Helping a family in our community

A few weeks ago I shared with the students the sad story of my friend Lisa Klein, mom of three month old Annie, who found out she had fatal cancer. I asked the school if we could dedicate our October Tzdekah money to a fund that was established to ensure that her husband and baby had enough financial support to make it though the next few difficult months. As many of you have heard, since that time Lisa did pass away. Thomas and Annie are dealing with their new reality.

Our Gan students painting their own Tzdekah boxes

 I am so proud of our school, during the month of October we collect $425 to send to Thomas and Annie. Todah Rabah!

Morah Debbie talking to our Gan students about Tzdekah

Sunday Morning T'fillah

Parents, this year we are examining how the whole world revolves around Prayer, Study and Acts of Loving Kindness. Come share a prayer experience with your child at the Meyer Kranzberg Learning Center. 

 Each Sunday morning our 3rd (and some weeks 2nd) through 6th graders begin their day in the sanctuary experiencing the morning service. It is a wonderful way for our school to start the week. We sing, prayer, and learn a little from Rabbi Kaiman. Parents are invited to come and experience some moments of prayer with your child. We especially encourage parents of 2nd-6th graders to join us the second Sunday of each month (next one is on Nov. 11th). We will daven together from 9:00-9:30 and then there will be a parent breakfast at 9:30. Following breakfast you are welcome to meet other parents, leave for the morning or stay for our Lomed Parent class (but RSVP first to Jennifer as space in the class is limited.)

Hope to see you Sunday, November 11th!

Reflecting on improving

The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are spent reflecting on how we have acted during the past year and what we can improve in the coming year. Our 12th grade class, who attend our Gesher Seminar, spent some time reflecting on behaviors they would like to improve in the upcoming year. Here is what they came up with...What are you working on in 5773? As an individual, as a Jew, as a family, as a community? This is a great dinner discussion with your family tonight or tomorrow night.

Welcome to year five of B'nai Amoona's religious school!

There has been much success in these five years, much of which we should be proud. And we have great plans for the future. But let's pause for a moment. Elul is the time in our calendars when we pause; we pause so that we can spiritually prepare ourselves for the year ahead. As we enter our fifth year, we paused and decided that we wished to find a better way to honor our namesake. Starting this September, we will be calling our religious school, our pre-K through Twelfth grade religious education program, the Meyer Kranzberg Learning Center. This new name, and new logo, allows us to show proper Kavod, honor, to Meyer Kranzberg, the man for whom our school is named.

Not only will this change allow us to properly remember Meyer Kranzberg, but it will also help clear up some confusion we inadverently created calling religious school Pardes while at the same time referring to our educational umbrella, or in this case our educational orchard, Pardes. Pardes is now the orchard for Jewish living and learning at Congregational B'nai Amoona. Within the Pardes orchard is the Early Childhood Center, The Alfred Fleshman Summer Camps, our Youth Department, Holiday and Family Education, and the Meyer Kranzberg Learning Center. 

We have a beautiful orchard of learning growing at B'nai Amoona. 

Pardes 2011-2012 End of Year Slideshow

Pardes is a pretty great place!

There is a trend in the Jewish world to talk about how supplemental schools, religious schools, are broken and don't work. I recently commented that I thought we had a good supplemental school and someone asked me to share why. Here is what I shared with them. When I went back and reread what I wrote, which is really just a few examples of things Pardes does well, I realized we don't have a good school, we have a great supplemental school. I hope you are as proud of our community as I am.

It is surprisingly hard to describe in a succinct paragraph what makes my school a good school. I am also the type of person who always is looking at what needs improvement, and of course there is always plenty to improve, but here is my attempt.

I believe that the students at my school come away from their experiences with a connection to their Jewish identity and a feeling of being a member, a valued member of our Jewish community. Here are some things which I think we do well:

1)   We have excellent retention rates, something like 75%-85% of our students continue from 7^th – 8^th grade and about 90%-95% continue from 10^th -12^th grade. We are graduating 17 seniors in two weeks (out of a school of 245 students.) These students are involved and active in so many parts of the synagogue.

2)   We have 20 madrichim, teenage assistants working in our school. This are teenagers who request to continue in the classroom. We have this large of a number even with our requirement that they must continue their own Jewish education through our high school classes to be a role model.

3)   By and large kids are not complaining about being there, in fact on Tuesdays we have to block the doors in the lobby, otherwise the students would be in there classrooms 20-30 minutes before class because they are excited to see their teachers and to be there.

4)   Our classes are examples of a blend of active, creative and experiential learning. Our teachers strive to employ good teaching strategies. Rarely do you see students sitting in desks listening to a teacher talk, or worse waiting for each student to read the next line of Hebrew.

5)   We connect our youth groups, summer camps, travel experiences, Shabbat services, and holidays into our school. The name of the school is Pardes, The Meyer Kranzberg Center for Jewish Living and Learning. We strive to live up to the living and learning part of the name.

6)   We employ opportunities for students to showcase real learning in public settings.

7)   Teachers are encouraged to learn and grow. As well as having professional development workshops throughout the year, a group of motivated teachers participate in a Community of Practice where we choose a topic each year to study. This past year we focused on differentiated learning and I think next year we are going to tackle 21^st century learning.

      So is it a perfect model? No. Are there plenty of areas I am always trying to improve, yes. Do I wish it was not Sunday morning and after school, certainly. But given these constraints, I believe we are providing these students a Jewish education and more importantly a Jewish identity and strong connection to our community. 

   

Passover - when the students became the teachers

This Pesach the kids are the teachers.   This past week students in grades 3^rd - 7 ^th taught our Roshanim up through third grade students lesson plan about Pesach that they had been working on in the previous weeks.  Each class was assigned an age appropriate topic to teach to a younger group. 

Pardes instructors provided a broad framework by suggesting some approaches their students might use while teaching the younger students.  The student-teachers might choose to craft functional seder plates with younger children, create colorful Power Points about the seder, or devise educational games about Ashkenazi and Sephardi traditions.  As the students designed their lesson plans, Pardes staff also facilitated the use of iPads and web research so the final projects were content and information rich.   

Regardless of the project our middle-graders choose, they discovered their inner teacher and flexed their muscles as role models.  This project helped bridge the gaps between the grades and it became an  opportunity to grow the sense of community among Pardes students of all ages. This has been a wonderful growth opportunity for students and teachers alike.  Each has had to work as teams and learn as a community.   

Washington DC

I spend this past Wednesday to Sunday with 15 wonderful 10th graders on our annual Washington DC trip. We visited the White House, the monuments and a whole host of museums. We saw a play, ate some good food and viewed the cherry blossoms. But the most important part of the trip, which you can see from the student's comments below is simply the chance to spend significant Jewish time together as a class. This trip is another great Pardes opportunity to form life-long friendships.

My favorite part of the trip was…

Joe: Becoming closer with everyone in the class. I had so much fun goofing off and spending time with everyone.

Gordy: Going to see Shear Madness

Seth: Visiting the Newseum. It was great to see closer into so many major events and people.

Levi: Spending time with everyone. I had a great time.

Zach: Hanging out in the hotel with everyone

Sam: Walking around DC and joking, playing, and talking with everyone. Also Walgreens!

Bekah: Spending time with everyone on the walks and going to see Shear Madness.

Paige: I had an amazing time! Shear Madness was hilarious and the Newseum was so cool! Also spending time with everyone!

Sydney: Spending time with everyone and getting to know them better! Shear Madness was really fun also.

Daniel: Getting to know everyone better and Shear Madness

Barri:  Laughing all throughout the trip and getting to know everyone so much better.

Aviva: Getting to know everyone better, meeting homeless people, drawing stuff and Shear Madness.

Samara: This trip was so much fun! I had a lot of fun getting to know everyone better.

Edan: I had a lot of favorites, I loved the protesters and the homeless but my favorite was just being with everyone.

Matanot La'evyonim

We just finished a great week of Purim celebrations at Pardes. Check out the flicker link to the right for some great pictures. On Purim, there are four main mitzvot each person is asked to perform, Matanot La'evyonim, gifts to the poor, hearing the Megillah, eating a festive meal and giving Mishloach Manot, gifts of food to friends. This year we concentrated on Matanot La'evyonim – giving gifts to the poor. This is not just any tzdekah. This is money given specifically to those people in need, on the day of Purim. Gifts typical represent at least the value of a meal. This is a special mitzvah and should not be included in the amount of money set aside for giving to charity for the rest of the year. 

This year we raised $100 for Gateway 180 and $100 for the Jewish Food Pantry. I am glad that our community will be helping these important institutions. Look out for our giving opportunity next  year. 

Now on to Pesach!!