Lastly I know that Jewish educators are amazing and tireless people who are more interested in ‘making it happen than finding reasons for it not to happen.’

Thank you for your confession of successfully completing a congregational school and then graduating from a community Hebrew high school in Pittsburgh.

The importance of a strong Jewish education via a congregational, supplemental or day school cannot be overstated. Toward that end, Elaine Solomon, Hana Bor and I recently wrote an article in which we describe a new career development ladder for Jewish educators beginning with madrichim working in supplemental or day schools and ending with expert teachers who train mentors to coach and help develop pre-service and in-service Jewish teachers.

If you’re interested in exploring the idea of a career ladder for Jewish educators, click on to these websites:

http://caje32.wikispaces.com/JEN+Article+Solomon+Solomon+Bar or

http://lookstein.org/lookjed/read.php?1,16568,16568#msg-16568

Thank you Jeff,

Richard D. Solomon, Ph.D.

Another model that appeals to me is a week or two of summer camp and then Shabbat programming and independent Hebrew learning. Get the whole family involved. I’ve heard of two congregations doing something like this. But we’d need to know a lot about the implementation, reception, and results of this model before making such a big change.

Then there’s the after school program model, providing a homey program for families who need a place for the kids until they finish their work day. The kids settle into a relaxed routine, have electives, Hebrew, hang out time, do a little homework, get a little excercise. Works well in a metropolitan area, but we’re in a small community with lots of after school activities to compete with. Can it work in this environment?

We’ve been looking at the a la carte model too. Families would create a “covenant” including what each member will do to further their Jewish learning and/or observance. That could work in a diverse community like ours (we’re the only shul in town besides Chabad). What we need to know about this model is how to put together a lot of choices of electives and Shabbat activities, for all ages and levels of observance without going broke. And we also need to figure out how we can maintain community when everyone is doing different activities, age cohorts aren’t together regularly, etc.

Anyone out there with experience with any of these models, please contact me.

Andra Rose
ar@andrarose.com

With all due respect, I am not at all sure that our students are different in the 21st century. They have always had different learning styles and interests, I think. What IS different is that now they also have far more choices and far more competing for their attention than in any generation prior. Both students and parents expect to be immediately engaged and gratificatfied or they move on to something else.

So, I would contend that we need to appraoch engagement of our students differently because if we don’t we won’t have students to engage. Whereas in past generations they stayed and more or less did what we asked and participated to the best of their ability in whatever approaches we offered, today they will only choose to engage and remain our students if we succeed in the effort to engage, not just teach.

Should we have been doing this all along; should teaching always meet the needs and styles of the learners; should it always be relevant so that it is meaning-filled for the participants.. of course. But now, we must.. in order to keep our students and ensure a vbrant and relavant Jewish community for the future.

Iris

Michele Lifshen Reing
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