Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education

Hi! My name is Rachel Araten. I am a senior, and this year I taught 3rd graders about the holidays, the Joseph story and about the Jews in Egypt. I taught at BJEP, here on the Brandeis campus.

Over the course of this seminar and my time in the classroom, I often found myself wondering, “What does it mean for a student to grow in their Jewish identity?” Throughout this seminar we talked about the goals that our schools have. Is it a priority that students learn to read Hebrew? What should we teach them about Israel? How should we talk about God? This was my first experience in a Hebrew school setting, and as I worked with my students, I found that before these big ideas can come into the classroom, we have to first do our best to make sure that students are excited to be there and understand what it means to be a part of the Jewish people, and what they want their Jewishness to look like within our vast and unique community.

During one seminar a group of Education Directors from supplemental settings came and spoke with us. A question was asked about whether the current model of Jewish supplementary education, as it stands today, is the most successful form of Jewish education. Many of the directors responded that it isn't, but it is the model that has existed for over a hundred years and the model they are working in. I could tell these directors are working tirelessly to create amazing educational programs that are inspiring even when supplementary education isn't seen as a top priority for the families.

After spending a year working in a supplemental setting, my dream for this model is to bring parents into Jewish learning simultaneously with their children. One reason parents choose to enroll their children is because they feel passionately about passing on Jewish identity. Imagine what it would look like for parents to have inspiring Jewish educational programming alongside their children. Not only would there be more learning opportunities, but children would see their parents taking active steps to grow their connection to Judaism and be inspired to grow and foster their families Jewish identity.

Being a part of the fellowship has helped me to think about these bigger questions and given me the opportunity to talk to my peers about them. In order to grow Jewishly you have to enjoy and engage with the Jewish community you are in. Take BJEP morning tefillah, for example: Every Sunday morning at the end of the day parents join together to sing Oseh Shalom with their children and connect both through song and the act of prayer. I think at the core, Jewish supplementary education has the power to connect students and families to Judaism in a way that can be impactful for the rest of their lives.

Next year I will be starting a dual masters in early childhood general and special education and am excited to learn more about teaching and bring it into the Jewish spaces I am a part of. I am thankful for the opportunity to be a UTF where I began exploring some of these theories and put them into practice.

Hi! My name is Tali. I am a senior, and this year I taught 6th and 7th graders Nevi'im and Ketuvim at Temple Emanuel in Newton. Next year I am going to be teaching middle school at Shefa, a Jewish day school for kids with language-based learning disabilities, in New York City.

To My Students,

Our first day was tough. We barely knew each other’s names, the lesson plan was not suited to your needs, and I did not know how to keep your attention. I worried that every Sunday and Tuesday would feel like that.

However, slowly but surely, our time together morphed. We got to know each other. You learned that I was 22 and in college. I learned what sports you played, who your siblings were, the latest friend drama, and the types of classroom activities you liked best. As we built relationships, we also built routine. We checked in about your week at the start of class, we hung up your work on the walls of our room, and we always had an interactive activity. Our Sundays and Tuesdays became bearable, and dare I say, fun.

What you all don’t know is that while I came to learn with you on Sundays and Tuesdays, I was also learning on my own on Wednesdays. As part of the Undergraduate Teaching Fellowship, I was debriefing our lessons, brainstorming new approaches, and developing my own educational philosophy.

Many of the activities we did together were inspired by the ones I did myself in seminar. Blowing the shofar as part of our lesson on the walls of Jericho was inspired by the lesson on multi-sensory learning, our venn diagram on the types of leadership in Nevi’im was motivated by a check-in activity from a seminar, and the Question Matrix we used to make the questions for our review BlookIt! was introduced to me in discussion.

The learning I did in fellowship also influenced my broader approach to educational practice. I learned how my own views/positionality impact our lessons, the importance of social emotional learning in building successful classrooms, or the role of multiple intelligences. I also came to realize the role of supplementary school in creating a positive connection and association with Jewish learning and identity for students. Most of all, I learned how much I value relationship-building as part of education.

I hope that as each of you reflect on our year, you also have a takeaway or two. Maybe you can tell the story of Samuel, maybe you feel more confident in reading text from the TaNaKH, or maybe you can articulate the Jewish value you connect with the most. Most of all, I hope you feel excited about engaging with your Judaism in a way that enlivens you.

Thank you to each of you for being patient with me, sharing your interests and stories, and always making me laugh. I am excited to say that this is just the start of my journey as a Jewish educator, but you all will always be my first students.

B’ahava,
Tali

Hi, my name is Mateo Levin. I am a first year, and this year I taught 6th grade about tefillah at Beth El Temple Center in Belmont.

Participating in the Mandel Undergraduate Teaching Fellowship positively impacted my experience as a Jewish educator this year. I wasn’t really sure what to expect as a first year teacher in a Hebrew School setting. The UTF framework provided me with a framework for my teaching and equipped me with important skills for my job such as curriculum planning, creative pedagogy, and behavior management.

One of the lessons I am taking away is teaching students according to their needs. Early in the year I noticed that my students learn in different ways, and I was challenged to find creative ways to help every student succeed. For example, one student learns best by going over the text and tune until they know the prayer and tune. For another student, a game such as Hebrew basketball will better help them commit the content to memory by “gamifying” their learning. A seminar on social emotional and spiritual learning helped me understand and appreciate that students' learning can be enhanced with more real world connections. For example, when we learned about tefillin and tzitzit, we spent time talking about what they are supposed to remind us of. This was inspired by the self-awareness and social awareness aspects of social emotional learning. For self awareness, we explored the ways in which tying something on your arm is meant to impact the way you use your hands throughout the day. For social awareness, we talked about how tzitzit are supposed to remind us to have positive and kind human interactions during the day.

In another seminar we talked about teaching with ritual objects and I was able to bring ritual objects into many of my lessons. When I taught my students the Shema, I showed them my tallit and tefillin and what texts in Kirat Shema they are based on. When we learned the bracha for an aliyah, we went to the sanctuary and got to practice with a real sefer Torah. When we learned about Purim, the students got to see and touch a megillah scroll. These experiences create stronger memories than just the classroom learning because they connect the learning to Jewish living. I even saw the results of this: A few weeks after we looked at a tefillin, a few of my students excitedly turned to me during Ma’ariv, as the rabbi sang an English version of the Shema, where it says that we put a symbol on our arm and head. Now my students will keep that real association to the mitzvah of tefillin when they say the Shema.

A third seminar that impacted my teaching was when we talked about teaching God. Maimonides teaches us that we can not in our human capacity fully describe God. This year, I found teaching tefillah to be particularly challenging as students asked about what God is and how God acts in the world. Using materials about different names for God from that seminar provided both my students and me with meaningful language to talk about God.

Our mishnah teaches us, “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” I am leaving this school year meditating on this idea. American Jewish supplemental education is important and broken in many ways. Many young people, myself included, aren't equipped with the learning to embrace full citizenship in the Jewish community. An ownership of our tradition requires a certain level of Hebrew, Bible, legal, and moral knowledge. It is our duty to pass this on to the next generation. It can feel overwhelming, but I believe my role as an educator is not to change the world, but to start the work of bringing young Jews closer to our eternal Torah.

Hi! My name is Sadie Lieberman. I am a first year student. This year I taught at Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley.

Within the world of supplementary Jewish education and the limited time it provides teachers to instruct their students, there are endless questions that arise, from what to prioritize to how to accommodate every student. As this year was my first time ever teaching in a supplementary setting, I was nervous that I would not have enough time to cover all the important topics: Israel, the Jewish identity, the siddur, holidays, and different parts of the Hebrew language. This is where the UTF program came in: with every topic that I was daunted by, Robin provided a multitude of relevant activities that could be used to effectively teach these things, as well as discussion and theory to back it up. I definitely have a few favorites that I picked up from our seminars and implemented into my classroom. I teach 6th graders the Hebrew language in preparation for reading from the siddur at their Bat Mitzvahs. This is their first time learning another language, and I have only 1 hour with them a week. I found it hard to help them retain information from week to week, as well as get them to have a deep understanding beyond just basic memorization. In UTF, we did an activity exploring the different ways to translate lines of Hebrew text, demonstrating how translation is an art, not a science, and many translations with different implications are possible. Doing this activity with my students allowed them to see “language” as a concept, giving them that bit of larger knowledge from Hebrew school. More generally, we learned in UTF the importance of doing a wrap-up activity, and I have implemented that into my classroom and found my students retain a lot more of the lessons. I am truly grateful for the new perspectives and interesting discussion that the UTF program has given me. The lessons I learned in these seminars will come with me into my classroom next year as I begin my second year teaching in a supplementary setting.

Hi! My name is Abby Litwin. I am a first year and this year I taught fifth graders Nevi'im and how to lead the Torah service at Temple Emunah in Lexington.

For the past six years, I have been teaching in some form of Jewish Supplementary Education. Whether it was as a madricha in a Hebrew school, an educational programmer at camp, a program designer and leader for multiple Jewish youth groups, and now as a teacher in a religious school, I have been doing this for a while. I love teaching, especially about Israel and Jewish history, but to be the person who can instill a love for our religion, people, and culture into the next generation is a dream come true. Being a part of the UTF seminar has helped me to build my skills and understanding of why I teach the way I do and how to do so more effectively. 

I always learned best by having someone tell me something straight out. I never understood the point of projects and project-based learning, but I also needed to fidget while being told material. In our second session, we talked about multisensory experiences, such as art projects and audio/visual aids like music and videos, and in our third about different types of intelligences. I have found that those were the two sessions I got the most out of. They gave me a new understanding of how some of my students learn and how I can be planning my lessons around different types of intelligence and learning styles. I can incorporate physical activity into my lesson plans as well as standard lecture-style teaching. I have also begun to incorporate recordings into the way I teach davening to give my students a way to go back and listen to what they have learned on their own time. I also personally enjoyed our teaching about Israel session, as that is my greatest passion. I love Israel education and the nuance that goes into it. I love to teach about the complexities that go into Israeli history as well as current events. Even though my kids are young they understand more than we give them credit for, and they want to know the nuances rather than just basic information. I am grateful for the opportunity to have been a part of this incredible cohort, and I look forward to continuing my path as a Jewish educator alongside this wonderful group of people. 

Hi! My name is Naomi. I am a sophomore, and this year I taught 4th graders about ritual and Jewish heritage at BJEP, here on the Brandeis campus.

Before this fellowship, I had a narrow understanding of what religious school looked like. Growing up in the Boston area and attending a conservative shul, I mainly knew religious schools that were run through shuls and were affiliated with a denomination. Working at BJEP provided me with a new model of what religious school could be, but I lacked the pedagogical understanding to approach this model comfortably. Through this fellowship, I learned about the experiences of other fellows and Jewish education professionals, as well as curricula taught in other institutions. This has allowed me to broaden my understanding of Jewish supplementary education. Additionally, the fellowship taught me more about the value of Jewish supplemental education work. Before doing the program, I liked the work, but it still felt like a job, not a special part of my life. Because the UTF program frames Jewish supplementary education as holy work and treats it as such, I have a new appreciation for the importance of supplemental Jewish education. It has also taught me to center my role as a teacher in my own Jewish identity. Before the fellowship, teaching was just another part-time job. Now, I feel it is an integral part of how I express my Judaism. The fellowship has taught me to be more intentional with my teaching. I would always think, “What will the kids find fun? How will they pay attention?” Now, I still ask those questions, but I am also thinking about pedagogy and social emotional learning. For example, I centered the sensory aspects of the Havdalah ritual in my lessons, whereas previously I would have focused more on the halakhic reasoning for the ritual. This has improved my students’ ability to remember content past the day of the lesson. UTF has given me a greater understanding of the different forms Jewish education can take and the tools to shape my own classroom and teaching with greater specificity.

Hi! My name is Sophia Stewart. I am a sophomore and this year I taught 7th graders about Israel at Beth El Temple Center in Belmont.

Throughout the past year, I became a better teacher by creating relationships with my students and getting to know their learning styles. Each Sunday, I walked into class with a full lesson plan: text studies, activities, and short films loaded onto my laptop for the kids to watch. We had rich discussions where they had the opportunity to question everything. The most difficult aspect of teaching was trying to connect their own identities and lives to the curriculum, which was about a place very far away. However, I always end up adapting my lessons to their levels of energy and curiosities that specific day.

This used to stress me out: how unpredictable 12 and 13 year olds can be! But this year I began to appreciate how important it is for them to understand the values they grew up on in relation to class content, which has been all about Israel/Palestine. Values-based learning, I believe, has been important to my students’ ability to critically think about the conflict that is far removed from their lives. Despite the improvements that are necessary, I have instilled a love of Israel in my students through cooking activities, discussions of our Jewish identities, and an upcoming gaga tournament.

Three of the values we explored and experienced this year are home, healthy debates, and compromise. These are all values the students regularly experience.

Home. We began our year discussing conceptions of home: What is a home? How is a home different from a house? What does it mean to have (or not have) a home? Why is it important to have a home? What might it feel like to leave a home you love? These discussions were to prepare my kids to understand that Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza are home to many people. The people that live there love their homeland and feel connected to it. My goal was to help them see all sides: of a homeland and safe haven for Jews, but also a home for people who are not Jewish.

Debate. I learned that 7th graders love to argue with each other, with me, and with their parents. So we did a lot of debating. We debated which school system they would send their kids to in Israel, why or why they might or might not move to a West Bank settlement, and who to include in the coalition in a Knesset building simulation. Each of these debates required the students to first define a set of values for themselves and listen to each other as they sharpened their arguments.

Compromise. While most of my 7th graders have limited knowledge of how governments and politics work, I had them discussing how the different values of people in Israel/Palestine motivate political choices and how political parties in Israel work to reach compromise.

Teaching about Israel since October 7 has been challenging. I want my students to understand the importance of compromise and seeking peace. These are what are needed to end the conflict. It has also brought me comfort, during this difficult year, to teach my students that peace is important to solving the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Connecting content and values to kids’ lives is an effective and everlasting way to educate. Seventh graders do not always take things seriously; I gained valuable experience at adapting my lessons so that they balance seriousness and social interaction. Unlike at the beginning of the year, my students now are able to make connections to Israel as a home for them and for others, as well as, I hope, think about Israel in a critical way.

Teaching my kids to be passionate about class content by relating it to their own values and experiences has allowed them to have difficult conversations with each other. I now have an even greater passion for instilling curiosity and willingness to have critical conversations into my students than I did at the beginning of the year. I am excited to continue working in similar capacities.