprehensive, and thus include information such as family origin, current family characteristics and dynamics, student and family interests and activities, and more. 

But as I thought of different students from various religious school classes I have taught, I realized how little I actually knew about my learners. I couldn’t fill in all of this information, because I had never learned it. I had known who my students were inside the classroom, but I realized I had little or no idea who they were outside the classroom. Accordingly, I ended up constructing “fictional” profiles for my presentation. For example:

Ryan, who is in 8th grade, was adopted from Russia when he was three. He lives with his two moms, and his younger sister, Lucy, who was adopted from South Korea. Recently, Lucy was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. Ryan enjoys swimming, and competes on the swim team at the JCC. Ryan’s mom, Kathy, runs a small after school day-care program in their house, and Ryan sometimes helps out with his mom’s business. Ryan’s other mom, Nancy, was raised Protestant and is involved in both her synagogue and church communities.

While writing these fictional profiles accomplished my goals for the presentation, I began contemplating the larger issue of how and why I didn’t fully know the systemic attributes of my students. I wondered if my experience was unique – and realized it probably wasn’t. I wondered - do part-time religious school teachers truly have the time and resources to get to know their students in the fullest sense? What is missed – and what are the consequences - when teachers are not aware of the various systems their learners belong to? 

Perhaps we miss opportunities to better engage and integrate our students into the learning process, perhaps we miss opportunities to connect the material to our students’ lives, perhaps we miss opportunities to inspire students to take ownership of their own learning, perhaps we make incorrect assumptions and hypotheses about who our students are. (For example, the teacher who is aware of student x’s family system will not miss the opportunity to integrate and connect this student’s experience of living with an aging grandparent into a class lesson on honoring the elderly). Therefore, the critical question becomes: how can we, as Jewish leaders and professional educators, inspire and assist our teachers in becoming fully aware of all the systems that impact our learners when they enter our classrooms?

As community-based and value-driven structures and institutions, synagogues are perhaps better equipped for and have more investment in promoting a holistic understanding of learners, in comparison to secular schools. I have been pondering some concrete, realistic ways in which synagogues and Jewish leaders can help religious school teachers become aware of the various systems their students belong to, in order to better understand their learners’ diverse needs and identities.

One idea I have stems from an Education Team meeting I attended a few years ago while working as a full-time youth educator at Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley, MA. At this meeting, the team discussed the idea of a synagogue-based “Jewish Journey Project” in order to better “track” our students and connect them to the synagogue in meaningful ways. 

I’m not sure if this project ever fully came to fruition (as I left for rabbinical school when the project was in its first stages) but I remember the basic premise. Each student who entered the religious school would receive a Jewish journey advisor who would interview the student and his or her family in order to gather as much information about the student as possible. Interview questions would include family history, demographics, student interests and aspirations, past and current student and family involvement in temple life, etc. This information would then be entered into a database accessible to clergy, synagogue professionals, and other advisors. 

Student profiles would be updated regularly as students matured and became more or less involved in synagogue or other activities, as family dynamics shifted and changed, etc. Ideally, students would meet with their advisor every year to ensure that database information is current and up to date. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, synagogue professionals (i.e. clergy, education director) would share pertinent and relevant database information with religious school teachers.

Of course, this model is quite aspirational and might have some problems in terms of confidentiality. But it prompts us to consider how synagogues can best embody “whole person” learning communities, in which students and teachers are compelled to consider, integrate, connect, and explore the various facets of life that affect learning.

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Sarah Marion is a rabbinic/education student at HUC-JIR's New York campus. She grew up in Westchester, NY and graduated from Brandeis University with bachelor's degrees in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and Women's and Gender Studies. Prior to entering rabbinical school Sarah worked as a  youth educator in Boston, and has spent several summers at the URJ's Eisner and Crane Lake Camps, as a counselor and unit head. She is currently interning at Larchmont Temple in Larchmont, NY.    

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.