A New Journey

It's been a LONG time since I've posted anything.  In the intervening years, I've continued to do a little consulting, eventually retired, and my husband and I have moved from Rockville, MD to Delaware.

The move was a HUGE step - we'd lived in the same home in Rockville for 39 years.  But we're loving our new life, our new friends, and our new activities!

Establishing A Madrichim Program

I had the privilege and honor last month of being asked to present two workshops at the Annual JEA Conference. The second one was entitled "Madrichim: They're Not Just for Photocopying Anymore!"

As with any good program plan, we set the framework out at the beginning:

· Define your program objectives

· Establish criteria for participation

· Overcome barriers

· Assess and amend

DEFINE YOUR PROGRAM OBJECTIVES

It’s well worth expending some serious time to figure out exactly what you’re looking for in this program (eg, classroom assistants, one-on-one tutors, service leaders, teachers-in-training, etc.) The skill sets vary somewhat from category to category, as do the job requirements.

Your program will also vary depending on the needs that you’re trying to address. Some of them might include the following: teachers who need an extra set of hands; students who need some one-on-one assistance or attention; teens who need to fill a meaningful role in congregational life; teens that you’re trying to keep involved post-b’nai mitzvah for whom taking classes just won’t cut it. In most of our programs, we try to address several needs. That’s okay – but you should identify for yourself what your primary need is. That will help with marketing the program.

Finally, your approach will be different depending on whether you begin a new program or modify an existing one. Each presents challenges, but each has specific advantages, too.

ESTABLISH CRITERIA FOR PARTICIPATION

Here are some questions you’ll need to think through in the early stages of planning your program:

1. Who is eligible to participate? (consider: teens, teachers, students)

2. What availability is required? (during sessions, outside of the school “day”)

3. Is there an application process?

4. Is there a selection process? (is it fair and how is it communicated to applicants)

5. What skill set are you looking for? How much flexibility are you willing to give?

6. Is training required?

a. Pre-service?

b. During the year?

7. Who will make the assignments?

8. Who will supervise/assess the madrichim?

In smaller schools – or sometimes with beginning programs – this work is initially assumed primarily by the Education/School Director. I encourage you to collaborate with either another staff person or a member of your school committee in the planning process. They can be of immense help is seeing things that might not otherwise be on our radar.

BARRIERS TO OVERCOME (aka “Things I’ve learned the hard way, so you don’t have to!”)

For many teens this is a first job (regardless of whether they’re being paid or volunteering)

What does that mean? It means they may not know about proper dress; about showing up “on time” – or a few minutes before class starts; about turning the phones to “vibrate;” about not texting during class; about taking the ear plugs out of their ears (even when the iPod is turned off!; about signing in when they arrive; about filling out paper work; about accepting directions gracefully; about how to talk to kids, their classroom teacher, and parents; about….. you get the idea! Two pieces of advice on this barrier – 1) don’t skip this step in training; and 2) catch them on infractions early and consistently, so they understand that you’re serious. Written, explicit job descriptions, incorporated into madrichim job contracts help. Contact me for a sample, if you’d like.

Teachers’ inexperience – or unwillingness – to work with madrichim

Many teachers simply don’t know “what to do” with these extra, often-significantly-larger bodies in their classrooms. We select our early childhood teachers based on their ability to connect with students in grades PreK-2 – and now we’re asking them to work with high schooler? Some of our teachers are intuitive and have difficulty articulating what they’re doing with their students and how an aide can help. Some are not very well organized and can’t do the extra piece that provides meaningful work for madrichim. Some simply don’t want to bother. Training here can be really helpful – training with teachers alone (perhaps before the year begins); joint training with teachers and madrichim together (on the topic of working together – shortly after the year begins). Also joint professional development (on lesson planning, working with students with special needs, etc = whatever area your school needs to address) helps foster a sense of “teamness.”

Parent support - or lack thereof

This is critical, since oftentimes our younger madrichim don’t drive. Are parents willing/able to bring the madrichim when we need them? Are the family issues that complicate things (shared custody, for example)? Are there extra-curricular activities that might make it difficult for a madrich/ah to participate regularly? Planned absences – a football schedule or dramatic performance – are one thing; waking up in the morning and deciding it’s more fun to sleep in is entirely different.

Budget Impact

You probably should have a line item in your budget – to allocate costs accurately. Regardless of whether your madrichim volunteer, are paid entirely by the school, or the pay is covered half by families and half by the school – there are costs incurred. Food and materials for training sessions; communication time and vehicles (a weekly newsletter – hardcopy or email), supervision time, classroom observations, mailboxes/bulletin board space; holiday “thank yous” (especially if you provide them for your teaching staff), etc.

One school required students to wear school-provided polo shirts, with a logo that identified them as participants in the madrichim program. Another school provided baseball shirts for their madrichim and also required them to wear them. The madrichim in both cases weren’t thrilled at the idea, but over time became to realize that there was merit in being identified as a staff member.

Perhaps the biggest budgetary impact will be for the time of the person who is coordinating/supervising the madrichim program. This can be a shared responsibility, but the dollars allocated do need to be considered in your planning for the entire budget.

Ongoing training and assessment

Just as we plan for professional development for our teachers and ourselves, so must we plan for professional development for our madrichim. Identify who will do the training. What topics will be covered? What reflective piece will be included to determine if the training session met your goals?

The amount of training and the areas that you’ll cover will depend on the goals of your program. The session about On-The-Job training and expectations should remain constant despite the variations in your program. When you plan your training sessions, make sure you cover information that will enhance their skill set for the particular program you have on your site.

Provide feedback for your madrichim informally, when you observe them incorporating new information or strategies. Make yourself accessible so that they can ask you if they have any questions or concerns.

SUPERVISION AND ASSESSMENT

Just as we must do this for teachers, so must we establish a formal procedure for our madrichim. Consider who will do this, how it will be done, and make realistic projections for how much time it will entail. If you’d like a sample evaluation form, please let me know.

I used to promise my madrichim I’d write them recommendations (for jobs or for college) if they performed well as madrichim in our program. It made it easier for them to understand and accept the assessments of their performance, especially since I provided areas in which they could improve.

Questions?

Leave a comment and I’ll address them as soon as I can!

Thanks to the JEA for the opportunity!

Sh-e-e-e-e's B-a-a-a-ck!

It's been a long time since I posted regularly - a couple of postings on Torah study sessions I facilitated this fall, but nothing regular since mid-October. If you've been checking regularly without seeing a new post, thanks for coming back. I'll see if I can post more regularly in the months ahead.

Here's are some of the topics I hope to address (in no apparent order!) in the weeks ahead:

• Relationships with learners
• The biggest challenge in establishing a madrichim program
• Is there a place for "frontal" learning?
• "Celebrating Calm" - Kirk Martin's approach to working with "intense" kids
• Book Reviews
• Using technology effectively
• "Schools that Work"
• Building community
• Professional development

Aren't we lucky? We get TWO new years to celebrate each year - a second chance to pull things together and get back on the path we'd like to be on. So here's to new beginnings!

We're Here!

We’re in Israel. We arrived last evening at about 7:00 pm Israel time (12 noon EDT), to be greeted at our hotel by Steve Kerbel and Danny Siegel. Steve had a “welcome basket” for us – almonds, chocolates, and plums. It was nice to see a familiar face so soon!

The trip over was, well, a “trip.” Suffice it to say I broke my previous record by logging 32 hours of wakefulness. When I was young – and foolish??? – all-nighters were a part of the routine periodically. That was a LONG time ago.

First impressions of Israel?

The airport was big (so was Madrid’s, for that matter). Security lines moved quickly; everything was clearly marked, even for a non-Hebrew speaker. We were actually in and out of the airport in less than an hour. We were met by our pre-arranged taxi driver right on the other side of the gate, who reached for our luggage and got us on our way to Jerusalem in short order.

The drive from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was interesting. Taki pointed things out and gave us a mini-tour as we drove. We were both delighted to see directional signs to places we’d only read about – Petah Tikva, and Mod’in, to name just a couple.

We saw fences around Arab settlements, a prison holding Palestinians, and a demonstration in a Haredi neighborhood with a huge police presence. The reason for the demonstration? A woman who is a member of that community was arrested for child abuse. The community maintains that they have the right to discipline their own members – it’s not the police’s job to do that. From what Taki told us, however, the abuse had been sustained over a number of years, with hospitalizations along the way.

The situation was evidently well-known within the community. The resentment (and subsequent protests) resulted from the perceived interference of the “outsiders” (the State).

I wonder: who speaks for the children, who cannot speak for themselves? Isn’t it the obligation of the community to protect those who are defenseless?

Sometimes I wonder which is the group that presents the greatest danger to Israeli society: the Palestinians (who are a threat from without) or those Haredim (who are a threat from within)? Both are situations that are much more nuanced than I’ve presented here, I know, and yet…..

I also was curious about how I’d respond to the actual “land” of Israel. Full disclosure: I grew up in the lush farmlands of the State of Wisconsin, where the green is a treat for the eyes three-fourths of the year. The sky is “big” there, too – not as big as the Dakotas, but far bigger than Maryland. Heat makes me itch – brown, I interpret as “barren” and depressing. I’d read Walking the Bible, and seen lots of videos, movies and pictures of the land. With the exception of Ein Gedi and the Galilee, there didn’t appear to be a lot of what my psyche has had imprinted on it as “beautiful.” How would I respond to the “real thing?”

It is brown. Some parts are very barren. In some areas, there’s been reforestation – with trees I don’t recognize, but nonetheless, green spaces to gaze upon. In some areas (outside a couple of the Arab settlements) the hills leading up to the settlements were covered by olive trees. Not big – more what I would call “shrubs” in size instead of trees. Taki explained that olives are a vital crop in the Arab economy in those areas.

The land has a kind of grandeur to it. It’s hard and dry-looking with what appear to be terraced areas carved into many of the hills outside Jerusalem. It almost looks tired, if land can be described in human characteristics. Tired, but undefeated – it has seen much in the millennia – and has survived.

Jerusalem is busy – crazy traffic (people park on the sidewalks in some places), horns blaring, much construction. Our hotel is on King David Street, at the top of a hill. Walking downhill is a joy (winding around the construction and the sidewalk parking). Returning uphill is an experience best taken slowly – at least by this out-of-shape fifty-six year old.

But the breeze is a delight! And the evening cooled off nicely.

Today’s been a busy one – many impressions rolling through my mind. I’ll try to process them today and post them either later today or tomorrow.

A New Group of "Wanna-Be's"

A colleague and I are preparing for a new class of people who are thinking “maybe-I-wanna-be-a-Jewish-teacher.” The Lay Educators Institute (LEI) is funded in part by our local Federation.

This group will differ from the one we taught last fall primarily because none of the participants are currently teaching. Consequently, they won’t have an opportunity to mesh theory (what we present) and practice immediately.

Another difference is the class framework. Instead of 6 classes of two hours each, we’ll be teaching 4 classes of three hours each.

A final difference is that the participants won’t know each other (because they’re not working together) before the class begins and they won’t be able to share with each other or reflect on their classroom experience together between sessions.

It’ll be interesting to see how the group evolves.

When my colleague and I met earlier this week to plan, we began as we hope to teach our participants to begin: We began with the “Big Idea.” What is it, we asked ourselves, that we want the participants to come away from these classes with; what’s the most important thing they should know?

Ultimately, we decided on a couple of “Big Ideas.”

• We want them to know that teaching is all about relationships – the relationships they form with their students; the relationship they develop within themselves as a result of getting to know themselves better.


• We want them to know that being able to articulate a “big idea” for their year, their unit, and their individual class is the cornerstone of effective planning/teaching. Without the “big idea,” the rest simply doesn’t hang together well or consistently.


• We want them to know that “reflective practice” (the ability to stop and self-assess) will make a qualitative difference in how they interact with their students.

Then we made some key decisions about how we would get there.

1. Instead of “telling,” we will do: learning will be interactive, incorporating different learning strategies and incorporating a variety of techniques.


2. We will provide a wide variety of handouts, with multiple handouts on the same topic. Our goal is to present the same information through different “voices” in order to help them find a voice that speaks to them.


3. At the end of each class, we will “stop action” and delineate clearly what we did, the big ideas behind our choices, the strategies we used – and offer participants an opportunity to critique our effectiveness.

I’m psyched:
*I value the opportunity to teach with this colleague: we bring out the best in each other.
*It’ll be fun to change things and shake the learning up a bit.
*I love the opportunity to work with adults who want to make a difference in the lives of our kids.

Stay tuned!

Pesach is Coming!

Update: Since this was written, in 2004, both children have graduated from college. Our Seder table is filled with friends we’ve had seder with for almost 20 years – and their grown children; with cousins who live in town; and adult friends of our kids’ who come to learn and to share. In re-reading this one more time, I’m struck again by my in-laws’ generosity in welcoming me in to their family, in sharing their rituals and customs so lovingly, and in supporting and sustaining us through the difficulties we’ve faced. We’ve been blessed.

Pesach is coming! Pesach is coming! The mantra in my mind begins shortly after Tu B'shevat, when I walk into grocery stores and see the first boxes of matzah stacked in the aisle. "Oh, no," I think, "Pesach is coming. I've got to get ready."

When I began to explore Judaism, Pesach was the most overwhelming of all of the rituals or practices. My husband-to-be took me home to his parents' in '78 before we got married. I'd been there often enough to recognize the pervasive changes in his mother’s kitchen. I panicked -- I knew I could never "keep Pesach" the way she did.... I suspected you had to be "born Jewish" in order to know all the rules... I had no intention of converting at that point. We had decided to raise our children as Jews and maintain a Jewish home -- and it would be my husband’s responsibility to pull those pieces together.

We continued to "go home for Seder" for the next couple of years, when we could. The holiday became more familiar, but no less overwhelming. By this time, I was studying with Rabbi Gene Lipman, z'l, and (although I had not yet decided to convert) knew that to "do Pesach" would take more than just my husband’s efforts -- it would have to be a family affair. I asked my mother-in-law how she ever managed to remember everything. She shared with me her “secret for remembering details" when she showed me her manila folder labeled "Pesach." Huh! I realized that meant we wouldn't have to remember everything -- just where we put the folder. Maybe this was possible after all.

In 1982, the emotional content attached to Pesach struck me with full force. That year, my mother-in-law greeted us at the door with outstretched arms as she took her grandson from me. "Pesach is coming," she crooned, "Pesach is here!"

Our son had been born 8 weeks prematurely the preceding fall. His English names remembered three out of his four great-grandfathers. But when it came to the name he would be called to Torah, I flat-out refused to name him "Fishel." "No son of mine is going to be called Little Fish," I sniffed to Rabbi Lipman. Gene grinned, as only Gene could when he knew he'd stirred up a storm, and suggested that we consider a name beginning with the "pey" sound. He made some suggestions. Finally, I settled on "Pesach" thinking, how appropriate it was for this child who had been so at-risk. My husband concurred: our son became Pesach.

That year, my father-in-law read from the haggadah (Maxell House, of course -- was there any other?) the mandate to tell the story as if we ourselves had been saved. I watched that little baby being passed around the table from person to person and the full impact began to sink in. For the first time since his birth six months earlier, I paused in my busy-ness. My son -- by the grace of God and modern medicine -- had been saved. The Angel of Death didn't stop by his crib in the Neonatal ICU. No sooner had I begun to grasp that reality than another one struck. By our decision, he would be Jewish -- no, that wasn't exactly accurate: by my decision he would be Jewish.

I could have said, "no," you see -- I could have said to my husband when we were courting: "Gee, I can't agree to raise our kids Jewish." Or "Gee, if that's what you want, I can't marry you." But I had agreed -- and the emotional import of that decision was beginning to make itself felt. By agreeing to raise our children as Jews in a Jewish household, I had also agreed not to raise them with the meaningful traditions I had grown up with. The holiday rituals, the life cycle rituals, the ebb and flow of the annual calendar, the sense of spirituality and the Divine -- all would be from his tradition and none from mine.

So along with the sense of redemption came a sense of loss. And I was struck again by how "in sync" I felt with how I imagined the Israelites must have felt -- leaving the familiar (even if, in their case, it was so bad) for the unknown must have involved a sense of loss as well as excitement, relief and liberation. How could it be otherwise?

When we went home that year, I bought a manila folder and inserted in it my mother-in-law’s recipe for chicken soup with matzah balls and my father-in-law’s recipe for matzah brei. It was a beginning.

Over the next few years, we made many decisions: when to clean and how much; who to ask to seder; what haggadah; separate dishes or not -- and did that mean pots & pans, too?; which foods to serve; who gets the afikoman prize; to sing or not (traditionally, my husband’s family didn't -- we do, but not a lot!). There was the year that Pesach only ate Cheerios (before the Kosher for Passover substitute) -- that was the year I declared Cheerios were "kosher-for-Passover-but-only-in-the-kitchen." My orthodoxly-raised mother-in-law rose to the occasion: she kept a spare box in the laundry room! Pesach was coming, you see.

Or the year that both my kids were eating only peanut butter. I was *not* going to spend 8 days in food wars -- that's not my definition of freedom. So peanut butter (a new jar untainted by bread crumbs) was declared "kosher l'pesach" by Rabbi Mom. (It was interesting to note that the Conservative Rabbis followed suit four years later!)

There was the year my daughter begged me to buy extra boxes of sugared fruit slices because all her friends kept snitching hers. And the year, my father-in-law and his brother-in-law grated horseradish root in the kitchen -- and the fumes were so intense their tears flowed freely -- and the rest of us were in gales of laughter for hours. (My father-in-law got a horseradish dish for Chanukah the following year -- and the laughter began all over). Or the year that I put symbols of the plagues on the table and challenged the kids to figure out which symbols represented which plague -- my kids were disdainful: they were too old for such nonsense. But next year, they searched until they found where I’d stashed the toys and insisted that they be on the table.

Or the year -- the one that ended up being our last all together -- when against familial protests, I inserted an adaptation of "The Four Children" entitled "The Four Generations." That reading ends: "And what about the grandparents, whose question is almost too difficult to ask? To the grandparents you shall say, "Look around the table. All of this and more." That was the year my in-laws schlepped chicken soup and pot roast on the plane from Florida – and my father-in-law again commandeered my kitchen to make matzah brei. The following year, we cried our way through seder: my mother-in-law had died unexpectedly right before Purim.

This year, Pesach is coming home early (spring break doesn't coincide), but he's asked to take Grandpa's matzah brei recipe back for his dorm mates. It will be our last Passover with our daughter home. I'll dig out my folders (they've grown to four), find my recipe for Passover granola, and decide that closets don't have to be cleaned, since we don't normally eat there and what would chametz being doing in the closet any way...

Tears and laughter; laughter and tears. Over time as the journey unfolded, the rituals have become as familiar as a favorite sweatshirt. Truth be told -- I find the preparations for Passover still almost overwhelming. But there is familiarity in the overwhelming-ness. I enjoy the Seder, and take comfort that it's finally become familiar -- but it's not my favorite part.

My favorite part of Passover? When I sit at the kitchen table on the first morning of Pesach -- crunching my matzah, watching the birds, rediscovering all my favorite Passover accoutrements. My house is clean, my menus planned for the next eight days, the office is closed. I pause. And remember. And feel connected to the generations of Jews who have gone before us. And I thank the Eternal for both life and freedom -- and the gift of being able to choose and recommit.

Pesach is coming! Pesach is coming! Excuse me, I've got to get ready!

Teachers

Before the week is out, I will have participated in staff orientations at six different programs in the last month. I’ve presented content (on differentiation, on working with parents), participated in ice-breaking activities, oriented staff to new responsibilities, and responded to questions about programs that haven’t yet been fleshed out. I’ve also participated in work sessions with teachers working to articulate the "big ideas" in the materials they'll be teaching this year. I've brainstormed with colleagues who are in new settings this year. I’ve gone to Burlington, VT for CAJE; New Haven, CT for a family wedding; and consulted via phone with a wonderful colleague from Michigan, who has inspired me to push myself in new directions. I’ve worked intensely with a couple of communities in the midst of unanticipated transitions. And I’ve scrambled to help implement two new programs regionally – both directed at building our next generation of religious school teachers. With all due respect to Nat “King” Cole, those “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer” WEREN’T.

What I’ve come away with is a deeper sense of appreciation for the commitment of the men and women who choose to spend a chunk of their discretionary time teaching Hebrew, holidays, prayers, values, history, peoplehood, CONNECTION to the youngsters in our communities.

For the most part, our teachers are “avocational” – that means teaching is not their main vocation. They come to us for orientation and planning at the end of the work day. Some cut their family vacations short or arrive back at their colleges early. They come tired and anxious, eager and apprehensive about the coming year. Which students will be part of their classes? What’s different this year from last? How will they structure their time? They come, knowing that the work in which they are about to engage is significant. They know that they need help – in content areas, organization, confidence, working with certain types of students and/or parents. Some are confident in their knowledge level; others see only how little they know. They know that the time is too short, that the task is too great: “You are not required to complete the work, but you are not free to abandon it.” (Pirke Avot; 2:16)

But the bottom line is that they come… week in and week out, they come.

All our teachers will struggle at some point this coming year. All will try to juggle commitments to home and family, their “real” job, and their religious school classes. Some will be more successful this year than others. How do I define “success?” Success, in my mind, is the ability “to reach and teach.” First comes the connection – and then the student and teacher are available to grapple with content together.

My wish for you – for all of us – is “smooth beginnings, a year of enough challenges to grow and learn (but not so many that we’re overwhelmed!), and a recognition that we can make a difference.”