Dear Hevre,
It seems like most of you had just settled into "normal weeks" when Hurricane Sandy s truck.
We hope that you are all safe and unharmed, and that by now school has
resumed. Please read through the newsletter carefully, as there is a
good deal that should be of interest to you both personally and
professionally-and you want to be sure to sign up in a timely fashion
for the applicable professional development options. Note that some of
these in-service programs could pertain to your (non-PEP graduate)
colleagues as well, so be sure to share that information with them.
A number of you may already have been contacted by Benjamin Cohen,
who is our new administrative assistant for PEASP, working out of our
New York office. We welcome Ben to the team. Please contact Ben to update any information (a new mail address, phone number, announcement, etc.) so we can keep keep our records current.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Kol tuv, Susan, Ilana and Ben
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Dvar Torah - Benny Levy (Cohort 7)
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Benny
is in his third year of teaching at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day
School, Rockville, MD. He lives in Silver Spring MD. with his wife Sarah
(Cohort 9), who also teaches at CESJDS, and their two children.
We celebrated Simchat Torah not long ago. One of the customs of the holiday is to call all children under Bnai Mitzvah age
to the Torah in order to include them in the happiness of ending the
cycle of the Torah. This year, as I had done in the past, I stood under
the tallit (though this year I stood with the newest addition to my
family: my daughter born two months prior). Standing there, so close to
the Torah, in the presence of other members of the community, and with
my daughter in my arms, I started reflecting over the past year. As I
stood thinking about how grateful I was for changes in my life over this
past year, I suddenly heard my name announced for the honor of Chatan Torah,
along with a short explanation as to why my community had decided to
honor me so. I was shocked and, more than that, extremely surprised as
to how I gained the right to be honored in such a way. This honor
reminded me of all that I have for which to be thankful and gave me
something else to reflect upon: how can I show gratitude to those who
honored me and gave me this opportunity?
In a few weeks, many
of us will be celebrating Thanksgiving. This is a holiday that
emphasizes the value of saying "thank you" and showing appreciation to
others. All of my recent reflections have gone along this theme, leading
me to consider the value of Hakarat Hatov and its connection to studying Torah.
Click here to read Benny's complete dvar torah.
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Professional Development Opportunities for Your School/Community
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If
you work in a day school or other Jewish educational institution, you
might want to take advantage of some of the new offerings from our
Pardes Center for Jewish Educators.
We currently have four California schools (Kadima, Pressman Academy,  San Diego Jewish Academy and Sinai Akiva) piloting our new "Judaism and Conflict Resolution" program in Rabbinics for 8th
graders. This is an exciting new curriculum that develops skills and
provides content which is particularly relevant to middle schoolers and
helpful in promoting the kind of atmosphere we hope to see in our day
schools.
This year, we have piloted three units, including one on
bullying. We will be expanding with additional units in the coming year
and hope to take in up to ten more middle schools. Other units may be
available for high schools. For more information, contact Ilana.
We are working on a major proposal with RAVSAK to address the serious obstacles to
successful tefilah in our day schools. We plan to begin to work with
K-8 schools. We are also providing some consultation to individual
schools or institutions. Finally, we
can help you show your institution's constituency what a real Beit
Midrash could look like. We will work with you in setting up a program
for adults or families that will take the best of what Pardes has to
offer and bring it to your school or community. If you are interested in learning more about either of these opportunities, please contact Ben.
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A New Summer Curriculum Workshop |
We
have a new venue and a new program. This summer, our curriculum
workshop will be a one week intensive program in North America, and will
be open to any day school Judaic studies teachers-not only our PEP
graduates-who have completed 1-4 years of teaching. While we will
continue to provide one-on-one mentoring and a program that will
support our newest teachers, we are also adding a teacher leadership
track, to encourage our more "veteran novice teachers" to begin to take
on leadership responsibilities within their schools. While you may
already have attended two workshops in Israel, you may still be eligible
to join this new program.
The workshop will be held July 26-August 2nd in the suburbs of Philadelphia, using Barrack Hebrew Academy
in Bryn Mawr with its on-site hotel as our base. We also hope to take
advantage of the new Jewish Museum in Philadelphia and historic Jewish
Philadelphia. The program will be open to non-PEP graduates
as well and we plan to have separate groupings for elementary, middle
and high school. While this is a shorter program than we have previously
had, we will be using our evenings for programming as well. Please contact Ben
to let us know if you may be interested in our summer program and be
sure to pass this information on to colleagues and administrators as
well.
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The Pardes Center for Jewish Educators (PCJE)
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Jewish
Educators at Pardes are developing their professional perspectives and
exploring personal identities in new ways this semester.
The Jewish Educators Track has opened with a semester-long course in Tefillah as a Spiritual Practice.
James Jacobson Maisels is teaching his approach to tefillah. Judy
Markose and Zvi Hirschfield are facilitating the application of this
approach to Jewish educational settings. The course is centered around
using texts and educational resources to face challenging questions such
as: "Why pray? How can I find greater meaning in my own prayer? How can
I help my future students to find meaning in prayer? How can we impact
Jewish educational institutions in the area of tefillah?" Each educator
will develop a proposal based on a new vision for change in the realm of
tefillah in their future professional setting.
A two-evening series titled It Takes Two: Practical Skills for Partnered Learning, which is open to education and rabbinic students outside of Pardes, is offered as part of the Jewish Educators Track. Michael Hattin will be teaching about the methodology and application of Havruta learning.
The monthly PCJE Forum offers
all Pardes Educators (day school and experiential) a chance to take
time away from the beit midrash and explore "big ideas" facing Jewish
education today. Our topics so far have included Jewish Identity: Personal, Provocative and ... Professional? and Limits and Dangers of Social Media in the Jewish Community. The sharing of different perspectives is fascinating and very welcomed by our students.
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Focus on Aviva Gershman (Cohort 10)
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My
name is Aviva Gershman. I am a 2nd year teacher at the Charles E. Smith
Upper School in Rockville, MD. I never thought I would be writing in
October of this year about how much I loved my job; it was only a year
ago that I was completely drowning in work and overwhelmed. 
A year makes a huge difference. As my dear friends from cohort '10
know, my decision to come to PEP was a big one for my entire family; I
moved to Jerusalem with a husband and two children who were thrown
directly into Israeli public school (a transition made easier by the
help of Donna Rudolph, another PEP alum). Prior to joining the Educators
Program, I had been in Jewish education for almost a decade working as
the Director of Education for Temple Beth-El, the Conservative shul in
Richmond, Virginia, my husband's hometown.
Click here to read more from Aviva.
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Calling All Day School Teachers
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We
are offering different opportunities for our veteran and first year day
school teachers, as well as for middle school teachers.
Cohorts 1 -8
We
are delighted to invite all of our graduates from cohorts 1-8 who are
still in the day school world to join us for the annual North American Day School Conference
to be held in Washington, DC, February 3-5. Our program is beginning to
shape up, and we are excited by the opportunity to inspire and inform
our veteran teachers, and provide numerous opportunities for networking,
reflection and professional development. The cost of the conference and
the hotel is covered by our alumni network.
We
already have close to two dozen alumni who have signed up, and we look
forward to receiving a few more reservations. If you have not yet
responded, please do so immediately as we have only a few more rooms
available, and limited stipend money for travel. We will be in touch
shortly with those who have already responded positively to provide more
information and to get further input from you.
First Year Teachers' PLC
Our first year teachers are invited to join our Professional Learning Community (PLC), based on a discussion of Lemov's book, Teach like a Champion. The conference call will also include a discussion of recent challenges in the classroom and an opportunity to share successes.
Middle School PLC
We
are excited that our Middle School Professional Learning Community
(PLC) will continue this year! As you know, managing a middle school
classroom can be an extremely challenging task. In an effort to support
our middle school teachers, the PLC gets together by conference call
once a month. Our first meeting is on Sunday, November 11 and will focus
on "Understanding the Middle School Brain." We also take time on each
call to process critical incidents that teachers are dealing with in
their classrooms. This group is open to PEP alumni who are in at least
their second year of teaching. If you are interested in joining the
group, please contact Ariel Wolgel.
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Education Corner
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Communicating Expectations
by Ilana Lipman
We've
heard it all before: if we want our students to succeed, we must have
high expectations of them. This is all well and good, but how do I
communicate my expectations to students so that they will get the
message that 1) what they are doing is important, 2) they can indeed do
it, and 3) the teacher won't give up on them?
In The Skillful Teacher, Saphier, Haley-Speca and Gower outline 4 different categories for standards of performance:
- Quality and quantity of work (those characteristics that make a piece of work acceptable)
- Work habits and work procedures (how students go about doing their work, following instructions, bell work, etc.)
- Business and housekeeping routines (non-academic, work-related procedures like keeping the room clean)
- Interpersonal behavior (how students behave towards one another and towards the teacher) (p.263-264)
It
is important to recognize that the teacher must address each of the
above categories in order to achieve the desired standards. For example,
communicating expectations regarding quality and quantity of work will
not ensure that students achieve standards in work habits and work
procedures. Once the teacher establishes which are the most important
expectations in each category, the next step is for the teacher to
communicate them explicitly, specifically and repeatedly.
Click here to read the entire article.
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Educational Publications, Resources and Opportunities
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There was recently a discussion on the PEASP Forum of sources on Rishonim. Reuven Margrett (Cohort 6) recommends eMishna,
which, he says, "has an integrated English translation of the Mishnah
with Bartenura (note: it does not translate each and every statement of
Bartenura, but explains the Mishnah according to his explications)." Mordechai Rachover (Cohort 3) recommends Free Primary Jewish Sources and Resources on the Internet.
Many of you were fortunate to have Barbara Rosenblit
as a mentor at The Weber School in Atlanta. Now you can hear her voice
over and over-and see what a creative modern day midrash is really all
about! Click here.
Archived podcasts by educator Mark Smilowitz on Classroom Issues can be heard here. Click here for his latest podcast on Formative Assessments.
Literary critic D. G. Myers's list of the "38 best Jewish books of 2011" can be found here.
Torat Chaim Institute is a non profit organization dedicated to teaching halacha in a hands-on way. Click here to  view their discussions of the 39 Melachot and Shatnez.
Faculty member Alex Israel recommends Hebrew Wiki Source, a great free library for almost anything Jewish, from Tanach to Rav Kook. |
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From the Field
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Jessie Gindea (cohort 11) is a first year middle school teacher at the
Solomon Schechter Day School in New Milford, NJ. She is also a Nadiv
Fellow (working both as a day school teacher and informal educator, and
as a camp Judaics specialist). Jessie has shared two activities, a
Tefillah program and Ta'amei Tanakh, that have worked successfully with
her classes.
Read about Jessie's programs here.
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Alumni Updates |
Personal News
Mazal Tov to:
Jenn Adler (Cohort 7) on her recent marriage to Michael Laytin.
Nili Auerbach (Cohort 6) and Ezra on the birth of a daughter, Gavriella Maya. Mazal tov to big sisters Eliana and Leora.
Yael Krieger (Cohort 8) and Josh Laden on the birth of a daughter, Elisheva Maayan.
Rachel Meiner (Cohort 7) and Yaron on the birth of a daughter, Neomi Avigail.
Drew Cohen (Cohort 10) and Kelly Cohen (Cohort 10) on the birth of a son, Joss Aaron.
Rachel Shapiro (Cohort 7) and Tomer Fink on the birth of a daughter, Zoe Yona.
We are sorry if we missed something. Please help us by sending in your news! |
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