Making Spirituality Concrete for Children

Julie J. Schimmel, Third Grade Judaic and Hebrew Teacher

By its very nature, spirituality is abstract, hard for students to grasp; we must find ways to make children experience spirituality so that they will relate to it, love it and view everyday events in a spiritual manner. I define spirituality with respect to children as connecting to God and themselves in a deep way by singing and learning about the tefillot. The goal of spirituality is cultivating in our students a positive and enriching kavanah, or intention, that facilitates a connection to God through tefillah.

A daunting task? It may seem so, but here are some of my favorite resources that help me and enrich my teaching.

Choice

Children have very little control over their lives. When they can choose for themselves, they feel empowered. Several times a year, I run an optional Tefillah Club at lunch. We do activities that include the comparing and contrasting of liturgical music from Debbie Friedman to Yossele Rosselblatt, mindfulness activities, art activities tied to various tefillot like paper midrash, gratitude projects, prayer jars, and having guest speakers. Because students have the choice to be present, they engage in tefillah enthusiastically and willingly.

Faculty Collaboration Groups

A few years ago, my school required each faculty member to take part in a collaboration group at school. The tefillah group that I led restructured our Friday afternoon Kabbalat Shabbat services. Each Friday, we rotate among four different formats:

Traditional: We sing all of the Friday evening tefillot.

School Assembly: Depending on the time of year, we might have a holiday celebration, a guest lead tefillah or a class make a presentation.

Enhanced: We divide the time evenly between the singing of tefillot and a special guest from the school or synagogue staff who teaches or tells a story.

Creative: A time to teach the meaning of the tefillot in a creative way geared towards the multiple intelligences.

The beauty of the collaboration meetings, in this case, was that it resulted in an effective restructuring of our Kabbalat Shabbat program as the result of a group effort and therefore increased the “buy-in” from the teachers involved.

Multiple Intelligences

While designing activities, I very often draw on Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences in order to ensure that students use all of their senses and capabilities to learn, feel, experience and live the meanings of all of our tefillot. Since we all learn in different ways and become engaged in different ways, experiencing through different modalities can allow all students to access the tefillot.

Colleagues and Friends

I am fortunate to be part of a network of experienced and resourceful Jewish educators. A few years ago, I invited a group of educator friends who taught at different schools and from different Jewish movements to my home for a gathering. We had an amazing discussion, and everyone left not only with many practical ideas, but also with support from their colleagues.

Express Yourself

Another way of making spirituality concrete is to facilitate experiences that allow students to express themselves. Some ideas include writing in prayer journals, stopping between tefillot at a service and asking open-ended questions, having posters up and letting students write comments, asking tefillah questions and having students answer on index cards and then pair and share. I try to ask them questions throughout the year to keep them thinking. The questions can be about the tefillot, or about God and their lives in general. Some mornings I give students a silent moment to ask God for help with something, or to think about what they feel thankful for at that moment. This modeling teaches them how to do it on their own.

I’ll leave you with something a student wrote when I asked the class, “Why do we sing the tefillot?” The student wrote: “I sing the tefillot because it makes me feel good when I am sad and it makes me feel like God is listening to me.” Seeing that this child connected to God in a real way through tefillah made the late nights of planning more than well worth it.

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HaYidion Educational Innovation Fall 2019
Educational Innovation
Fall 2019