Ten Ways Textbooks Enable Programmatic Experiences

Last week, we discussed why we believe in textbooks, and articulated why we think they’re important. In that article, we kept mentioning that textbooks aren’t boring if they’re used properly. Of course, that sort of talk flies in the face of the assumption that the only way to use a textbook is to read it out loud — paragraph by paragraph and line by line, or to instruct students to sit and read by themselves. It’s an incorrect assumption.

Textbooks can enable exciting, interactive, programmatic learning experiences. They should not be equated with static, frontal — boring! — learning. Learning with textbooks can be more exciting than learning without them. Textbooks can increase the amount of active learning that takes place in classrooms. They can be the sources for debates, drama, creative experiences, research and a lot of other idea learning moments.

So what do we mean when we talk about using textbooks “properly”? Here are ten exciting, interesting, and fun ways to use textbooks in the classroom:

Not So Sure About Woocher’s “New Approach”

by Joel Lurie Grishaver

Jonathan Woocher is chief ideas officer at JESNA (Jewish Educational Service of North America) and director of the Lippman Kanfer Institute. He once thought that religion would disappear in the North American Jewish community and that all would be left would be secular institutions.

He has said,

“From an educational standpoint, there is good reason to welcome a situation in which learners drive the agenda. The learning itself will be more powerful and more enduring when it responds to authentic questions, when the learner actively seeks out the answers to these questions, and when there is ample room for diverse learning styles and formats.”

When he wrote that a few years ago, that sort of thinking was a breath of fresh air, and it was especially poignant for day school educators. At the time, booming enrollments and adequate funding gave them the opportunity to do some innovative things in their classrooms, and Woocher’s notion of learner-directed education was very helpful.

With the recent economic downturn spurring reports that day school enrollment is down, Dr. Woocher is now thinking about supplemental schools. In an article published in the recent edition of The Jewish Week, Woocher wrote:

“At JESNA, we believe that every family that wants to send its children to a quality day school should be able to do so. And we want the same for those choosing supplementary education. It will take some creative thinking and a lot of collaboration. But it’s doable, and we’re working now with our partners in central agencies across North America to make that vision a reality.”

He gives the following example of this free choice in action.

“Take a day school family now seeking an intensive supplementary program, perhaps one that meets eight or 10 hours per week, rather than the typical four or five, and that emphasizes serious Hebrew literacy, either for purposes of conversation or text study in the original. Or, take a very different, but not uncommon family whose Jewishness is primarily cultural, not religious, or focused on social justice and activism. Perhaps the family has a child who is passionate and gifted in the arts and wants to approach her or his Jewish learning through this lens. Perhaps the family is an interfaith one, and seeks a Jewish educational program that is uniquely sensitive to their life issues.”

There are only a few problems with this thinking. First, it does no good in Shreveport, Louisiana and places like it, where there are fewer than thirty students in the combined religious school. Filling classes, finding teachers, and enabling success is the problem. Offering alternative school models is beyond fantasy. This is exactly the problem that the Institute for Southern Jewish Life is successfully focusing on, and they are doing it by going in the opposite direction. They are doing it by standardizing curriculum while training and inspiring teachers.

Second, this is not a moment in history to have great faith in market driven economies. My Rabbi and teacher, Shelly Dorph, used to worry about Gresham’s Law that states that “Bad money drives good money off the market.”

He was saying that given the decision making ability, families that want less will always control the level of Jewish education. That is how we moved from three days a week to two or one. Believing that there are a significant number of families who want ten to twelve hours a week of “Hebrew School” is one of the fastest ways of putting a school out of business.

The idea of involving families in making choices is a good idea. All the best of congregations are doing so in their visioning and executing of excellence. In Jack Wertheimer’s latest study he says, “Good schools regard families as allies and also clients.”

Dr. Woocher is right that we need to have our ears to the ground, that we need to offer options wherever possible, and the market place has room for entrepreneurs who want to find and serve niche markets.

Where he is wrong, however, just as he was wrong about civil religion, is that Jewish life begins and progresses as community. This is not the time to follow the rules of the market place, but of the extended family who knows how to meet the needs of each member.

Torah Aura Professional Development Webinars

Are you looking for interesting, innovative, and inexpensive ways to improve your skill set as a teacher or educator? Do you use (or are you thinking about using) Torah Aura materials in your school? Are you bummed because you’re missing the professional development opportunities that used to be offered by CAJE?

If the answer to any of those questions is yes, then we’ve got a great solution for you:

Torah Aura Professional Development Webinars.

Using the latest and greatest technology, the team at Torah Aura Productions is excited to bring you a series of six online workshops designed to help you become a more skilled professional who makes the most of the materials you use in your school. These webinars are absolutely free and are available to you while you sit at your computer in the privacy of your home or office.

Here are the first six Torah Aura Professional Development Webinars that we’re offering in the coming weeks:

Teacher’s Clinic for Using the Torah Aura Hebrew/Prayer Program
Tuesday, July 21 at 10:30 am Pacific / 1:30 pm Eastern
Missed the webinar? Click here to watch a video.

Do you use Torah Aura Hebrew/Prayer materials in your school? In this webinar, we’ll first examine the philosophy behind Torah Aura’s Hebrew/prayer materials (S’fatai Tiftah, Journeys Through the Siddur, and/or Pirkei T’fillah). Then, we’ll transition into a practical discussion of how to make the materials work in the classroom. By the end of the webinar, participants will have a firm grasp on…

• the philosophy behind the Torah Aura Hebrew/Prayer Program
• the goals of teaching Hebrew and prayer
• the pieces that make up a chapter of the Torah Aura Hebrew/Prayer Program
• how to use the accompanying teacher’s guides and home resources
• how to plan a lesson
• how to make Hebrew/prayer learning experiential and exciting, and
• how to pace the curriculum over the course of a semester or year.

Real Siddur Teaching: A Guide for Educators
Tuesday, August 4 at 11 am Pacific / 2 pm Eastern
Click here to sign up.

This is a session about the philosophy of teaching Hebrew and Prayer in the supplementary school. We’ll examine goals, objectives, and some ideas for successful implementation of a Hebrew/Prayer curriculum. By the end of the webinar, participants will have a firm grasp on how to make a Hebrew/Prayer curriculum work in their schools, including the five elements that build towards the goal of enabling students to be meaningful pray-ers.

Everything You Need to Know About Using Teacher’s Guides
Wednesday, August 12 at 4 pm Pacific / 7 pm Eastern
Click here to sign up.

Lots of principals buy teacher’s guides for their teachers, but these hefty volumes often end up (at best) being quickly skimmed in the few minutes before class or (at worst) a permanent fixture in the teacher’s car trunk. In this webinar, we’ll talk about how Torah Aura teacher’s guides are designed, and help teachers make the most out of them. Attendees should have a teacher’s guide handy as they participate in the webinar.

Making Israel Come Alive: Using Artzeinu in the Classroom
Thursday, August 13 at 11 am Pacific / 2 pm Eastern
Click here to sign up.

Teaching Israel in a supplementary school setting presents a number of challenges. How can we teach appreciation and love of Israel to students who haven’t visited? How can we present the real Israel while at the same time trying to inculcate the values of Zionism? How do we address all the richness and diversity of Israel given our limited time and resources?

This webinar will address all these challenges and more, and will introduce teachers to using Artzeinu: An Israel Encounter to teach Israel from an historical, cultural, Biblical, religious, and reality-based perspective.

The Magical Lifecycle Curriculum: Using The Circle of Jewish Life
Tuesday, August 25 at 10:30 am Pacific / 1:30 pm Eastern
Click here to sign up.

What happens when you want to talk about brit milah (or brit bat!) or death? How can we teach about the Jewish lifecycle in a way that’s engaging, sensitive, and empowering?

In this webinar we’ll discuss why the Jewish lifecycle can be a challenging part of your curriculum, and we’ll explore ways to use The Circle of Jewish Life to turn lifecycle learning into a series of magical experiences for your students.

This webinar will be useful to teachers and educators currently using The Circle of Jewish Life, as well as to anyone interested in “jazzing up” their lifecycle curriculum.

All About Eizehu Gibor: An Introduction to a New Way to Teach Jewish Heroes
Thursday, August 27 at 11 am Pacific / 2 pm Eastern
Click here to sign up.

Eizehu Gibor: Living Jewish Values is a new heroes book for fifth and sixth graders. It’s revolutionary in the way it integrates the traditional pantheon of Jewish heroes with a set of new heroes for a new generation. It’s also unique in the diversity of it’s heroes, and in the way it integrates living a life of Jewish values with the lives of heroes. This webinar will introduce you to Eizehu Gibor, and will highlight some of the elements that make it a unique curricular tool.

“Hineini”

by David Singer

David Singer, a student at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University, is the author of our new Israel book, Yisrael Sheli. He recently went on a trip with American Jewish World Service to Senegal, Africa. This is an account from that trip.

Standing on a rooftop, I looked around, and felt anywhere but home. As far as the eye could see was a morass of concrete and dirt. The thick humid air smelt of smoke. The sounds of donkeys, and horses, and a muezzin filled the air.

I was surrounded by twenty four colleagues – fellow rabbinical students from throughout the United States – as we prayed the morning service from atop a building in downtown Dakar, the capital of the West African nation of Senegal.

For two weeks, our delegation joined the American Jewish World Service to work with its grantee, Tostan, aiding in community-led development in rural villages facing extreme poverty throughout Africa.

No prior experience could have prepared me for what I saw in Senegal: children with flies in their eyes; distended bellies; open sores; bare feet; hunger; sickness; a land parched by drought. At first glance, the place seemed like hell. How could God allow such a place to exist?