Let Me Count the Ways: Connecting with Israel

by Carol Oseran Starin and Idie Benjamin

We who work in the American Jewish community believe that it is possible to have a vibrant, committed Judaism here. A strong connection to Israel is crucial to creating that community. Israel is the historic and eternal homeland of the Jewish people. Connection to Israel deepens our Jewish identity on every level. As educators, we must make sure that our students and their families are deeply connected to Israel in intelligent and authentic ways. They must know Israel and care about Israel — not just when Israel needs our support but every day in as many ways as possible.

Here are 3 important kinds of connections:

1. Connect yourself. You must be knowledgeable for your own sake. You must know Israel and be connected yourself. You may teach second graders, but you must have an adult understanding of Israel. You may not be teaching the “History of Israel” course, but you must know all 4000 plus years of Jewish history. You must know the politics, geography, ecology, culture, etc. of Israel. You must know what is happening in Israel right now (and on days when Israel is not on MSNBC and CNN). Take a course, read a book, check the news on line with the Jerusalem Post (jpost.com) and HaAretz (haaretz.com). Use the web for yourself and for the classes you teach.

You must be knowledgeable for the sake of your students. Now more than ever, you must be prepared to answer questions that your students have about Israel. Facts and information given in age appropriate ways will help even the youngest students to be less fearful and more connected.

2. Connect your school. Israel needs to be an important component of the curriculum. Your school needs a well-thought out spiraling curriculum. The BIG QUESTION—what should a child know at what age? There are some very good materials available from publishers. What this can lead to, unfortunately, is the third graders and the fifth graders having an Israel course while Israel is not “taught” in the other years. Everyone should be involved in Israel learning of some kind each year.

3. Connect your students in large and small ways.

Here is a list of ideas and strategies from our “5 Things Advisory Group.”

• Use Hebrew. It is the language of the Jewish people. Children should hear it as much as possible. All teachers should be able to read Hebrew and to have a few words/phrases they can use. Boker tov, B’vakashah, Todah, Kitah, etc.

• Make sure you have an Israeli flag in your class. Learning why that flag looks the way it does is a great story.
• Hang a map of Israel. Beth Huppin suggests that having a map makes it easy to refer to when a Torah lesson mentions a specific place in Israel or when a current event is being discussed. If you find yourself with five minutes of time between lessons, use the map to review places in Israel.
• Fran Pearlman’s school uses the AdventureLand map of Israel. It’s a 25 foot blow up map that comes with activities for every age. Students can actually stand on the map and “be in a city” or place.
• Designate part of the bulletin board for Israel news items, photos of Israeli leaders past and present.
• Connect every subject to Israel. Examples:
  Holidays—How do Israelis celebrate them?
  Prayer—Point out the references to Israel in the tefilot.
  Values—Teach about the mitzvah heroes here and in Israel.
  Ecology—Visit the Israel nature sites.
  Community—Jewish communities from all over the world are in Israel. What are their customs, foods, music, dress, etc?
  American Jewry—Golda Meir, Henrietta Szold, Hadassah, UJC, etc.
  Music and Art—Israeli hip hop and Israeli art and artists

• Arrange for “pen pals.” Mike Fixler’s classes corresponded with a class from Ra’anana. He says the idea of a Jewish homeland hits “home” even more when the kids have real people they are connecting with.
• Adopt kids. One of Ira Wise’s classes is adopting two kids at Emunah Afula as pen pals. Students in Kitah Bet and Kitah Zayin will be writing and e-mailing. Emunah Afulah provides both residential and non-residential care to children in at-risk family situations in the north of Israel. This website is the place to find them and Director Shlomo Kessel is the person to contact.
• Write letters. A ninth grade teacher had his students write to the parents of the kidnapped soldiers. They got red bracelets from Magen David Adom and will use them to raise tzedakah for Israel.
• Teach Hatikvah. Study the meaning of the words and the history of the song (just google ‘hatikvah’). What were the words prior to 1948? What changed? Why?
• Read Israeli poetry/stories (Amichai, Agnon, Bialik).
• Learn about Israel’s agricultural advances and programs, using resources from JNR.
• Invite Israelis or people that have visited Israel to come to class, show pictures and tell stories.
• Find one or several good tzedakah organizations—look at www.ziv.org—with your class, choose a year-long project.
• Connect with teachable moments. Marian Gorman suggests that even jewelry provides a connection.
• “Many of us have jewelry we purchased in Israel. Kids notice what we wear. When they say, isn’t that pretty, I can answer, “I bought that in the Cardo. What a place! Brand new shops carved into the caves directly across from the Western Wall. Do you know that you can still see…” or “Ben Yehudah Street. Do you know who ben Yehudah was?” or “That’s made out of Roman glass.”
• Create a school wide program. Ira’s school will have an Israel exhibition in March. During the month of January, all teachers will relate Israel to their regular curricular goals. For example, the life-cycle class in 3rd grade might look at weddings in Israel: on Kibbutz, in Tel Aviv and in B’nai Brak; or the 4th grade holiday class might look at holidays through an Israeli lens; Bible class might do some archaeology, etc. Then each class will prepare an exhibit based on what they learned/researched. The Exhibition will be open during school in March and will be featured over a Shabbat as well.
• Make the collection of money meaningful in age- appropriate ways. The Lokay center at the Leo Baeck School in Haifa is sending money for school supplies to the 30 schools that were damaged. Sharon Morton’s school is collecting $5.00 from every child to fill backpacks for Israeli children (they are sending money-not ‘stuff’ because they want to use Israeli merchants for the products. But saying it fills a backpack is a great connection for the children—and an image they can relate to.
• In Susan Edelstein’s school the fifth grade is also partnered with the Lokay program. Students write to each other, tell about their families and their daily lives, share their hope and dreams. They will also have at least one videoconference during the year so students can see each other and have a conversation in real time.
• Rabbi Susie Moskowitz’s school partnered with a school in Israel and did two different projects. For one project students designed identity cards—tehudot zechut together and then filled them out and added digital picture to exchange. Then, the two school exchanged maps marked with place their families came from. Students could compare similarities and differences in countries of origin between Jerusalmites and New York Jews. For the second project students exchanged videos about the life of a 6th grader.
• Israel was the year-long theme at Pesha Loike’s day school. One piece of the program was a 6 week “tour” of Israel. Each week the entire school “visited” a city in Israel. They had in-class lesson plans and a variety of school wide programs. One of the highlights was the costume parade put on by a different class each week. The class dressed up as residents of the city they were all “visiting.”
• Check out some of the fine materials on the web. Iris Petroff wrote to share that ARZA has put together a wonderful packet for Reform congregations. Find it here.
• Also see the excellent curricular pieces from the Jewish Education Center of Cleveland. Find great stuff by clicking here.

Make an “Israel Plan” this year—even if—especially if—it’s not part of your prescribed curriculum. Connect yourself and your students in as many ways as possible.

An insight from Sharon Halper:

Open as many portals to caring for and about Israel that you can.

One person’s Land of refuge is another’s Biblical Promised Land. For every person who dreams of diving in Eilat or camping in the Negev, there is another who sees himself at a Yeshiva overlooking the Kotel. For every science student that admires Israel’s research and loves google.com, there is the news junkie that understand Israel’s place as the only democracy in the Middle East. So, open the doors and teach (at least) 5 Israels!

Thanks to: Idie Benjamin, Iris Petroff, Ira Wise, Shira Raviv Schwartz, Beth Huppin, Sacha Kopin, Sharon Halper, Sharon Morton, Sandi Intraub, Mike Fixler, and Marian Gorman, Fran Pearlman, Rabbi Susie Moskowitz, Pesha Loike, Susan Edelstein.

Did You Know?

by Laurie Bellet

There is a wonderful website (www.teachers.net) offering insights and tidbits regarding every area of education. My favorite spot is the ‘fine arts’ chatboard where I get brilliant input from the entire nation of art educators. I have not yet explored the full website. Let us know your favorite spots!

In the Nasco (my favorite) catalog there is a product known as “snap-in” buttons. These make a super first day activity for name tags. Individually personalized, they are ready for immediate wear. Save them for the year to use with substitutes, specialists and other classroom guests.

Double-Dipping to Disaster

by Joel Lurie Grishaver

The Hebrew part of the supplemental school is the part most rapidly sliding into the abyss. First we made it impossible. Research clearly shows that second language acquisition takes one interaction every seventy-two hours in order to move material from short term memory to long-term memory. We (and by we I me the American Jewish Community—not the educational professionals) shortened the three day a week school that was sufficient; into the one and two day a week studying Hebrew school that is insufficient. The very time frame of the school mandates a good deal of failure. It is not the school’s fault. It is not the teacher’s fault. It is the time-frame’s fault. So we abandoned Hebrew language and focused only on prayer Hebrew, the very path that led to the self-destruction of the vibrant Jewish community of Alexandria, Egypt.

Our solution is to constantly reteach that which we were insufficiently able to convey the previous year. We see schools that spend two or three years learning to identify the letters (using pre-primers) then another two years learning to read that alphabet (using two primers sequentially). When you add to that the schools need to devote a month or two reviewing the basic Hebrew alphabet every fall (to compensate for summer), it is now possible to learn the Hebrew alef-bet seven years in a row in some supplemental schools.

Once the complaint was, “All we ever learn about is the Jewish holidays.” Today, the complaint could easily be, “All we ever do is learn the Hebrew alphabet.” I am not telling you that some students fail to show mastery. I can tell you who they are right now: The oral-aural learners, the psychomotor learners, the whole to part analytical learners. If you are not a part to whole, visual, linear processor, Hebrew phonics is not the road for you—and that can be some thirty to forty percent of our Hebrew school students. Our solution is to reteach exactly the same material two years in a row. If one pre-primer doesn’t take, reboot and stick in a second one. When one primer doesn’t do the job, just apply a second, identical primer. Forget the message we are communicating, just think how many students are going either, “Boring,” or “I am stupid.”

I am not saying that review is wrong. Nor I am suggesting that we can successfully do the job for all of our students. What I am saying, is that teaching EXACTLY the same thing two years in a row is wrong! If you need to repeat a pre-primer, use a second year pre-primer (like Marilyn Price and Friends…) that teaches more the second time round. If you need to repeat a primer, use one that teaches more than the first, like Ot la-Ba-ot, if you used a simpler one the year before. Let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot.

Let Me Count the Ways: What’s New?

by Carol O. Starin

There is no study without something new. (Hagigah 3a)

A new school year. It’s exciting. It’s daunting. And it’s challenging. As we learn from the Rabbis, it’s important to bring the “new” to our learning. Here are five ways to bring the “new” to your classroom.

1. Create new systems for taking attendance, collecting tzedakah or doing classroom chores. Put students in charge whenever possible.

• Take digital pictures of students. Print and mount them on tongue depressors or 3″x5″ cards. Keep the photos in a manila pocket, and when students enter the room, they move their photo to the “Here” pocket.
• Choose a tzedakah project and involve students in the process. Encourage students to give and help them know that their dollars are making a difference. Check out www.modestneeds.org.

2. Design a welcoming and attractive classroom environment. Make sure there is a balance between creating things FOR your students and inviting them to make the place their own.
• Use the classroom door as a bulletin board that welcomes parents and students. On the inside of the door place hanging pockets for notes and flyers to take home.
• Put up a Velcro word wall so that students can begin sticking up new words on the very first day of class.
• Arrange the furniture in groupings and plan interactive, hands-on lessons to encourage students to work together.
• Design a first-day project that students can complete and hang up.
• Write a message of welcome each session. Include two or three things students can expect to learn and do. With older students you may want to include a journaling question.
• Set up a kiosk to hang assignments, articles of interest or artwork.

3. Select a theme for the year that can be integrated into many areas of learning, including art, music, stories, bulletin boards, calendars and newsletters. Consider: Circles and Cycles; A Good Name (see February, page 16); Jewish Days and Jewish Months (see Rosh Hodesh on page 24), for example.

4. Choose a mitzvah project that integrates your major area of concentration, is ongoing, and is one in which students can actively participate. Go to www.ZIV.org for mitzvah project ideas.

5. Plan a year-long project that begins on the first day, builds and grows throughout the year, and becomes part of the culminating project in June. Examples: Parashah-stained-glass windows (see December, page 12), Alef-Bet dictionaries, a Torah museum, a genealogy project.

Remember, the “new” must be “new”. Check with last year’s teachers to make sure you are not repeating something students did last year.

Ten Websites

Here are ten websites to inspire new ideas and new strategies as you plan your new school year. Use ideas that fit your needs and make them Jewish.

1. Teachers Helping Teachers at www.pacificnet.net/~mandel/. This site has lesson plans, resources, and a great section on classroom management.

2. Find everything from attendance to ways to motivate students at www.atozteacherstuff.com/Tips/index.shtml.

3. The Responsive Classroom offers techniques for creating a learning community at www.newhorizons.org/strategies/democratic/gimbert.htm.

4. For excellent resources on Multiple Intelligences go to www.newhorizons.org/strategies/mi/front_mi.htm.

5. Find information on Bloom’s Taxonomy at www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html and for applying Bloom’s Taxonomy at www.teachers.ash.org.au/researchskills/dalton.htm.

6. Harry Wong wrote The First Days of School. This website includes a summary of his major concepts. Go to www.glavac.com/harrywong.htm.

7. Understanding By Design (UbD) focuses on understanding as the core of learning. Check it out at www.authenticeducation.org/ubd.html.

8. A Kagan Structure is a content-free classroom structure that stresses active learning and equality of participation. Check it out at www.kaganonline.com/KaganClub/FreeArticles/ASK10.html.

9. Jacob Richman’s hotsites have dozens of Jewish sites at www.jr.co.il/hotsites/j-hdayil.htm.

10. www.CAJE.org. CAJE is a great organization to join. Check out their website. You will find curricular resources for crisis and response curricula and networking weblinks for a wonderful list of Jewish sites.