This month I have been collecting titles - not for myself, but in the field. During my visits to schools, I have started a list of unique roles that schools have created, which speak to a real need, a real talent and set us up for authentic and elevated expectations. It strikes me that there are so many kinds of leadership - and as we hope to nurture and inspire students to become teachers, and teachers to become school leaders, I am struck by a lesson which we seem to be learning now that we did not learn in the time of the Maccabim. The Kohanim had a role in leadership - a very important, crucial role.  And the tribe of Yehuda had their roles as kings.  But there was no trust - and when the Kohanim bravely won the war for us, they held onto their power. They were meant to step back into their role as spiritual leaders and make room for the Kings from the tribe of Yehuda to take over, but they did not… and Chazal have not let us forget it. I wonder to myself, though, what options did they have? What could they have done realistically? If the Kings of Yehuda had disappointed before, what option did they have?

The answer, perhaps, is a bit of creativity.  A bit of “what if…”  A bit of what I have been seeing in so many schools…. 

For example:

• In one lower school I visited, they saw a huge need for middot, social emotional learning and processing during those “in-between” times like lunch and recess, so they created a role called Director of Campus Life, whose role, among other things, was to apply the language from Responsive Classroom to those in-between times, when there is no formal class or curriculum, but is where the values we are teaching are lived.
• One Middle School has a Coordinator of Student Development - a role that includes religious guidance (like a mashgiach ruchani) as well as social emotional components. This person works with the guidance team and teachers to help see the whole child.
• In one high school there are two symbiotic roles in the administrative team: Dean of Faculty and Dean of Students.  These two professionals work together to ensure that students are excelling, while teachers are excelling - both getting the support and guidance needed.
• Here is a really new idea: Content and Context Experts: This role is for educational leaders who oversee curriculum, knowing and understanding that context changes everything, so they must learn, not only the content and best practices, but also understand the context of each class including the teacher and students.
• And since language matters- I notice that many schools now call their learning specialists Academic Counselors of Coaches.They are not only helping great learning happen for students with varied abilities, they are Learning Coaches-- what a difference words make!

The creativity I am seeing inspires me in so many ways. Not only because it is thrilling to see devoted educators always learning and growing and expanding their skills to serve our students even more, but also because the creativity our leaders are showing reflects an understanding that words matter, and perhaps titles should be more transparent and inspiring. Perhaps, unlike the Macabim who were afraid to step away and consider new options, we will leverage their bravery but apply it to thinking about how we can get the right people into the right roles to lead our people.

by Rabbi Tzvi Sinensky
Director of Interdisciplinary Learning and Educational Outreach
Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School

As educators, we know well the benefits of interdisciplinary education. To name just a few:

• It fosters higher-order critical thinking and problem solving skills.
• It can be more "authentic" by more closely approximating the types of problems students encounter in everyday life.
• Students gain a richer appreciation of each discipline by exploring the ways in which each interacts with others.
• Students who might not otherwise naturally thrive in one area of study can gain increased confidence in that area. For example, a struggling Talmud student can experience a higher sense of competency when recognizing that her mathematical talents position her to better understand a key Talmudic passage.
• It can help to soften the bipolar experience with which many Jewish Day School students characterize their experience shifting between Judaic and General Studies classes.
• Classes that are co-taught can serve as a model of mutual respect and partnership that can remain with students for a lifetime.

Beyond the benefits to students, interdisciplinary collaboration also benefits us as teachers:

• It fosters collaboration across departments, building bridges that facilitate faculty cohesion.
• Particularly at times such as winter, when many of us may feel exhausted, out-of-the-box planning with teachers outside of our departments can get our juices flowing and provide an invaluable injection of energy.
• By gaining content knowledge of new disciplines, we grow in our overall understanding and teaching ability.

Yet these benefits notwithstanding, we know that interdisciplinary education is often difficult to implement, particularly in older secondary grades, in which our classes tend to be separated into "departmental" classes. Our countless professional obligations often leave us little time to co-plan or extend beyond our traditional curricula. In addition, financially strapped as they are, many Jewish day schools are unable to allocate significant additional funding to support cross-disciplinary collaboration. The extraordinary scheduling complexity of dual curriculum schools often makes it exceedingly difficult for teachers of different disciplines to be present in the same classroom at the same time. As a result, many educators are left trying to squeeze interdisciplinary learning "through the cracks."

These limitations notwithstanding, I'd like to mention a sampling of the programs we have run over the past year at the Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School. These are in addition to our annual Theme Day, in which a cross-disciplinary group of faculty members collaborate to enable students to tackle an important, complex subject. (For instance, last year students analyzed the First Amendment, the year prior our responsibilities to the environment). After detailing these efforts, I will propose some concrete everyday suggestions for introducing more interdisciplinary learning into our classrooms.

Beowulf, Free Choice and the High Holidays

Last year, students studying Beowulf wondered, if Grendel's (the epic's villain) mother is evil, can Grendel really be held fully responsible as the epic's antagonist? After the English teacher and I discussed the class conversation, we decided to introduce a one-time interdisciplinary lesson to address the question. I stepped into the English class and facilitated a lesson designed to address the moral question from an interdisciplinary perspective. Students were asked to consider a case of a criminal who is raised to disregard the law, and ultimately commmits murder: should the individual be held fully responsible for his actions? Students came up to the front of the room, engaged in a "Chalk Talk" exercise in which they voted for their position by writing on the whiteboard, explained their positions in writing, and then responded to their peers in the same fashion. This led to an oral discussion regarding the notion of free choice in Judaism, and personal student reflections spurred by Rav Dessler's concept of the "choice point," in which R. Dessler posits that realistically, each individual experiences a different set of free will choices, depending on the habits previously ingrained in that individual. The timing of the class, which fell out around the time of Elul and the High Holidays, could not have been better. Indeed, the class was so successful that it has now in effect become an annual part of the teacher's course curriculum.

Genesis and the Age of the Universe: A Student-Led School-Wide Program

Over the last few weeks, our Tanach classes have begun exploring the creation story at the beginning of Sefer Bereishit. Naturally, this raises many questions for students about how to reconcile the biblical account of creation with modern scientific theory. In anticipation of these questions, the Tanach and Science department chairs and I met, and designed the following program. First, student leaders led peers in text-based discussion groups exploring classical Jewish approaches to reconciling the Torah and modern scientific approaches to creation and evolution. (The student leaders had prepared the sources by learning the materials with me in small groups.) Sources included citations from a broad array of sources, including midrashim, Abravanel, Rav Hirsch, Rav Kook, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, and much more. Next, students participated in a panel discussion, featuring a mix of Judaic Studies and science educators. Students raised questions ranging from the Torah view on the age of the universe, to the precise meaning of evolution, to the existence of life on other planets. Following the program, students remarked how powerful it was to hear Judaic and General Studies teachers share highly complementary, mutually reinforcing responses in response to questions.

Interdisciplinary Illuminated Haggadah

In many of our art classes this year, each student will portray a portion of the Haggadah through one of a variety of media. These will be culled into a full illustrated Haggadah to be distributed to students, families, and school supporters in time for Passover. Each student is being paired with a Judaic Studies teacher, and is responsible to study the chosen portion of the Haggadah in depth, ultimately incorporating that learning into the artwork. We are also hopeful that in coordination with our technology department, students will be able to create an electronic version of the Haggadah. In much the same style as automated museum technology, the electronic Haggadah would enable one to click on each piece of art to hear a pre-recorded artistic, Torah-based interpretation of the artwork.

The Cities of Israel - An Interdisciplinary Unit and Schoolwide Fair

Each year for Yom Haatzmaut, as an outgrowth of the learning in their Ivrit classes, our 10th-grade students run an Israel Fair for the entire high school. The fair is a culmination of classroom learning in the weeks leading up to Yom Haatzmaut. This past year, students chose an Israeli city to research. They were responsible to create trifolds detailing key facts about the city, as well as create a three-dimensional virtual representation of some aspect of the city. This year, we added not only the tech component, but also required students to work closely with teachers to incorporate content from Tanach, Talmud and/or later Jewish history into their projects; the scoring rubric incorporated this research as an essential measure of student learning. Students so thoroughly enjoyed researching and creating their projects that on the morning of Yom Haatzmaut they spontaneously decided to arrange all twenty-two cities they had researched in the rough geographic outline of the State of Israel, and offer all students in the school a “tour” of ancient and modern-day Israel.

Reflecting on these programs, below are six quick suggestions relevant for administrators and teachers alike, worth considering as we seek to create these interdisciplinary spaces:

• Stand-Alone Lessons - Not all interdisciplinary collaboration needs to take place across an entire unit. As detailed above, the Beowulf lesson has developed into an annual stand-alone lesson.
• Build it into the curriculum - The Beowulf lesson was successful enough that we decided to make it a permanent part of the curriculum. This way, we have no need to reinvent the wheel each year.
• Build on existing programs - The Israel Fair was an already-successful program to which we added interdisciplinary elements. Building upon the successes of our Ivrit department was much easier and more effective than developing an interdisciplinary learning program from scratch.
• Spread the wealth - Faculty from a wide variety of departments were actively involved in these programs. Yet not every teacher from every department was required to be involved in any one program, helping to ensure that they did not feel overextended. The wide span of collaborators also generated positive energy across a significant percentage of our faculty, reinforcing the collegial culture.
• Know the Curriculum - Simply sharing basic knowledge about what each discipline is teaching in the classroom, whether by using curriculum maps or simply engaging in one-on-one conversation, can help to foster greater interdisciplinary collaboration. After hearing about the planned Haggadah project, for example, it was natural for me to offer to partner with the art teacher.
• Talk in the teachers room - Often, lack of joint planning time is rightly viewed as an impediment to interdisciplinary planning. Yet countless informal conversations take place in the faculty room. Imagine if spontaneous collaboration were to emerge from two educators simply conversing about what one another is teaching in the classroom. Not all valuable conversations among colleagues need to come at scheduled meetings. Sometimes an informal conversation can go a long way toward breaking down silos and supporting faculty collaboration.

Interdisciplinary collaboration is difficult and often elusive, but, as the Torah itself, is not in the heavens. With a blend of passion and practical planning, we can offer students a rich array of learning experiences that might have previously felt beyond our reach.

Rabbi Tzvi Sinensky serves as Director of Interdisciplinary Learning and Educational Outreach at the Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School. He was awarded the inaugural Kohelet Prize in interdisciplinary education for the course on Jewish & Western philosophy and the humanities he co-taught at Kohelet Yeshiva.

Rachel Chiel Katz
Eighth grade language arts, social studies, and tefillah teacher at the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston

What are the responsibilities of citizenship? How do Jewish texts help us to understand those obligations more clearly? How do our values as Jews align with our identities as engaged Americans? These are the central questions of my Current Events and Judaism elective, which I teach to eighth graders at the Solomon Schechter Day School in Newton, Massachusetts. 

Even eighth graders can have deeply polarized opinions about current events, so we begin the elective by modeling our code of conduct after two stories from the Talmud. In the days of the Sanhedrin, Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua had a series of clashes on how to interpret the law. At one point, Rabban Gamliel made the elderly Rabbi Yehoshua stand during Rabban Gamliel’s lengthy lecture. For this intentional humiliation, the other sages removed Rabban Gamliel from his position as nasi of the beit midrash. Students learn that they may disagree, but they can’t be unkind; disagreement must be respectful.

Additionally, in the story of the oven of Achnai, the Rabbis debated over whether a certain type of clay oven could be kosher. Rabbi Eliezer was in the minority, and he called upon God to reinforce his opinion. Suddenly, a tree uproots itself; a river runs backwards; even the walls of the beit midrash begin to collapse. Rabbi Yehoshua stops the walls by reminding them, “Lo bashamayim hi”—the law is not in the heavens. Once the Torah has been given, the project of interpreting that law belongs to the people. This too is the governing principle of democracy; through our passionate debating from a variety of perspectives, we interpret our founding documents and arrive at decisions that impact the lives of others.

At a July fourth celebration in 1788, James Wilson, one of the signatories of the Constitution, exhorted his listeners:

Let no one, therefore, harbour, for a moment, the mean idea, that he is and can be of no value to his country… Every one can, at many times, perform to the state, useful services; and he, who steadily pursues the road of patriotism, has the most inviting prospect of being able, at some times, to perform eminent ones.

This idea, students learn, can also be found in Pirkei Avot 4:3: “Ben Azzai taught: Do not disdain any person, and do not underrate the importance of anything, for there is no person who does not have his hour, and there is nothing without its place.” Judaism teaches that people are created in the image of God, and therefore, we are all precious. Our actions matter, alone and together.

Mattering as individuals and as a community is central to both Judaism and to citizenship. So much of Judaism is about showing up. We show up for celebrations and for times of mourning. Ten individuals make a minyan; we can pray alone, but everything is enhanced when we collaborate. The power of individuals to make communal change is evident, for example, in this fall’s Boston City Council election, where a candidate won by a single vote.

So, the students ask, how should we direct our individual and collective power? How is it possible to do good when so many causes are vying for our attention?  Should we care just about other Jews, or about everyone? We look at the Talmud, Shabbat 54b:

Anyone who is able to protest the members of his household and doesn't protest, is liable for the members of his household; anyone who is able to protest the people of his city, he is liable for the people of his city; anyone who is able to protest the whole world, he is liable for the whole world.

The idea that we are required to be activists can be exhilarating. However, students relate that while it may feel overwhelming to protest global injustice, like the destruction of the environment, protesting the actions of members of one’s household might have painful consequences. If you disagree with your parents’ beliefs, or witness abhorrent conduct in your community, what will be the consequences of calling out that behavior?

Despite our fears, change cannot be made without the work of motivated, knowledgeable individuals, who note inequalities and strive to ameliorate them. This year, a former student addressed the eighth grade about their experience interning for a state representative. This student worked on issues relating to state abortion laws and ways to help undocumented people report unsafe situations without putting themselves at risk of deportation. Students saw that this type of work is not in the heavens; they can pursue justice themselves.

The story of Bar Kamtza (Gittin 56a) illustrates that we should never stand by when others are mistreated. Bar Kamtza was humiliated by being thrown out of a party when Israel was under Roman rule. He bitterly reflects, “Since the Sages were sitting there and did not protest the actions of the host, although they saw how he humiliated me, learn from it that they were content with what he did.” Bar Kamtza, viewing the Rabbis’ silence as consent, went to the Roman rulers and demanded that they investigate the Jewish people for treason, starting a chain of events leading to the destruction of the Temple.

Feeling another’s embarrassment as acutely as our own is only part of the larger project of tying empathy to action. We are told in Exodus 22:20, “You shall not wrong the stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” We are asked to put ourselves in the shoes of the most vulnerable among us and to deal ethically with them, as we would wish for ourselves in similar circumstances. Likewise, when defending the idea of allowing the House of Representatives to be elected from “the great body of the people of the United States,” James Madison argued that,

In the situation of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society.

America is founded on the belief that our representatives will argue on not just their own behalf, but on behalf of the community, as they will be subject to the same laws as those they represent, and will therefore advocate for their interests from an empathetic point of view.

“Justice, justice shalt thou pursue.” Why, I ask the kids, must we chase after justice? Why not just love justice, or adhere to justice? Because justice is work. It doesn’t just exist; it is constructed. We have many Jewish examples of individuals who protested on behalf of justice. Shifra and Puah, the Jewish midwives in Pharoah’s Egypt, ignore Pharoah’s dictum to murder Jewish children. Mordechai doesn’t bow to Haman. Tzelophchad’s daughters argue that they should not be denied their inheritance because they are women.

Most significantly, Jews argue with God; Abraham protests the destruction of Sodom. Moshe turns away God’s anger after the Golden Calf. If we can argue with God about what is just and compassionate, then surely we can continue to debate the common good with each other.

My students do not want to be shielded from tough issues. They want to know what Judaism “says” about issues ranging from abortion to the death penalty. What should we do about Holocaust denial? About unethical business practices? There is no one answer to any of these questions, so we look to a variety of sources to help us, from ancient commentators to modern responsa.

We also look to commentators to help us with difficult texts. In a discussion about hunger, we puzzled over the ending of Birkat Hamazon: “I was young and I have grown old, and I have never seen a righteous person abandoned and his children begging for bread.” How can we say this? Surely we have all seen good people in difficult circumstances. Once again, empathy is the call to action. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes that the word “seen” should be interpreted as “I have not stood idly by”:

Read this way, not only does it make sense. It also emerges from the core of Jewish sensibility. It ends grace after meals with a moral commitment. Yes, we have eaten and are satisfied. But that has not made us indifferent to the needs of others.

We are reminded that even though we are comfortable, others may not be. We can take our appreciation for the ways in which we are lucky and put those blessings to work for other people. As Americans, we can express gratitude for the institutions that have sheltered us in times of distress, and work to provide that same shelter for those who need it. A commitment to justice and participatory, communal behavior is required of us in both our secular and religious lives. As our students graduate and move into the wider world, I cannot wait to see the ways in which they translate these ethics into action.

By Rabbi Maury Grebenau
Principal of Yavneh Academy of Dallas

The Current Situation
Unfortunately, the teen vaping situation is getting worse. The most recent numbers from the Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) indicate that more than a quarter of high school students have vaped in the last 30 days. The nicotine found in many e-cigarettes is habit forming particularly for adolescents and is specifically dangerous to the growing adolescent brain.

E-cigarettes and vapes can also be used to deliver other drugs, including marijuana. In 2016, approximately one-third of U.S. middle and high school students who had ever used an e-cigarette reported using marijuana in their vape at some point. Rates of 12th graders who vaped marijuana in the last 30 days have doubled since a year ago. Some evidence points to the fact that recent lung failures connected to vaping may be specifically tied to instances of vaping marijuana.

Last year, I attended a bar mitzvah in a large Jewish community and was approached by a friend who had seen my earlier article on vaping. “You need to talk to my middle school son about this! It is all over the place!” he told me. While there is more awareness of the fact that vaping is a serious issue, federal and state policy has moved slowly in addressing these developments, and many remain uneducated about vaping risks.

Dangers
Despite the absence of tar in e-cigarettes, they have been shown to cause serious health issues including impairing cellular metabolism, cardiovascular disease and, most recently, lung failure. In addition, e-cigarette vapor contains vaporized trace metals and other carcinogenic chemicals, even when they are nicotine-free. More specific dangers are documented in my initial article.

In the summer of 2019, more than 200 teens were hospitalized with breathing issues tied to vaping, a condition now being called Vaping Associated Pulmonary Illness (VAPI). By the end of November, the CDC had received reports of at least 2,172 cases, from 49 states, of lung injury, with 42 cases of death, all tied to e-cigarettes. Initial findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that the injury to the lungs presented as a chemical burn from an inhaled substance. Vitamin E acetate, a thickening agent added to some vaping liquids, has been identified as a possible cause, and the CDC recommends that vitamin E acetate no longer be used as an additive. 

Gateway Hypothesis
Vaping may also make it more likely that teens will smoke traditional cigarettes, referred to as the gateway hypothesis. Although some argue against the veracity of the gateway hypothesis, most large studies have shown that students who have engaged in vaping are indeed more likely to smoke traditional cigarettes in the next year than peers who have not engaged in vaping.

Some research has found evidence that the gateway hypothesis applies to drug and alcohol use as well. Evidence that points to the gateway theory’s application to future marijuana use includes a review of clinical studies showing that nicotine use (including through e-cigarettes) increases the likelihood of future marijuana use for adolescents. A longitudinal study also found that e-cigarette usage increases the likelihood of future marijuana use in adolescents, and heavy future use when the e-cigarette use takes place towards the beginning of adolescence.

Jewish Day School Responses
The challenge of student vaping on and off campus are, at this point, a real issue for every middle and high school. Having spoken to a number of Jewish day schools, I found that much of the response is in the form of education for students and parents about the dangers of vaping. This includes sessions to educate parents on vaping and on how to speak to their children about this phenomenon. In addition, schools have clear consequences, and many use vape detectors that can be purchased and installed in areas where vaping is most likely to occur. 

It is critical that schools communicate their policies to students and parents. Making sure that lines of communication are open in school and at home is also an important part of helping teens avoid this risky behavior. Part of this effort is ensuring that parents are educated and feel able to discuss vaping with their children. A parent of a student who was found with vaping liquid equivalent to a dozen packs of cigarettes in their bag told me that he needed to google vaping to find out what it was. It is very concerning when a student has a clear problem and the parent is not educated on the subject.

These steps are part of a clear message that vaping is something that is not acceptable in our schools and that schools partner with parents in keeping their children safe. Faculty, students and parents must be educated about the true dangers involved in vaping.

State Resources

Several states have websites dedicated to guiding schools to resources. In aggregate, these state sites provide significant material for educating students, staff and parents about e-cigarettes, as well as resources to minimize the workload around crafting and rolling out policies for schools.
The most common elements suggested for schools are:

• Evaluating current e-cigarette policies within the school
• Educating staff, students and parents on vaping and the potential dangers
• Using signage or posters around the school

Informational resources provided on these state sites include fact sheets or reports from the Surgeon General, CDC and American Lung Association focusing on the risks of e-cigarettes, tobacco addiction and substance abuse on adolescents’ developing brains. Here are several of the most robust sites.

Curriculum for Schools
There are free programs available for educating teens about the realities of vaping. The tobacco prevention toolkit from Stanford Medicine has the most robust resources for educators, including clearly mapped-out lesson plans with PowerPoint presentations and Kahoot interactive online quizzes to assess student understanding for each lesson. These resources can be utilized in schools to integrate information about e-cigarettes into the existing health curriculum.

E-cigarette Educational Programs

Conclusion
There is a misnomer that if our children and students know about vaping it means they will be more likely to engage in vaping. The research has proven this assumption to be false. In fact, it is critical for children to understand what vaping is and why it is harmful for them. We want our children to be armed with accurate knowledge about this dangerous behavior before they are first offered an e-cigarette. 

In fact, research shows that when teens understand that vaping nicotine can be highly addictive and that it is dangerous, they are much less likely to engage in vaping. The Surgeon General concluded that there is sufficient evidence that school-based programs can produce at least short-term reductions in adolescent tobacco use. Schools should make educating adolescents about vaping an important part of their health education programs. 

The CDC recommends that school-based programs be undertaken along with community-based tobacco prevention strategies, in order to be effective. As a Jewish community, we would be wise to follow this suggestion and take steps together to partner with schools in addressing teen vaping.

Rabbi Maury Grebenau received an MA in Jewish education and his ordination from Yeshiva University. He has been leading Jewish schools for the past ten years and is currently the principal of Yavneh Academy of Dallas. Rabbi Grebenau has written numerous articles on educational leadership; current issues include teen health and school technology use. His articles have been published in Phi Delta Kappan, Principal Leadership and HaYidion, among others. He is currently pursuing an EdD at Northeastern University.

Rockville, Maryland

Berman Hebrew Academy was delighted to host a special parent guest to share her expertise. She guided the class in the creation of a paper circuit menorah. The children used copper tape, LEDs, resistors, and batteries to craft their own Chanukiyot that actually lights up. This project required focus and attention to detail -- and the 3Bees were up to the challenge! Happy Chanukah from Maryland!

Greenwich, Connecticut

Each year Carmel Academy celebrates Chanukah in a big way - with an array of fun and thoughtful activities for all students. These activities focus not only on learning the story of Chanukah, but also learning about kindness, gratitude, and giving back to one's community. The concepts were implemented through experiential learning and going out into the community to give back. Happy Chanukah from Connecticut!

Charlotte, North Carolina

Charlotte Jewish Day School had a full day of special Chanukah programming beginning with a "Mad Science" presentation by Professor Dreidel, teaching students how they may be different on the outside, but all have a Jewish soul on the inside. Students in grades 4 and 5 built menorahs out of plumbing parts while grades K - 3 made menorahs out of wooden blocks and decorated them. Latkes and sufganiyot followed! Hag Urim Sameah from Charlotte!

Chicago, Illinois

The Grade 8 Judaic Studies class embarked on an inquiry-based project with the goal of making two interactive displays for Chanukah. Students learned Rabbinic texts and translated that knowledge into something interactive for the entire school to enjoy. The students also created thematic objects to activate informational recordings about the holiday. They wired LED lights and buttons then coded the responses using Scratch! This new experience enabled students to use their topic knowledge while exploring new types of technology in an authentic way. Happy Chanukah from Chicago Jewish Day School!

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Early Childhood and Lower School students at Community Day School (CDS) learned about the meaning of Chanukah and celebrated the holiday with various special activities. Kindergarten created beautiful mosaic Channukiyot, 1st grade cycled through stations with frying latkes and completing math and art projects related to the holiday, and 4th grade shared their knowledge in guiding CDS 3-year-old and Pre-K students through activities like decorating candle headbands, playing dreidel, and dancing to Chanukah favorites. As a joint event with CDS and PJ Library Pittsburgh, more than 100 people gathered together for the S.T.E.A.M. Festival of Light, an illuminating afternoon of science, technology, engineering, art, and math (S.T.E.A.M.) in celebration of Chanukah. Chag Sameach from Pittsburgh!

West Orange, New Jersey

Golda Och Academy 5th graders with their kindergarten buddies at a special Hanukkah program. Everyone had the chance to sing their favorite holiday tunes and listen to a Hanukkah story. Happy Hanukkah from New Jersey!

Minneapolis, Minnesota

The Harold and Mickey Smith Judaic Studies Department strives to inspire young adults to take joy and pride in their Jewish identities, approach Torah and the study of all Jewish text rigorously and analytically, and commit themselves to active Tikkun Olam/תיקון עולם/Repairing the World. The study and observance of Jewish holidays is woven into the curriculum throughout the school year as seen here by the kindergarten students celebrating Hanukkah. Happy Hanukkah from Heilicher Jewish Day School!

Farmington Hills, Michigan

At Hillel Day School, the theme of the school year is Joy, and at no time is it more apparent than in the days leading up to Chanukah! Throughout the school, students of all ages, in all learning environments, from Ivrit classes to the MakerSpace, are making meaning out of their learning about the holiday, and spreading light in and out of school. Chag Sameach from Michigan!

Los Angeles, California

Hanukkah at Milken Community Schools means time to serve the community! Throughout the holiday, the students engage in activities that benefit those around them from running a toy donation drive to celebrating Hanukkah with local seniors communities. Happy Hanukkah from Los Angeles!

Mercer Island, Washington

Hag Urim Sameah from Northwest Yeshiva High School!

Oakland, California

Oakland Hebrew Day School's wonderful b'not sherut, Moriya and Meitav, played giant-sized Chanukah games with the kids. The b'not sherut girls join us every year from the Bat Leumi program in Israel, and bring lots of additional programming around Israel and the Jewish holidays. Oakland Hebrew Day School decorated the hallways with Chanukah spirit (translation: Each of us is a small light, together we shine bright). Happy Chanukah from Oakland!

Toronto, Ontario

Chanukah is one of the best times of the year at Paul Penna Downtown Jewish Day School! Children and faculty members celebrate the holiday by participating in Chanukah crafts, latke baking, cookie decorating, olive oil pressing workshops, and of course, expanding their learning of the holiday. To conclude the holiday celebrations, the Paul Penna DJDS community comes together to watch the school's annual Chanukah concert! Chag Sameach from Toronto!

Toronto, Ontario

Robbins Hebrew Academy (RHA) finds ways to integrate cultural tradition, Judaic and general studies in unique ways.The celebration of Jewish holidays at RHA is an opportunity to bring the community together. Students prepare in advance of Chanukah by learning songs and the blessings that are recited each evening as they light the Chanukah. Students also created Chanukah cards made out of their handprints for children and families affected by devastating illnesses at Chai Lifeline Canada. Early Years students created Chanukah-shaped handprints and got into the spirit of Chanukah with a musical performance by grade 3 students. Happy Chanukah from Toronto!

North Miami Beach, Florida

As students kindle the Chanukah lights recalling that A Big Miracle Happened There - Nes Gadol Hayah Sham - נס גדול היה שם,” they are thankful for the blessings of family, home, and community. Schoolwide, students discuss the ways they can bring that special light to the world through mitzvot, chessed and lifelong learning. Scheck Hillel Community School wishes all a Chanukah filled with hope and the promise of miracles to come!

Durham, North Carolina

The Lerner School celebrated Hanukah by collaborating with an alumni parent volunteer to make sufganiyot from scratch. Chag Sameach from North Carolina!

Houston, Texas

Chanukah at The Shlenker School gathers the entire community together. In the classroom, the holiday is celebrated in many different ways, including reading the story of Chanukah, playing dreidel and other Chanukah games, eating latkes and sufganiyot, and much more. Additionally, there is a community-wide celebration at Good Morning Shlenker and Kabbalat Shabbat. Chanukah is great example of how the community comes together to celebrate Jewish heritage. Happy Chanukah from Houston!

Encino, California

This past week Valley Beth Shalom Day School students joyfully celebrated Hanukkah on campus. The students ate delicious sufganiyot, sang festive Hanukkah songs and blessings, lit menorahs, and played dreidel games. Happy Hanukkah from California!

Catalysis (/kəˈtæləsɪs/) is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance known as a catalyst[1] (/ˈkætəlɪst/), which is not consumed in the catalyzed reaction and can continue to act repeatedly. 

I am neither the baker nor chef in my family, though this time of year I make a contribution, taking charge of making potato latkes. It is with a combination of determination, awe, and hunger that I pull out the food processor and get to the messy work that yields dozens of hot and shiny latkes. Simple ingredients—potatoes, eggs, onion—which the bath of oil almost magically turns into perfectly formed, artery-clogging deliciousness. Hanukah is a time for miracles, to be sure.

Sometimes I wonder if there are actually secret ingredients for the perfect latke.  Most recipes do not offer any significant tricks, other than perhaps adding bread crumbs, matzo meal, or potato starch. There are many opinions about the type of potato used, the way it is shredded or pulverized (by hand or food processor), the temperature and type of oil.  

While the oil is not a true catalyst, in that some (lots?) of it is certainly consumed into the latke itself, the fact is that each batch of latkes inevitably leaves behind a good amount of oil in the frying pan. The chemical reaction between the hot oil and the potato mixture results in scrumptious latkes—and leaves behind ample oil in the pan for the next batch.

The day school field—and Prizmah—is fortunate to count numerous catalysts that trigger transformative experiences.  In the past twenty-five years, however, no force has been greater in sustaining the field of day school education than The AVI CHAI Foundation. As the calendar year comes to a close, we acknowledge with immense gratitude the $338 million investment in our schools and field from AVI CHAI, including signature programs like interest-free building loans, curriculum development (iTalAM, Bisvhil HaIvrit), leadership programs (DSLTI, YOU Lead) research, and matching funds for day school vitality, to name just a few. AVI CHAI has been a catalyst for nearly every Jewish day school in North America.

Yossi Prager, the longtime and final Executive Director of AVI CHAI North America, and a member of the Prizmah Board of Directors, shared his reflections at our recent board meeting. AVI CHAI has, during the course of the last year, articulated substantial learning from its many years of philanthropy (eJewishPhilanthropy has helpfully collected much of this). At our board meeting, Yossi shared how AVI CHAI evolved over the years from a focus on programs, to the question of how you build a field, investing in people, institutions, ideas, and resources.  

Knowing that the journey is not finished with AVI CHAI’s sunset, Yossi called to us to continue the work, in areas like affordability, leadership, and in addressing the many challenges ahead for Jewish day schools. We recognize what remains from AVI CHAI’s catalyzing process—the people who participated in programs AVI CHAI funded, the lessons from their activity and research, and the environment in which continued growth and sustainability can flourish. Thanks to current and former board chairs, Mem Bernstein and Arthur Fried, the entire board, Yossi and staff team of AVI CHAI, there are new generations of catalysts—funders and communities who are similarly devoted to keeping day schools vital and vibrant. Prizmah recently showcased A New Frontier in Alternative Tuition Programs, just one example where we see the legacy of AVI CHAI’s trailblazing.

This year on Hanukah, while munching on “just one more” latke, I invite you to join me in giving thanks to AVI CHAI and to looking ahead to many more catalysts around us, the nisim/miracles of the past and the present that will ensure Jewish day schools continue to fulfill their role in securing our vibrant Jewish future.

Hag Urim Sameah!

By Jonathan D. Epstein
Immediate past-president of Kadimah Academy, Buffalo, NY

It’s fall in Western New York, and Jewish day school students are in their dedicated Hebrew classroom, studying with their Israeli-born teachers. Earlier in the day, they gathered as usual for morning tefillah before classes began, reciting the Shema, the Amidah, and the other core elements of Shacharit.

In September, they heard the sound of the shofar echoing. They distributed apples and honey schoolwide, and talked about Rosh Hashanah. After Yom Kippur, a sukkah went up outside on the lawn for the entire school to see, and the school’s external advisory board got an impromptu lesson from the kids about the meaning of the lulav and etrog. And as Chanukah approaches, the flames of the menorah will burn brightly as we gather for a community party at school.
It sounds like the typical fall months in a Jewish day school anywhere in North America, where our students’ pride in their heritage is on full display.

Except that this isn’t a traditional day school.

Kadimah Scholars at Park
This is the Park School of Buffalo, a century-old, independent, progressive and non-religious private school in the Buffalo suburb of Amherst, which has warmly embraced the former Kadimah Academy family as part of its community. In doing so, it’s revived those of us who have committed so much love and time to Kadimah and given us hope to expand our reach, at a time when we weren’t even dreaming of that.

Today, 20 students who were a part of Kadimah Academy last year continue to learn Hebrew and Judaic studies, while taking general studies classes and participating in sports and clubs alongside a diverse assortment of youth from throughout the region. In the process, their non-Jewish friends and teachers at Park are gaining exposure to Judaism in a non-threatening way, helping to promote understanding of each other and support for our differences. And Park, which has a long history of openness to many cultures, has a novel marketing feature that sets it apart not only locally but nationally among independent private schools.

Welcome to the Kadimah Scholars at Park program—a unique experiment with incredible potential well beyond the local campus. It’s an innovative partnership of Kadimah Academy, Park School and the Buffalo Jewish Federation that not only benefits all three organizations, but also represents one potential solution to the challenge facing Jewish day schools across the United States and Canada. To the best of our knowledge—and that of both Prizmah and the National Association of Independent Schools—this venture is the first of its kind in North America.

From threat to opportunity
A year ago, Kadimah faced imminent closure, after 60 years in operation. Like many day schools in smaller communities, we had struggled for years to stay open. But as our K-8 enrollment dipped to its lowest point in decades, our finances were simply not sustainable, and our support was wearing thin. We needed a real alternative, and after exploring a host of options, we found Park to be the only real option that would change the dynamic, by exciting the entire Buffalo community.
Let me be clear. This is not a merger or absorption, nor is it a complete loss of a pluralistic day school education in Buffalo, which is what we otherwise faced. And it was a choice we deliberately made, not one imposed by force. But it’s also not business as usual for Kadimah, which no longer runs its own school or completely controls its destiny. That was perhaps most difficult for us, to give up our independent identity.

Even so, it’s an incredible opportunity, when it looked like we were finished. First, it’s a means of maintaining what we need to accomplish for our community’s future. We can focus on what we do best—Jewish education—while letting Park handle the rest. But even more so, this has new potential. For the first time in our history, we have high school students among our ranks, with the opportunity to take Hebrew and Judaic studies through 12th grade, in a day school context.
Park is also very highly regarded among the more progressive segments of the Jewish community; there were already 27 Jewish students at Park. That gives us a chance to reach families that would never have considered Jewish day school in the past, but might take Hebrew or Judaic studies classes as part of a broader curriculum. Already, both Park and Kadimah leaders have heard such interest, and Park administrators are talking about opening up the program more broadly next year.

Collaboration of learning
Under the agreement that created this program, Park hired Hebrew and Judaic studies faculty from Kadimah, with financial support from Federation. Our board and our teachers worked to develop a revised curriculum, with oversight and support from Park as needed, such as for books and supplies, but without interference in what would be taught.
Meanwhile, our students applied and enrolled at Park as full Park students, with financial aid from both Park and Kadimah to cement the duality of the program. So our teachers are full Park faculty, and our students are full Park Pioneers. (That’s the Park School motto.)

Kadimah remains a separate nonprofit organization, focused on fundraising for Kadimah scholarships while also working with Park to advise, market, recruit and otherwise promote the program. As a condition of the Kadimah scholarship to attend Park, those students receiving aid from the Jewish community must participate in all Hebrew and Judaic classes, as well as related programs.

Park made room within its class schedule to allow our students to take Hebrew and Judaic studies during the school day, with supplemental time two days a week after school. So when Park’s other students are taking French or another language, ours are taking Hebrew. Similarly, Judaic studies is offered against other non-core Park classes, so that our students are not missing essential general learning. 

We have our own classroom for the middle and high schools, in one of the central buildings on the 35-acre campus, with a smaller room elsewhere for the lower school. The walls are adorned with Hebrew posters and other educational materials – even on the bathroom doors down the hall. Park also gave us time and space for morning prayer and even for bentsching at lunch – though the staggered lunch periods makes the latter more difficult to do as a group. Community members, rabbis and even the Federation CEO volunteer with our students.

We celebrate Shabbat and holidays together, and we’ve even taught our new friends. And there’s been talk of using Park’s wood shop to construct an ark, so that we can bring a Torah scroll to our new home.

What does this mean for you?
Now let’s be honest: I won’t pretend this is ideal. We no longer have a stand-alone Jewish day school or Jewish environment like we’ve had for 60 years. And we have much less time for our Hebrew and Judaic studies than the 40-50% that we used to allocate, because as generous as Park has been, we knew it couldn’t match that proportion.

All of that means we have to be much more creative and inventive in our teaching, and in providing as much Jewish atmosphere as we can. We don’t want to reduce our curriculum, so we must find new ways to educate our students, to maximize what we do in less time. We also don’t exercise full control over everything as before, and can’t guarantee admission to every Jewish student, particularly those with significant educational or physical special needs that Park is simply unable to serve. And, of course, there are predictable glitches or confusion that you would expect from any unprecedented venture, all of which we’ve overcome so far.

But that’s a lot better than the alternatives: no community Jewish day school at all, a merger with a reluctant or distant partner, or a very watered-down version designed to appeal to people who aren’t interested anyway. We could have defaulted to any of those. With Park, though, we’ve found eager and supportive partners who understand and sympathize with our dilemma and are working with us. And no one is asking us to change how we teach our own Kadimah Scholars.
So how did we get here, after 60 years? We were squeezed by many of the same factors affecting day schools everywhere: declining enrollment, the struggle to gain new students, rising expenses, more scholarships, insufficient donor support, and a feeling among potential families that day schools are just “too Jewish.” We announced plans to close 18 months ago, but remained open last year to find a solution for our families.

We explored mergers or affiliations with the local chasidic school and a sister day school in another city. We talked about converting to a Hebrew charter school, a STEM school, an afternoon-only school, or a “multi-cultural” school. We even reached out to the Catholic Diocese and a Protestant school about partnerships, just to ensure we looked at the full range. But either the other ideas didn’t pan out the way we hoped, or we concluded they would not work well for us in Western New York, where both the public and private schools are very strong. 

Perhaps most importantly, though, was the spirit of cooperation we felt with Park from the start. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango, and we’ve had that with Head of School Jeremy Besch and his team. To be sure, there’s still much to do. But we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished, and we have tremendous hope for the future.

If you want to learn more, email me at [email protected]. Kadimah, Park and Buffalo Federation are happy to share.

Jonathan D. Epstein is the immediate past-president of Kadimah Academy in Buffalo, NY, having served from 2012-2019 with a one-year hiatus. He is the husband and father of Kadimah alumna, and has a child currently enrolled as a Kadimah Scholar at Park School of Buffalo. He is also a business reporter at The Buffalo News. Go Bills!

He who learns in order to teach will be enabled both to learn and to teach.
But he who learns in order to practice will be enabled to learn, to teach,
to observe, and to practice. Rabbi Yishmael, Pirke Avot, Ch. 4

Mindfulness is getting a lot of attention these days. We read about it in our newspapers and in our magazines. We hear how celebrities, professional athletes, corporate executives and even politicians are embracing the age-old art and science of mindfulness. Universities are teaching it and scientists are researching it.

But while there certainly is a lot of buzz about it, mindfulness in education is relatively new. In fact, when discussing this with Rabbi Tully Harcsztark, founding principal of SAR High School in New York, I said being mindful is so beneficial because it gives us the opportunity to get out of our heads and into our bodies. He said, “I understand that cognitively.” The irony was not lost on me. As an educational consultant specializing in mindfulness training for over 20 years, when I put the words mindfulness and education in the same sentence I know that most likely I’m going to have to make a hard case for soft skills. 

So here we go! 

When we talk about soft skills we are referring to traits like kindness, compassion and empathy, to name a few. Social scientist Brene Brown’s research on vulnerability and shame has shown how valuable it is to strengthen soft skills. Contrary to our culture’s perception that soft skills represent weakness, her research has shown that it takes great strength and courage to cultivate soft skills. 

Historically in education, soft skills have taken a back seat to the hard skills of academic intelligence and performance. Academic rigor has traditionally driven our schools. But thanks to the relatively recent movement to foster social and emotional learning (SEL) in schools, very slowly we are starting to see that it is equally if not more important to support the well-being of our students, as well as our own. Soft skills, which are at the heart of SEL, are all fostered through mindfulness awareness. 

Adapting the definition of Jon Kabat-Zinn, who is internationally best known for bringing mindfulness into mainstream medicine and society, I define mindfulness as “paying attention on purpose." Current research in cognitive neuroscience shows that cultivating a mindfulness practice in the classroom offers many benefits for both teachers as well as students, including an inner sense of calm and clarity; improved concentration, focus, attention, conflict resolution, and empathy. By paying attention on purpose it becomes easier to develop and maintain a moment-by-moment awareness of what’s going on, beginning with thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment and that creates a great springboard for fostering a safe and supportive classroom that nurtures growth. 

Harnessing the capacity for our attention, as well as pro-social behavior, empathy and self-regulation, are all things that help reduce stress, improve self-awareness and reflective capacities, which are all necessary for effective teaching.

Mindfulness promotes the regulation of the executive functions of emotion, attention, thought and behavior. When these executive functions are strengthened through mindfulness training, it leads to greater social-emotional competence. Since teachers set the emotional tone for the classroom, supporting their social-emotional competence is a great place to start. 

Parker Palmer says we come to teaching for reasons of the heart. Yet teaching is demanding, and it is hard to maintain that heart-centered approach. Not only do teachers need to know their content, they also, according to mindfulness researcher Patricia Jennings, need to be wizards of attention, being aware of the entire classroom and everything that’s going on in it. They need to be attuned to the level of student engagement as well as to the social-emotional dynamics of the classroom.

Jennings stresses the importance of emotional awareness in fostering a harmonious and healthy learning environment. When a teacher can learn to pay attention to her own thoughts and feelings without judging them, she can be more attuned to the social and emotional dynamics in the room. When teachers take a moment to pause and center themselves, they lead by example and model the type of attention, self-control, and regulation they hope to foster in their students. This makes teaching gratifying and reduces teacher burnout, thus fostering teacher retention and longevity in the field.

What would schools look like if, when a student is frustrated, angry, disappointed, sad or even feeling joyful and proud, she would hear these words from her teacher:

Take a few moments to sit quietly… bring your awareness to your breath. Just observe its natural rhythm, watching as it rises and falls. As you watch and observe your breath, also have an awareness of the feelings you are having, without needing to change a thing. Watch them like waves of the ocean, coming and going. Now with conscious attention deepen your breath, and bring awareness to the stomach as the inhale makes it rise and the exhale makes it fall. Then to make the breath even deeper, on an inhale watch the stomach rise, then the ribs expand, and on the exhale watch the ribs release and the stomach contract. Now go even deeper, building the upward movement of the breath even higher while breathing deep into the belly, then the ribs, now the collarbones, and on the exhale allow the exhale to descend from the collarbones, to the ribs and finally the belly while engaging the abdominal muscles.”

There are many benefits to doing this type of wave breathing, including calming down difficult or any big emotions and circumstances. Using mindfulness as an intervention helps students be more in touch with their internal state, physically, mentally, and emotionally, helping them be able to identify their feelings and self-modulate, which ultimately leads to better student learning. 

Our culture tends to think that slowing down to pay attention in the moment is “doing nothing,” a waste of time in today's high-tech, fast-paced world. However, so much “happens” when we pause with intention. The teacher is able to take in the entire classroom and reach every student. It gives her time to ask, “What’s happening now? How am I feeling? What do my students need?” Students gain time to process both the content as well as their experiences, which leads to better retention. This is mindFUL(L)ness vs. mindlessness.

As we see, these skills are extremely beneficial. As author Seth Godin says, these things may be skills, but they certainly are not “soft.” We should refer to them more accurately as real skills. 

As educators, we know that there is so much uncertainty about our students’ futures. We don’t know what jobs will be available for them. As Harvard’s Tony Wagner says, we don’t even know what we are preparing them for. But one thing we do know is that it will be of great value for them to have an inner reserve of real skills and tools like resilience, calming strategies, and relaxation techniques along with tools for self-awareness, modulation and regulation. When we help children in this way, we equip them with necessary life skills to better navigate through our changing times—exactly what they will need for their future success, however that will be defined. 

From my upcoming book on bringing yoga and mindfulness into the lives of children. 

This article is part of a series representing a partnership between JEIC and Prizmah. It grew out of a collaboration at the 2019 Prizmah Conference, where JEIC ran Listening Booths in which 52 participants shared their dream for Jewish day schools. 

By Dr. Eliana Lipsky
Middle School Principal at Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School

Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, originally encouraged their employees to spend 20% of their time on passion projects that were interesting to them and not on the company’s agenda. While this “rule” is no longer in place, over the last decade several ideas emerged from these projects, including Gmail, Twitter, and Google Maps, that altered the way humans interact all over the world. Inspired by Google’s approach, many Jewish middle schools and high schools, along with other schools, have incorporated an exploration lab or innovation zone into their programs, giving students the opportunity to be creative and take risks. 

A few of these side projects have, like Google’s, made a real difference in the world. For example, a bioengineering teacher at Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School teamed up with the 3D printing teacher to have their students design a real world solution for her niece who was born with limb deformities in her hand. These eleventh graders developed a prosthetic hand uniquely designed to fit her niece’s specifications, which allows her to perform mundane activities, such as picking up and throwing a ball. At a macro level, the Cadena Initiative tasks middle school students from around the world to innovate viable solutions that will save lives during natural catastrophes. The Cadena Foundation implements the winning idea as part of its humanitarian aid effort. 

At the recent Prizmah conference, I was encouraged to engage in a thought exercise and reimagine what a Jewish day school education could look and feel like. Influencing my thinking are Ted Dintersmith’s book What School Could Be and the Netflix documentary The Creative Brain. I focus on middle school because that is where most of my experience and passion are. In the paragraphs below, I invite you to join me and play around with one vision of what Jewish education could be.

Let’s begin by asking, “What if?”

• What if a Jewish day school centers its educational model on being the innovation zone? 
• What if students were part of a small cohort with whom they would test their hypotheses and design ideas, products, and communications throughout the year?
• What if the school collaborates with professionals, businesses, and universities from around the world so that each student has a mentor and each cohort has an advisor?
• What if middle school and high school education focuses on depth and not breadth?
• What if the next generation learns what it means to be resilient, persistent, and how to fail forward, because we create a truly safe space for our students to take risks? 

With these questions in mind, this vision of the future begins with a Jewish day school grounded in Jewish tradition and an understanding that future occupations will forever remain unknown due to the speed at which technology continues advancing. For this school to exist, we assume that the teacher’s primary function in school is to act as an advisor, coach, and facilitator who provides students with guidance similar to how a dissertation chair might guide a doctoral student through their dissertation process. Each student has a professional mentor who works in a field related to the student’s interest area.

If a school were an innovation zone, students would focus on improving their personal lives or the life of someone they identified as part of their universe of obligation. Instead of taking subject-specific courses, students would be responsible for identifying a question or innovative challenge that they want to solve. Students’ courses would be multidisciplinary and integrated throughout their time in school. Learning blocks would include 1) Jewish and global citizenship, 2) reading for social justice and equity, 3) STEM, and 4) communications and the arts. The courses would aim for depth over breadth, and the educational model would prioritize tending to human relationships, practicing empathy, taking thoughtful and calculated risks, and fostering critical thinking, analytical, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. 

The curriculum would be learner-centered. Sixth graders would focus on a problem that affects them as an individual, seventh graders would consider a problem that impacts the Jewish community, and eighth graders would investigate a problem that requires leadership. Their innovation challenge might require the creation of a movement or a level of entrepreneurship, because the solution does not exist yet. The challenge would give students purpose and focus, making their learning feel more relevant and authentic. For example, a Jewish and global citizenship block would challenge students to trace the value(s) underlying the innovative challenge. They would grapple with why the challenge they chose is important and ground their thinking in the historical evolution of Jewish communal and global citizenship. They would embark on thematic investigations of these values and perhaps similar challenges that were previously addressed using texts from Jewish sources and the humanities to relate why the problem they desire to solve matters within their glocal (global and local) communities.

The innovation zone’s calendar year would follow the five phases of design thinking or an inquiry model rather than the traditional semester or trimester. Using sixth grade as an example, the phases would unfold as follows. 

Phase One: Problem Identification
Students would explore their identity and ask, How do I determine what is important to me? What does it mean to have an identity? To which communities do I belong or not belong, and how do those influence me? Then students would consider several problems they currently encounter that present a challenge to their daily lives. For those who do not think they have any challenges, they would broaden their thinking to include their peers or family members. A student’s phase one concludes only once they are able to articulate a selection of innovative challenges from which they will choose going forward. 

This phase would also include a calendar-setting component. Students would work with their advisors and mentors to determine the appropriate amount of time that they think it would take to move through the research and development cycle. As timelines in the real world often change based on uncontrollable factors related to environment, technology, and access to information, the student will consistently review and refine their calendar in consultation with their advisor and mentor throughout the five phases. 

Phase Two: Literature Review
Just like a dissertation process, students would conduct a literature review. Given the advancement in information dissemination, this literature review would also include videos, podcasts, and material from other media. Once a student knows which innovation challenge they want to examine, they will ask, Why is this a problem? Who else is dealing with this problem? What solutions are people already trying? They might reach out to partner schools that are nearby or halfway across the world to ask, Is this a problem for you as well? Does it look the same for you? How are you approaching it? Once they have a sense of what people or companies are trying, the student brainstorms as many solutions as possible. Most important here is the idea that no solution—no matter how silly or out there it seems—is dismissed without careful consideration. The student’s advisor and mentor help the student identify criteria necessary to determining which of their solutions are worth trying and why. 

Phase Three: Solution Designs
Next, students create a blueprint for the solution to their innovation challenge. Students might need to take mini-sessions within one of the four learning blocks depending on their design’s requirements. Because the school day would be more flexible, students would be able to sign up for different workshops with more directed instruction when that information is relevant to their innovation challenge. 

Phase Four: Peer Review, Advisor and Mentor Review, and Revision
A cohort of students comes together for an in-depth review of each other’s work. Students develop their communication skills through discussion of their innovation challenge and proposed solutions. Peer reviews take place to encourage cross-pollination of ideas. A conversation might unfold as follows: 

“Okay, I think I understand your idea. Here’s what works for me and here's what I need explained again. Have you thought of x, y, and z? Because when I was researching my innovation challenge this is what I learned and what I’m dealing with. It sounds like maybe some of our ideas could be connected.” 

Advisors and mentors would also examine their students’ designs and offer comments and areas for improvement. Students would need to refine their design based on peer, advisor, and mentor feedback. After revising their work, students would present their design again for another iteration of feedback. This process may occur several times. 

Phase Five: Communication, Presentation, and Ideas for the Future
In the final phase, students move from design to communication. They focus on writing, visually creating, or orally presenting their idea. They explore ways to present the same information and market their idea to an array of audiences. As some of this may include public speaking, screening a film, or graphically illustrating the idea, communications and the arts are thoroughly integrated and would be the most prominent learning block at this point. 

Students would consider questions such as:

• What are the best ways to share my vision? (article, short film, poster)
• On which platform do I present the problem and my idea? (a social platform)
• With whom is it best to share my idea and vision? (peers, adults with influence)
• How do I write about this for the different audiences I identified? (voice, style)
• Does promoting my idea look different when my audience is part of the Jewish community, lives in another country, or is interested in improving lives other than their own? (purpose)
• What visual means could I use to communicate my design to publishers, companies, and individuals so that they will fund my idea? (film, poster, commercial)

Once students determine their different audiences and select their communication platforms, students spend time crafting their presentation pieces. The entire design phase closes with a formal presentation of their idea to an authentic audience selected from the lists they created previously. Throughout this process, the student’s advisor is responsible for helping the student manage their time so that they move through the different design phases at a pace that is appropriate for the innovation challenge. Since each innovation challenge is unique, and students are encouraged to work at a pace that is healthy and positive for them, students may move to different phases at different times throughout the year.

A Jewish day school that prioritizes grounding an innovation zone in Jewish tradition and values would promote the connection to the Jewish community and Jewish peoplehood that we long to continue while setting up its students for future success, both professionally and as global citizens. At this school, students develop a strong work ethic because what they are doing matters. Their advisors, mentors, and peers encourage them to push through challenges they encounter during the process, fostering the resilience skills our students need for their future occupations and lives. Moreover, students build meaningful relationships with mentors who can offer real-life experiences and who push the students to think creatively and innovatively.

Dr. Eliana Lipsky completed her doctorate in curriculum and instruction at Loyola University of Chicago and both a Master's and Bachelor's degrees from Boston University in History. Dr. Lipsky taught middle school History and Tanakh at JCDS, Boston's Jewish Community Day School for many years, where she also mentored new teachers. Dr. Lipsky worked for five years as an administrator, project coordinator, school consultant, and teacher coach with REACH, a Federation-sponsored organization that serves over fifteen Jewish day schools in the Chicago area. Dr. Lipsky is currently a fellow in the Day School Leadership Training Institute. 

Dr. Lipsky has extensive training in teacher education, curriculum and instruction, problem-based learning, and inclusive classrooms. She has published articles on teaching, 21st century literacy, and pluralism in both educational and Jewish educational journals. Dr. Lipsky has taught professional development workshops and seminars for teachers on differentiated instruction, classroom management, authentic assessment, and standards and benchmarks, and created tools for schools to best assess students' academic, social-emotional, and physical needs.

The Small Jewish Day School. 

Is it defined by community size (10,000 or fewer Jews) or by student body (less than 150 children) or by budget (under $1.5 million)? I’m sort of pulling those numbers out of thin air. But not entirely. While schools that fit one or more of those criteria can look substantially different, they share a set of constraints—and advantages—that are different from schools in larger communities with more students and bigger budgets. 

Last month, a couple of dozen Heads of School and Development Directors from small day schools across North America met in Austin for a three-day retreat. Some of us were from relatively small communities, like Omaha and Gainesville. Some work at small schools in larger communities, like Seattle and Los Angeles. All of us work with relatively small budgets and tight fundraising opportunities. 

The great thing about this retreat was that it was almost entirely peer-led and tachlis-focused. Colleagues shared their successful strategies for addressing issues ranging from student recruitment to individualized learning plans, annual campaigns to staff supervision. The combination of curiosity and openness led to some valuable take-aways: 

• It’s really hard to hire qualified Judaic and Hebrew teachers for small schools. New graduates from the top Jewish education programs are gobbled up by larger institutions in cities with big Jewish—and, especially, young Jewish—populations. Nothing we can do about that beyond leaping at targets of opportunity when they surface.
   
• Creative management makes a big difference. To balance the budget and maintain educational excellence, leaders of small day schools have figured out how to apply strategies like merging grades, encouraging non-Jewish enrollment, and employing teachers less than full time. These specific policies aren’t appropriate everywhere, but the approach can be generalized.
   
• There’s no substitute for effective PR. We saw brochures and annual reports and websites that not only looked impressive, but communicated inspiring stories about the value and impact of the day school experience. Lots of us are in competition with other Jewish day schools, independent private schools, excellent public schools, synagogue Hebrew schools. We cannot afford to rest on our reputations.
   
• Let’s not constantly reinvent the proverbial wheel—which is why it’s so useful for Prizmah to provide a venue for face-to-face interactions among small school leaders. As fascinating and inspirational Prizmah’s big biennial conference is, the three days in Austin was a lot more useful. 

In Edmonton, where I work, our school has a long history, a well-deserved reputation for academic excellence, and general support within the Jewish Federation and community at large. We also have a unique relationship with the public school system, which takes some of the ongoing budgetary pressure off. But I don’t take any of that for granted. Like my colleagues from Durham, Ann Arbor, Memphis, Akron, and lots of other places, maintaining the success of my school and building it for the future requires me to keep an open mind about new solutions to old problems. Our children, and the future of our Jewish communities, literally depend on that.

By Gerald L. Sorokin
Executive Director Edmonton Talmud Torah Society 

Photo by David Finkel Photography