December 29, 2014 - Due to some foolishness on my part, the images of the I and Thou Conversation were deleted. Since the Internet is forever, I was able to retrieve them! Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks to Ken Gordon for spotting the problem!
Long time followers of this blog may know that I was one of fourteen fellows in a program at the Lookstein Center funded by the Jim Joseph Foundation. Our brief was to create online communities of practice. Some of us were more successful than others. Some CoPs are still going strong, others have served their purpose and are but memories.
And then came JEDLAB! There has been a lot written about it and by those involved. It is worth reading some of it. More importantly, it is something you should join. Unlike CAJE of blessed memory or any number of conferences that have grown up in recent years (and may they all thrive and grow), it is an ongoing 24/6 conversation about Jewish education and the things that educators want to talk about, learn and teach one another. I try to check in at least once a day, and occasionally find I have something to say.
To join JEDLAB you need to be on Facebook. That is the central platform on which the community meets. (We do have the JEDLAB test kitchen on Google+ and we love to have ad hoc connections in a variety of places as well). And it is a community, currently 2,220 strong. Some write. Many read. And it crosses all lines: geography, movement, professional setting and methodology, relationship to Halacha, etc. Everybody plays, and no one can so you can't play (Thank you Vivian Gussin Paley). Just click on JEDLAB and ask to join. Or become my friend on FB (if we are not already) and ask me to put you in. Or ask anyone in JEDLAB to do it. It is worth your time. (If you are not on Facebook, you should join just for this. Set privacy settings so the kids from your 3rd grade class can't find you if you prefer.)
Ken Gordon, the founder of JEDLAB proposed a book group on Martin Buber's I and Thou. Not a light undertaking. He opened the conversation in a way that drew me and others in and if you follow, he moderated with a very light touch. Our first 36 hours of conversation is below. I think you will find it interesting and invite you to join in - preferably in FB at JEDLAB. If you comment hear, I will transfer your thoughts - in your name - to the group.
This is hopefully the first stop in a traveling blog carnival. That means that other bloggers in the group will hopefully pick up the thread of the conversation on their blogs in turn. I will put links in the comments section. (Note: Permission was given by the participants in the discussion before I posted this. JEDLAB is a safe place for conversation!)
Please enjoy and join us in JEDLAB! Consider this your present for the last night of Chanukah!
Ira
Since the image above is a .jpg of the Facebook conversation you can watch the video with this link:
Friend and colleague Peter Eckstein posted this in the Jewish Educational Change Network before new year's. I think it tells an important story. I invite your thoughts on how we can do a better job bringing Israel to our students and our students to Israel.
I have the good fortune to be working with a nationally based group of educators and teens associated with the iCenter’s MZ Teen Israel Internship.
The purpose of this program is to follow up on teens’ Israel summer
experiences, through a framework consisting of a series of yearlong
educational and social activities. The young people meet with mentors
and educators to collaborate on Israel oriented projects, and to study.
As “the teacher”, I meet with a small group of high school students,
usually in a coffee shop, and together we learn about the reality of
modern Israel. We’ve focused on how being a Jew in America relates to
being a Jew in Israel. We have explored the diversity that makes up
Israeli society, comparing it to the multi-faceted nature of North
American Judaism. We’ve thought about Israel being characterized by the
people, not just the stones or the conflict. In the future, we will be
discussing the role of religion in Israel, as well as the dynamic that
exists between Israeli Jews and Arabs. We are trying to make real
connections with the Jewish State, drawing from the teens’ experiences
in the context of a more in-depth exploration of Israeli society. All of
these elements are meant to get these teens to think seriously about
how Israel relates to their lives, and how they can educate their peers
about the real Israel, by getting past the headlines and beyond the
myths.
This
is all about education, not advocacy. Back in September, I attended an
inaugural conference that kicked off this program. It was attended by
almost 40 teens and about a dozen educators. In conversations I had with
teens and my colleagues, I was struck by how important it was to the
teens to have the “right answers” to defend Israel. Many of them had
difficulty understanding the difference between knowing about Israel -
being educated about the land and the people; and defending it against
its detractors. As we educators in the program develop the curriculum,
we struggle with how the tensions that exist in Israel can in fact be
tools to foster deeper engagement with Israel and the Zionist
enterprise.
In
the past week, as we collaborated on developing future sessions for the
teens, we have been working on how to teach the significance of the
recent “price-tag” attacks that have occurred in Israel and in The
Territories. Can the phenomenon of the “Hilltop Youth” provide a nuanced
view of the intersection between the role of politics and religion in
the life of The State? How can the extremes reflected by current events
help us gain a better understanding of what Israel is all about, and
what its promise and potential can be? I am not talking about
whitewashing a situation. I am talking about understanding it so that it
can become a tool for engagement.
In
my mind, at least, the political, cultural, economic and ethnic tensions
that characterize life in Israel are a mere reflection of Jewish
history, both in Israel and in Exile. We have always been one people,
but with many voices. This idea of Jewish diversity can be used as a
tool to help our young people understand that being Israel is all about
struggle. We should provide the tools to our teens, to empower them to
joyfully enter into the fray that is the Jewish conversation about
Israel. When we teach Israel, we mustn’t ignore the warts.
Peter Eckstein is one of my favorite colleagues. Not only is he a professional and a deep thinker, but he likes the Grateful Dead so much that Terrapin is part of his e-mail address! He called me recently to talk over some ideas about using technology in our work - it was one of several calls he had with a bunch of colleagues. Hopefully you received an invitation to the survey from JESNA or some other source, but if not, click here. This is the beginning of a conversation. For all of our sakes, I hope you will join in! Here is his post about this from his blog, The Fifth Child. (His blog is definitely worth following!)
Pesach is a time for questions.
So, in the spirit of the season, I would like to ask you some. I’ll start with one: How do Jewish educators learn to use 21st century educational technology in the Jewish classroom? This will lead to a few more. What follows is a survey with 15 questions (an auspicious number for Pesach). The goal of this short (5-8 minutes) questionnaire is to find some answers to the question of how and what we learn.
My friend and colleague Barry Gruber recently posted a piece about the smorgasbord of opportunities to learn what the ‘net provides. He’s right – it truly is a blessing. I wonder if this cornucopia is so bountiful that there will be many who, like the 4th child, will be so intimidated by all the resources available that they will be daunted by the act of beginning to learn. They won’t know where to start. They won’t know what to ask. If this is the case, what should we do about it?
Ergo the survey. This is an independent project to explore the nature of on-line Jewish professional development related to the utilization of educational technology. It’s focus is to find out how we Jewish educators learn about these new tools, where we learn from, and if we need to make these learning opportunities more accessible. I'm hoping that this information will help shape the way Jewish educators can easily learn more about the use of digital tools in their classrooms.
Teaching is leading. We educators create an environment for our students to construct their knowledge base. The tools that are being developed today and tomorrow empower us to achieve this goal. The complicated part is that we need to learn how to use them. There’s the rub. What’s the best way for the educators, who can’t go to conferences or don’t have local resources provided by central agencies, to learn how to take the next step into the world of digital Jewish learning?
Questions. There are many. And the answers may lead us to an understanding of what we can do to build a solid base of Jewish educators who can comfortably engage their students, speaking a common language. This is why I’m asking you all to take part in this adventure.
I must thank Jonathan Woocher and Rebecca Leshin of the Lippman Kanfer Institute for supporting this project and providing the platform to make it possible. I also want to acknowledge the many educators in the Jewish cloud who have contributed ideas to help create this survey. There are too many to mention by name, but I do want to thank you all for you assistance.
So please click here to access this professional development survey. Answers can be signposts leading us in the direction of creating Jewish futures for our students. We just need to start with the questions. Together let’s find the answers.
A day or three of tweeting while working! My friend Robin Faintich tweeted in response to my last blog posting about an article in the New York Jewish Week on tutoring. More friends joined in: Josh Barkin, Peter Eckstein, Ellen Dietrick and Ruth Abusch-Magder. I am amazed, but not surprised, by the level of dialogue that can occur in 140-character chunks. The conversation began Monday morning. As I write this it is almost noon on Wednesday and Jonathan Woocher just jumped into the pool. As my wife’s accounting professor at the University of Michigan, Chip Klemstein, once said, “It’s not the miracle of birth, but it is pretty cool!
I am posting the conversation to date below in order to continue it with you. I am also posting it as a comment to David Bryfman’s blog about the potential value of twitter in Jewish education. David has some very interesting things to say (and he mentions me-check it out mom!). Please continue the conversation with us here on twitter!
(The left hand column is the speaker, the name in the right hand column is the person to whom they are responding or directing their words.)
@rabbigurevitz
Tutoring vs.Religious School redux - Al tifrosh? http://bit.ly/5hWxwM #jed21
@rfaintich
@IraJWise Tutoring vs.Religious School ... isn't it our job to figure out how to integrate them? #jed21
@barkinj
@rfaintich It’s our job, but Ira's right: we need to be wary of something that is educationally and ideologically problematic. #jed21
@rfaintich
@barkinj one challenge is that I am not sure that @IraJWise would agree that RS is educationally problematic-if that's what you mean #jed21
@IraJWise
@rfaintich Absolutely. It is also our job to bring them in at the beginning, which means offering something compelling & meaningful. #jed21
@redmenace56
@rfaintich RS as it exists might B problematic, but not necessarily. methinks tutoring CAN be integrated w/out leaving community #jed21
@IraJWise
@rfaintich I don;t think it is. It can be. We don;t always get right. But we do more than we get get credit for. #jed21
@rfaintich
I am the product of the tutor/RS integration,i KNOW it is possible. Know of a great model in OC-Mindy Davids special. #jed21
@rfaintich
@IraJWise i agree that some, incl. you, do more than you get credit for... and in a paradigm that i believe is systemically broken. #jed21
@barkinj
@rfaintich No. I meant that Jewish education through tutoring is educationally problematic. #jed21
@rfaintich
@barkinj why? #jed21
@barkinj
@rfaintich Tutoring is fine for cognitive learning. Good Jewish education should also be affective, emotional, spiritual, communal. #jed21
@rfaintich
@barkinj you falsely assume tutoring can't also be affective, emotional & spiritual and then integrated into communal #jed21
@redmenace56
@rfaintich yeah makes sense but challenge is finding resources & institutional will 2 create programs that R NOT 1 size fits all #jed21
@redmenace56
@rfaintich like prev post re: teens, creating mix of tutoring & communal learning needs resources that many of us don't have (more) #jed21
@redmenace56
@rfaintich we want change & know it's doable, but when lay leaders won't provide resources we r stuck with taking very small steps #jed21
@redmenace56
@rfaintich & small steps R not always enough 2 hold funders, parents & kids attention, even though we try. need something big.#jed21
@redmenace56
@rfaintich big change perceived as dangerous-small may not b enough. risk not always positive thing in many funders/parents eyes. #jed21
@barkinj
@rfaintich An observation, not an assumption. I've never seen tutoring do those things. #jed21
@redmenace56
@rfaintich we need mechanism to filter the innovations and drive 4 change down from big centers to the periphery. #jed21
@barkinj
@rfaintich Tutoring is generally used for "training", which by definition is not affective, emotional, spiritual, community-oriented. #jed21
@IraJWise
@rfaintich Not that tutoring can't be those things, but a communal setting can make them richer and deeper! No student is an island. #jed21
@barkinj
@IraJWise @rfaintich Yeah, Ira said it better. #jed21
@rfaintich
@barkinj @IraJWise perhaps the problem is word/implication of "tutor" & not mentor, facilitator, role model, personal educator, etc #jed21
@ellen987
@rfaintich@barkinj @IraJWise On tutor discussion, I love the idea of Jewish life coaches instead of religious school teachers. #jed21
@rfaintich
@IraJWise my "tutor" is the one who brought me into Jewish camping & gave me a new community. I was in RS for judaics-she enhanced it #jed21
@IraJWise
AHA! So it was not JUST the tutor. Sounds like the kind of person we need doing lots of things. Not a Zero-sum game! #jed21
@lookstein
@rfaintich @irajwise @barkinj Abe Unger weighs in on the benefits of tutoring in the Jewish community in op-ed http://bit.ly/5M4csQ #jed21
@barkinj
@ellen987 Not sure what you mean by "life coach" in this context. #jed21
@barkinj
@ellen987 I call them "teachers", you call them "coaches." Good teachers know Jewish education is not about imparting info. #jed21
@ellen987
@barkinj I think there is a real difference between coach and teacher. Especially when you are inviting them into your home. #jed21
@ellen987
@barkinj By Jewish life coach I mean someone to help you figure out how to reach your family's goals for Jewish living and learning. #jed21
@barkinj
@ellen987 What if your family's goal is to have a bar mitzvah and then disengage from Jewish life? #jed21
@rabbiruth
What if the option is a tutor or nothing? that is quite common #jed21
@ellen987
@barkinj If your goal is to disengage aren't you going to do that even if your kid goes to RS? I'm talking people who want to engage. #jed21
@darimonline
@barkinj is it ever someone's REAL goal to disengage? Or an assumed path b/c lack of something compelling, inviting, worth change? #JED21
@rfaintich
@RabbiRuth I would say it is then the role of the "tutor" to try and bring the entire family into other entry points. #jed21
@barkinj
@DarimOnline You're right. Lots disengage because we don't offer anything engaging. But some disengage because that's what they want. #jed21
@barkinj
@ellen987 Religious schools need the disengagers (and their tuition/dues) to pay salaries, keep the lights on, etc. #jed21
@barkinj
@RabbiRuth Why? The vast majority could send their kids to relig. school. The people who choose tutoring usually do so as a choice. #jed21
@rfaintich
@barkinj @DarimOnline i think those who have chosen to disengage before they even see the product are those who are "in" out of guilt #jed21
@ellen987
@barkinj A coach working with entire family provides more avenues for engagement. Goal for enrolling kids in RS is not fundraising. #jed21
@redmenace56
@ellen987 ellen - i'd like 2 talk 2 U more abt this - i'm starting a lifecycle coach program @ my synagogue. how do we touch base? #jed21
@darimonline
@rfaintich @barkinj Can we re-cast the guilt paradigm? It's so not-compelling and will ultimately fail (is presently failing). #jed21
@barkinj
@ellen987 I totally agree. But too many congregations use BM as bait to get people in the door. #jed21
@IraJWise
@barkinj A bit cynical. For those only seeking BM, we meet a need. If we are good, we use their time here to help make more connects #jed21
@jwoocher
Need 2 real conversations w families: when they join, when BBM approaches. What will make this m'ningful 4 u? What must we do & u do? #Jed21
@barkinj
@IraJWise Yes. Playing the "cynic's advocate" here. But what would happen if all those BM-only folks left your school? #jed21
@IraJWise
@barkinj We would have to become a completely different kind of institution to afford serving those who want us the way we are. #jed21
@IraJWise
@barkinj And we still wouldn't reach those who left. #jed21
Conversation continues! Join in at #jed21.
If you don't understand how to follow a twitter hashtag (#jed21 is a hashtag!) go to Mashable's guide.
Here is the rest of the conversation:
@rfaintich@IraJWise what would you project would happen to your school if b/m were universally moved to 18 (or h.s. grad)? #jed21
@IraJWise@rfaintich Not sure. But you can't move it. People won't follow. That's how we got Confirmation in Reform. #jed21
@IraJWiseOur conversation on tutors and schools through Josh's last post on line http://bit.ly/5RamqV #jed21 This is cool stuff!
@rfaintich@IraJWise if everyone agreed to move it (not like that will happen) then ppl choice - follow or nothing? #jed21 just hypothesizing
So like many of you, I just received an e-mail from Cherie Koller-Fox, one of the founders of CAJE, an old friend and the "facilitator" of NewCAJE, which was officially unveiled this afternoon. I am feeling a bit like Tevye considering each of his daughters' requests: "On the one hand...but on the other hand..." Since my first conference in DeKalb, IL in 1986(?) CAJE was home. It was where I learned to teach with the big kids (literally, the leadership was riddled with people who had been my camp counselors, youth group advisors, religious school teachers and the authors of the textbooks we had in Sunday school). It was where I got to meet new people from all over the world - like Rafi Zarum and Sybil Sheridan, Ed Feinstein and Amichai Lau-Lavie - who were teaching in ways that were new and exciting. And where people whose teaching and story-telling skills would come and learn with me in my sessions as I developed more confidence, and built me up by giving me praise and constructive criticism.
It was for many of those years, the only place where I knew I would be having Shabbat dinner with a mixed salad of Jews: Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, Israeli Secular, Chabad, Renewal, Humanistic, Sephardic Orthodox, Young Israel, Labor, Likud, hetero, GLBT, confirmed bachelor, day school, congregational, camping, agency, early childhood, musician, actor, storyteller, cybergeek, teenager, college kid, grandparent and everything in between. My wife was usually happy to see me go to CAJE, because she saw how it recharged me and how it energized the teachers in my school.
When the CAJE-isphere bubble burst, I was not the only one who was sad. I was also not the only one who began to to think - and some said - that we may have stayed at the same party too long. Peter Eckstein tried mightily to steer the St. Louis conference in a new direction that would speak to the needs of the new generation. The founders of CAJE created the paradigm ex nihilo when many of them were in their twenties. They were my camp counselors. I am now 48 years old (and Peter a little older). When those of us on the pre-planning task force were brought together by Peter it was to try and reshape the paradigm to begin to meet the needs of those now the age the founders had been. To renew and redefine.
It was a noble effort, but after more than three decades, CAJE had become a huge institution. My teacher Sam Joseph of HUC in Cincinnati often compares large synagogues to Nimitz class aircraft carriers. (That's the USS Nimitz at left) Nimitz class ships are the largest in the world.
They measure 1,092 feet (2/10 of a mile) long, are powered by two nuclear reactors, carry a crew of 3,200 plus the Air Wing (pilots and support crew) which has 2,480 people and as many as 85 aircraft of varying types. At full speed they can travel at 30 knots (about 35 mph) - which when you consider they displace 112 tons of water at full load, is a lot of metal moving really fast - a Nimitz class ship takes SEVEN nautical miles to turn 90 degrees. Large institutions like big synagogues - and CAJE - are not able to turn on a dime!
After the bubble burst, and while much of the hand wringing was done, a conversation began. Cherie Koller-Fox and many others began talking on the CAJE Net, a Ning site begun before the final conference. And Josh Mason-Barkin and Danny Kochavi started a Google group. There was a lot of interaction in both places which included a lot of the same people.
There emerged a group of vatikim - CAJE veterans - of various ages who wanted to fix the financial disaster and rebuild CAJE in the image of the original. Others, many younger, felt that it would be better to create something as new and different as CAJE had been in the 60's. Some wanted to act quickly, others wanted to wait. I participated in some of those discussions. Some became a little heated, but I believe all were B'shem Shamayim - for the sake of heaven (and Jewish Education).
A Beta version of the NewCAJE (or a nostolgic nod to old CAJE, depending on your perspective) was put together as the MANAJE conference this past August. People who attended speak glowingly of it. So now NewCAJE has been unveiled. Part of me wants to go home and is eager for NewCAJE to be, in the words of David Byrne: "Same as it ever was." But mostly I am hoping that younger voices will jump into the breach that Cherie and some of our vatikim have opened and help to shape it into what we will need to take us forward.
NewCAJE is no longer a Nimitz class organization. That is scary. It has little in the way of money or infrastructure. It is also wonderful. If the twentySomthings and thirtySomethings will step up and teach something to the rest of us, NewCAJE is now stripped down and nimble enough weave through the traffic of this Brave New (and often digital) world. It is ready to become something new while remembering the lessons and traditions of what came before.
Joel Grishaver taught us all that the "True Story of Chanukah" had five different endings. Each ending told the story in a way that made sure the new genereation would understand AND embrace it. NewCAJE gives us the chance to do that again! NewCAJE needs to be more new than CAJE. I believe we can make it happen, if we all work (and argue) together. I hope we all step up.
