| Educational
Information |
High School-Tefillah: Ramaz
recently hosted a yom iyun for high school teachers in
order to think about ways in which to improve
tefillah. During the program there were two
presentations: Rabbi Jay Goldmintz spoke about "Educating Students
toward Meaningful Tefillah: Rabbi Herschel
Schachter spoke about "Halachik Issues Confronting
Tefillah Educator."
Hot-line for Teachers
: A group of educators in Brooklyn founded
the hot-line "Mi'y'mini Michael" in memory of
Michael. Teachers can call in with questions and
situations they would like help with . The calling
hours are T, W, Th from 9 PM. The number is:
1-888-4-TALMID (482-5643). We can't
speak for the quality of the hotline, however, if any of
you use itm and want to share feedback, it would be
appreciated.
We refer you to the the
artilce that appeared in The Jewish Week about Day School School
Education. |
PEP
STAFF IN THE UNITED STATES
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Washington Area, March 31st-April 1st
New York, April 2-3
Los Angeles, April 4, 7-9
New York, Marck 31, April 10-11
Philadelphia, April 1-2
Boston, April 3-9
Atlanta, March 31-April 2
New York, New Jersey-April 3-4; April 11-14
Boston, April 6-7
San Fransisco, April
8-10 |
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Dear Hevre,
I am excited to introduce our first alumni
newsletter. I hope this will become a regular
venue for keeping you connected to Pardes, your
colleagues, and the field of education. As soon as
we get our full staff in place, we hope to use this
newsletter to inform you of recent publications,
recommended websites, upcoming conferences, shiurim,
etc. While I have ideas as to what to include, I
want this to be something that will meet your needs and
that you will look forward to reading. Please feel
free to send in your ideas and suggestions.
Please take a few moments and click here to help provide us
with the most updated information. We will send out
to all alumni the pertinent information so you
can be in touch with colleagues and share
material as appropriate.
Kol tuv,
Susan
Dr. Susan Wall, Director PEP Alumni Support
Project |
JIM JOSEPH ALUMNI SUPPORT
PROGRAM
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Thanks to
a generous grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation, Pardes
will now be able to offer more support to you, our
graduates, under the auspices of the Pardes Educators
Alumni Support Project. The new grant supports PEP
alumni with annual staff field visits during their first
two years of teaching, an annual professional
development retreat in North America for all cohorts,
subsidized participation in the Pardes Summer Curriculum
Workshop in Jerusalem, and ongoing group and individual
support by Israel and U.S. based staff. In addition, The
Jim Joseph Foundation is looking to make a major impact
on the induction of new teachers in the Jewish day
school field. We are fortunate to be part of the
thinking process and actualization of this very
important endeavor. We suggest you go to the Jim Joseph
website to get a better understanding of
the important work the Foundation provides.
We are
now investigating various ways in which we can
reach out to our alumni. This newsletter is one such
undertaking. We welcome your suggestions.
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| DVAR TORAH-
RABBI ZVI HIRSCHFIELD |
|
The Talmud in
Tractate Megillah 7a states a Purim practice that,
although indulged in by many, certainly surprises us in
the context of religious celebration. We are told
that "Every person is required to drink on Purim
until they cannot distinguish between Haman and
Mordechai." Not only is the apparent requirement
to drink to excess unusual, why should the Rabbis
ask us to reach a state where we have blurred our
ability to distinguish between good and evil. What
is desirable or spiritually beneficial about
eradicating, even temporarily, our sense of right and
wrong?
The Previous
Slonimer Rebbe, Rav Shalom Noach Berzovsky zt'l, in his
classic work Netivot Shalom, argues that in this context
Haman and Mordechai are not representing moral
categories of good and evil. They represent the
labels and judgments that we assign to those around us;
friends, family, and community members. These
labels create distance between people, and frustrate our
goal in developing a sense of love and commitment to all
our fellows, regardless of how their personalities mesh
with our own. Our instinct to divide our world of
colleagues, family members, and friends into the
Mordechais who we seek out and with whom we want to
connect, and the Hamans whose flaws, quirks, or annoying
habits drive us to avoid them at all costs frustrates
our sacred goal to create community where everyone is
valued and supported.
For teachers
this challenge is especially difficult. We all
have students with whom we share a special connection or
bond either because of their charm, wit or sense of
humor, or because they appreciate and value our hard
work and content in the classroom. We love to
teach our personal Mordechais because they make us feel
appreciated and successful. Those other students,
the ones whose attitude, demeanor, and behavior seem to
frustrate our best efforts and cause us to question our
choice of profession, those are the ones for whom this
Purim message is designed. We must continually
remind ourselves not to label and judge our students,
creating barriers that will certainly frustrate our
ability to inspire, educate, and connect. We must
strive to find the capacity to love within ourselves
that goes beyond judgment and labels, and teach our
Torah from that place. May we all be blessed with
a Purim that instills within us the desire and ability
to teach and enjoy all of our students, even the ones
who drive us crazy.
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WELCOME ABOARD |
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Debra Weiner-Solomont, MSW has been appointed as
the Administrative Director of Pardes Educators
Alumni Support Project. Debra comes with
much experience and enthusiasm. She has been a
member of the staff of Pardes for 10 years, as Director
of the Continuing Education Program, Coordinator of
community service programs and as social worker.
Debra holds a BA from Barnard College and an MSW from
Yeshiva University-Wurzweiler School of Social
Work. In speaking of the new position, Debra
remarked; "I am very excited about working with
PEP alumni. I remember many of the graduates, and
look forward to doing what I can to support them in the
field."
We are delighted that Debra
has agreed to join the
team. |
| YOM IYUN SHEL CHESED |
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|
On
Thursday, March 6th (29th of
Adar I) Pardes held the annual Yom Iyun Shel
Chesed in memory of
our beloved students Marla Bennett and Ben Blutstein
z"l. The day began with a community breakfast,
reminiscences shared by Rabbi Danny Landes and a dvar
torah by cohort 7 student, Aaron Rogel. The
morning was spent learning about chesed and tzedakah in
classes led by faculty members and Pardes Fellows.
In the afternoon, students, staff and faculty
volunteered in soup kitchens, cleaning up outdoor
sites, and hosting
a Purim party for community young adults who
work in a Sheltered Workshop run by Shekel. All
the current educators were sent a piece Susan wrote
about Ben and Marla to encourage their participation in
the
day. |
GRADUATE PROFILE-JORY
STILLMAN
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 Jory (known better to some of you as Shoshana
Raizel) is in her 4th year teaching second grade at
Moriah School of Engelwood, New Jersey, Ivrit
B'Ivrit! This is Jory's 6th year of
teaching. She taught previously at
Beth Tfiloh and Rambam in Baltimore, MD. In
addition to teaching 2nd grade, Jory has taught 5th
grade and art. Her most recent interest has been
in developing materials for teaching with the SMARTboard. Jory has been
helping the other Judaic studies teachers acclimate to
the new technology, and most recently presented at a
faculty in-service day. Jory has developed a great
deal of 2nd grade curriculum for the school. She
was recently hired to write lessons plans for the MTV
Challenge (Media with Torah Values Curriculum)
for the Union of Traditional Judaism.
The idea is to create lesson plans around popular media
clips using Jewish ethics and text. The
material is being used in High Schools across the
country. Jory teaches Kripalu
yoga to children, teens and adults. She uses yoga in
the classroom whenever she can. Jory currently
lives in Riverdale. She would love to be in touch
with other alumni who are developing curriculum for the
smartboard. Feel free to be in touch
with Jory
.
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PEP RETREAT: SAVE THE
DATE
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s
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All graduates in good standing
of Cohorts 1-7 are invited to join
us (expenses paid) November 20-23
, for 3 days of learning, sharing, and comaraderie
at the Pearlstone
Center outside of Baltimore ,
MD.
The
program will offer an assortment of workshop options
that will meet the needs of our new alumni as well as
our more veteran teachers. There will be sessions
on different levels (elementary, middle and high school)
as well as opportunities to learn about professional
advancement. While the main emphasis of the
program will be on day school education, there will also
be sessions related to the broader field of Jewish
education, as well as opportunities to learn about
professional advancement. We plan to include both
sessions led by our graduates as well
as presentations by outside speakers.
We will be happy to provide your school
with the highlights of the program as soon as the new
school year begins,to ensure that you are given release
time for professional development. In the
meantime, please enter the dates in your
calendar! |
SUMMER CURRICULUM WORKSHOP
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Pardes will once again host the annual
Summer Curriculum Workshop for novice teachers (1-5
years experience). PEP graduates who have
completed their 1st and 2nd years of day school teaching
are eligible to join us . PEP graduates with 3-4
years of teaching experience (who are teaching grades 4
and above) can apply as an "outside" novice
teacher. For these alumni (as well as non-alumni),
the program, housing and meals will be paid for by a
generous grants from the Mandell L.
Madeleine H. Berman Foundation, the Jim Joseph
Foundation and Targum Shlishi-a Raquel and Aryeh Rubin
Foundation, as well as by contributions from other
donors. Your school should be willing to pay for
most or all of your transportation. Travel
subsidies are available.
Please help us to advertise the program to other novice teachers in your
school. We still have a few places available.
This is too good an opportunity to pass
up!! |
| THINKING OF MOVING SCHOOLS? |
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If you are
interested in re-locating to a new city, are thinking of
taking on more administrative responsibility, or are
simply looking for a new school, we'd like to be of
help. We do get requests from schools which we can
forward on to you, if we know what you're looking for.
We currently have over 20 requests from schools looking
for teachers or administrators. (Some are posted on
search engines, but some have been sent to us in advance
of those postings. If you are
looking to move, let us know. (We are happy to not only
share the openings we know if, but to give you feedback
on resumes or cover letters.) You can also check the
search engines listed on the side, on a regular
basis.
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| WHAT'S A WEBQUEST, ANYWAY? |
|
*A webquest is an inquiry-oriented
activity in which most or all the information that
learners work with comes from the web.
*Focuses
on using information rather
than looking for it. Want to know
more-click here!
Yael Krieger (cohort 8) recently presented a
workshop to the current cohorts (7 &8) on using
webquests for Judaic studies.
Have
a webquest that you've created that you're willing to
share. Let us know. If you are interested in
learning more about this technique, drop Debra a note
and she will email you Yael's information packet.
The packet will take you through the process of creating
a webquest, how to assess it, and what sites can be
helpful to you in getting started. There are also
some existing webquests
for Judaic
studies. | |
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