The 60 Cycle Hum of the Human Soul

Because I understand loneliness, I believe in the existence of the human soul. I believe that we are engineered with a need for connection. People aren’t meant to be alone. More than just believing that infants need attention, I believe that all of us need family, community, and a circle of friends. Loneliness is the 60 cycle hum of the human soul turned on and running, but not yet connected. It is the screaming over the phone line—waiting for a modem on the other side to respond.

There are two basic ways of dealing with loneliness without making friends. One is to suffer. The other is to mask the loneliness with business. We try to be too busy to feel, or we try to numb the feeling. At the moment we have two realities. At this stage in the development of technology there seems to be a lot of engagement that can best be described as isolating.

I believe in love letters. Correspondence can develop relationships. The research on social media suggests that social media connections can deepen relationships but have a hard time creating them (see Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger).

AFFILIATION

Here is what I know. Affiliation (and contributions) are trending down. It is as if a guy in a rubber dinosaur suit is crushing a city built of cardboard buildings. Jewish institutions are closing, merging, and downsizing. Jews are staying away in droves. What is easy to witness is the fact that teens are staying away from all youth movements and report that they don’t want cliques (see Current Trends in Jewish Teen Participation with Out-of-School Activities). Show me a teen that doesn’t want to be part of a clique and it is bad news for the Jets and the Sharks. Likewise, boys in particular (who are notorious at being busy playing video games and hacking) are staying away from any Jewish groups.

While we are often complaining that Jewish institutions are not investing enough in technology, ironically this is the technology that creates the business that impedes membership. If the Jewish people are going to fight for their future, technology (positive or negative) is not the issue, community (and affiliation) is.

THE BLAME GAME

We blame the Religious School (and demand that it only be fun) while simply not joining or not attending the synagogue that is the real source of the alienation. It is not only the memory of the synagogue not being fun, of it as a source of boredom, but that as Christopher Lasch in The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations describes it the new narcissist keeps far away from any involvements that might limit his freedom and mobility. And, yes, I am suggesting that those lost in the reflection of the iPad screen and worship at the idol of the latest and the coolest are narcissists.

I want it clear; I am not blaming the technology, though it tends to inflict dopamine addiction, but the context in which it is place. I am not blaming the victims of boredom, though I am saddened by their response. I am concerned about the Jewish community’s and the Jewish educational communities’ response to non-involvement in that they have forgotten that our greatest gift is the ability to end loneliness. Community—not reinforced individuality—is our best sell. We need not go into the ontology of “freedom” here. It is enough to say that belonging and feeling connected does not limit free will.

We need to listen through the apparent selfishness and consumerism of the current generations and understand that they are masking their loneliness with a great new business.

OUR BEST TRUTH

We should be on Facebook and Twitter. We need apps and websites, and we have to make peace with technology and those who use it. But our strongest sell needs to be, “We can end loneliness.” Our schools are a place of friendships. Our communities are accepting, supportive, and welcoming. Where those things are not true—we must make them true.

Ron Wolfson latest hit (after “welcoming”) will be Relational Judaism. He is right and his book will be the next great “The Jewish Book.” It is well deserved.

In the same way, Gila Gevirtz’s new Experiencing Sacred Community should be the new standard for Jewish education. To build a shining Jewish future—we need a round table—we need a communal Judaism.

Rather than thinking of this moment as a beginning of decline—or even a radical call for innovation (though that is never bad) think of it as a moment where the loneliness and need that will build the future is fermenting. While bells and whistles can mask loneliness, they can never solve it. The need for human contact will give us a future.

Skype may be a foreshadowing of teleportation. Texting certainly has replaced the quill.

But remember “we need one another…” because “no man is a keyboard.”

Jewish Education—Zero Defects

To create the kinds of school-family partnerships that raise student achievement, improve local communities, and increase public support, we need to understand the difference between family involvement and family engagement. One of the dictionary definitions of involve is “to enfold or envelope,” whereas one of the meanings of engage is “to come together and interlock.” Thus, involvement implies doing to; in contrast, engagement implies doing with.

Ferlazzo, Larry “Involvement or Engagement?”
in Educational Leadership May 2011, Volume 68 Number 8

Zero Defects

Thirty years ago the hippest book in America was In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters. It was a time when American Industry looked towards Japanese business practices to improve our own. Two of the innovations from that period have a great potential to effect Jewish education today.

The first is the Zero Defects movement. Zero Defects was a quality control program originated by the Denver Division of the Martin Marietta Corporation (now Lockheed Martin) on the Titan Missile program, which carried the Project Gemini astronauts into space in the middle to late 1960s. It is one of the postulates from Phillip Crosby’s “Absolutes of Quality Management.” The idea here is simple. It is easier to go for zero defects than it is to reduce defects for six to four percent. Striving for perfection gets the best results.

The second is Quality circles. Quality circles were informal gatherings of managers and works that brainstormed ways of improving production excellence.

Observers of American Jewry have noted the seismic shift during the 1980s away from communal policies mainly designed to foster Jewish integration toward a survivalist agenda. Communal leaders became less preoccupied with fostering the socio-economic advancement of Jews, and instead set themselves a new challenge: How do we help Jews maintain a strong connection to Jewish life? (Wertheimer, Jack. Linking the Silos: How to Accelerate the Momentum in Jewish Education Today)

Engagement and Jewish Education

In secular education, (The World of Educational Leadership) “engagement” has come to mean “family involvement.” (Kein Yehiyah Ratzon—May it be God’s Will). In Jewish education it has taken on more of the “involvement“ meaning. Simply put, involvement is not enough.  Engagement as “participatory” involvement isn’t enough, either.

For the Jewish people to survive, we need students who will in some way join the Jewish people. Jews who grow up with an inner-sense of Judaism are not enough. A person who brags that they are one-fifth Jewish isn’t enough. Neither is having a family meal and calling it a Seder, What we need are Jews who connect regularly with other Jews and together seek to build a Jewish future.

Directly put, the primary objective of Jewish education needs to be membership. By Membership I am as good with a major gift to federation as I am with participating in a small minyan that meets in an upper West Side apartment. We need to teach belonging. Community and Leadership need to be major parts of our curriculum.

Zero Defects and Quality Circles

I think his name was Glenn. He got thrown out of his Hebrew school class virtually every day. He wound up hanging out in my youth room. I never knew how he got there. But, part of my policy as a youth director was to provide sanctuary. I got the word that he had dropped out of the Hebrew School and his parents had quit the synagogue. I made arrangements to take him out to lunch. We ate together. I put on no pressure. I just said good-bye, because I thought that someone at the synagogue needed to. It was my version of zero defects. It would probably better be labeled “an exit interview.” I just thought that someone needed to say good-bye if there was to be any hope for a “hello” in the future.

Zero Defects in Jewish Schooling means that we let no one quit, no one leave. It means that we have to fight to retain every family. And fighting to keep every family means that we need to listen and we have to change. This, by the way, doesn’t mean we have to give up our standards though we may have to rethink our method.

Quality circles is the second part of the formula. Whether it is families or students, you need to give your clients a voice in the process. Lots of synagogues and schools have already done this in programs like S2k and Imagine (etc). And while there is an old chestnut about putting people who complain on the committee, this is not that. Here, you honestly start with the question, “What can make what we do more effective?

Here is what you are thinking. If you are not worried that they will want you to fire half your teachers and cut a day a week out of the school—then, you are think that there is no way you can get them to show up. You can figure out how to get them there—I know you can. I also know that first you listen, then you think about change. You will need to change—but you know that already.

Getting Engaged

Let’s assume that engagement is a maximal word rather than a minimal world. If we read the educational literature, it is more than experiential. It is experiential with a connection; ideally a family connection. This means that we have to do a lot more than run a few “station” events for families—it means we need to engage in a real partnership with them. Partnerships involving sharing responsibilities (we have to get them to take some). And partnerships mean sharing control. Think zero defects and quality circles. But, most of all, we need to teach Jewish community by creating Jewish community. There are a lot of businesses out there that are now trying to take over synagogue schools. If we think of education as a product, then we might as well let them take over. But, we have it in our power to do a couple of thinks they can’t do. Families that want to “buy” an education (or a Bar/Bat Mitzvah prep) can now do so on the internet. We can offer them two things they can’t buy with a iPad. First we can be a great synagogue. Second we can be the great interactive school that synagogue offers. That is the only way we can achieve out central goal of membership.

Invest in Teachers

And the Lord spoke unto Moses after the latest food riot and God said unto him, “Speak unto the leading complainers in Israel and say unto them, ‘Form focus groups and write mission statements to set priorities. Use process to determine the rules that the Lord your God has taught you. You should follow the Torah of consensus and worship at the altar of committee.’”

I watch the news almost every afternoon. I have been seeing a set of commercials for Exxon Mobil for a long time without really noticing them. The commercial series is all about Exxon Mobil’s commitment to support teachers; the series of ads use the phrase “Invest in Teachers” and focus on math and science teachers. When I noticed the ads, I Googled the phrase and learned a lot.

Public School Teacher/Hebrew School Teacher

Public School teachers have a very different task (job) than do Jewish Studies and Hebrew School teachers. Public School (and private school teachers) live in a world of metrics and evaluation. As my friends who teach in the public school systems remind me, “It is all about the test. No Child Left Behind was all about tests.” It has been reformed as Race to The Top. It is still all about evaluation of teachers via their students’ progress.

The job of the Jewish teacher is first and foremost affect. Our job (like it or not) is to lead our students into a Jewish future. It is (in old language) to “build Jewish identity;” in today’s mission statement language it is written as to “build Jewish engagement.”

The other end-goal of most Jewish Education has no metric either. What is called “Hebrew Decoding,” the act of turning Hebrew graphemes into fluent and correct phonemes is hard to measure objectively. When you get 87 out of 100 math questions right, I can say you are doing 6^th grade math and are at the 92 percentile of 5^th grade students taking this test. I have objective information on students and teachers.

With Hebrew out-loud reading there is no objective measure. We may be able to agree on “good” and “bad” but I have no way to measure progress. This makes the evaluation of Jewish schools, educational leaders, and teachers, subjective not objective.

Teaching to the numbers may not be good for secular education, and there may be better ways of evaluating both students and teachers (and that is another story). The lack of a “Jewish metric” makes it really hard to succeed. The evaluation of Jewish education either needs a 30-year window (until the time when our students are the parents of students) or it is completely subjective. When there is no way to prove that you are successful—accusations of failure are frequent.

It is easier to imagine learning multiplication from a computer program than it is to imagine participation in Jewish life learned on line. Even so, a lot of educational research suggests that it is the teacher who makes the difference.

Invest in Teachers

The pitch made by Exxon Mobil is that the one thing that most enhances learning is teacher knowledge. That is a lesson that Jewish education has not learned well. More than understanding the latest model popularized by Educational Leadership, we should be developing teachers with deep Jewish knowledge. Look at these reports:

Educational Leadership:“All around the world, nations seeking to improve their education systems are investing in teacher learning as a major engine for academic success. The highest-achieving countries on international measures such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Third International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) have been particularly intent on developing teachers’ expertise both before they enter the profession and throughout their careers”

Bill Gates (Washington Post): “Compared with other countries, America has spent more and achieved less. If there’s any good news in that, it’s that we’ve had a chance to see what works and what doesn’t. That sets the stage for a big change that everyone knows we need: building exceptional teacher personnel systems that identify great teaching, reward it and help every teacher get better. It’s the thing we’ve been missing, and it can turn our schools around.”

Standford Center for Educational Policy: “In these high achieving nations, teachers’ professional learning is a high priority and teachers are treated as professionals. Many of the countries that have established strong infrastructures for high-quality teaching have built them over the last two decades. This suggests that such conditions could be developed in the United States as well, with purposeful effort and clarity about what matters and what works to support professional learning and practice.”

Asia Society: “The best school systems in the world boast good salaries and prestige in the teaching profession. In Japan and China, teachers have equal or higher salaries compared to other government workers. Liu Limin, the Chinese vice minister for education, deadpanned that, “as a civil servant, I can say the salaries aren’t high. But in reality, they are high enough to draw some of the best candidates into the profession.”

Institute of Education, University of London: “Children in classes taught by the best teachers learn four times faster than those in classes taught by the poorest ones, according to a leading educationalist.” (Professor Dylan Wiliam)

While we know that the jobs are different, there is something that Jewish education can learn from investing in teachers—particularly in the content knowledge base rather than the techniques and tricks we share. Look particularly at these articles:

• Gail Zaiman Dorph & Barry W. Holtz, “Professional Development for Teachers: Why Doesn’t the Model Change?” Journal of Jewish Education , Aug 2006
• Sharon Feiman-Nemser , “Teach them diligently to your children: An experiment in avocational teaching” Journal of Religious Education  Fall 1997
• Gail Zaiman Dorph, Susan S. Stodolsky & Renee Wohl, “Growing as Teacher Educators: Learning New Professional Development Practices” Journal of Jewish Education Aug 2006
• Gail Zaiman Dorph, “Investigating Prospective Jewish Teachers’ Knowledge and Beliefs about Torah: Implications for Teacher Education” Brandeis University Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education

We’ve known about the importance of teacher education for a long time, we’ve just moved away from it.

Beware of Texas

Public schools are likely to get a lot worse. Texas is on the way of banning higher level thinking skills from their state curriculum. The Republican Party of Texas has a platform plank against teachings HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills). As goes the Republican party so goes the Republican controlled State Legislature. As goes the State of Texas so goes all American Educational Publishing companies because they are that big a share of the market. As goes the Educational Publishing Companies so go most public school systems, because there, fulltime degreed teacher aren’t willing to work without books. (That my father bought for two zuzim…)

At the moment, Jewish Education seems to be moving in a number of directions. First, camp-like Experiential education is on the rise. Second, not-so-happy Hebrew time is being reduced or handled on-line. Basically, while public schools are going to information and basic skills in order to pass their tests. Jewish education is going in the other direction, looking to create schools that feel good. This is an observation, not a judgment.

The problem for Jewish Education is two-fold.

First, basic information is being lost. Second, we are no longer raising Jews who have the knowledge and skills to run their own Jewish life. We are no longer raising Jews who have the critical thinking skills to survey the tradition and decide what they believe. Technology can be a useful tool, but in the end, learning communities (that deal with the abstract) are the solution.

The Solution

There are goals, needs, and distractions. Our goal is to raise the next generation of Jews who will take responsibility for both raising another generation of Jews and do their part in tikkun olam. We haven’t been that good at meeting these goals, but they remain the real goals of a Jewish education, not just knowing the four “kinds” that are used on Sukkot or performing rehearsed Hebrew well on a single day.

Our goal is to build a connection between each of our students and the Jewish tradition. To help each student to find a way for Judaism to be useful in his/her life and then (a la Jack Kennedy) to find a way that they can be useful to the Jewish tradition’s future. While these goals are really different from doing well on a standardized test, they fall right in line with older educational goals, ones that focused on HOTS and strive to make students in mathematicians rather than teaching them mathematics, making then biologists rather than teaching them about biology.

Our real goal is to create Jews, not to teach our students about limited aspects of Judaism. And to do that, no matter the medium or the technology, learned teachers are needed. We need to adopt something like the goals the DOE has:

• Elevating the profession and focusing on recruiting, preparing, developing, and rewarding effective teachers and leaders.
• Focusing on teacher and leader effectiveness in improving student outcomes.
• Strengthening pathways into teaching and school leadership positions in high need schools

from A Blueprint for Reform: The Re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act

Our students (and their families) have real needs that require our understanding. We hear them on their e-mails that fill our mailboxes and our voice mail boxes. We know that they are unhappy—and like the consumers they’ve been trained to be—they know exactly what we should be doing for their children. No matter what we want to achieve, their satisfaction has to be taken into consideration and real responses (actions) have to be taken to assure their participation.

Here is where it gets tricky. Misread, their demands seem to ask for less. If they get us to shrink the scope of our goals, they are a distraction. In truth they are demanding authenticity. In the short run they are asking to go to soccer. In the long run they are demanding schools that are good enough to challenge soccer. To achieve that, we need great, knowledgeable, teachers to be there in relationship with their students. Try to imagine a viable camp without viable counselors.

It is taught that Hillel the Elder said in a baraita. “At the time of gathering, if the educational leaders of the community see that Torah is known and loved by all, leave it to others to determine the educational process. But, if they see a community for whom Torah is not beloved or well known, don’t allow the Torah to be disgraced.”                                                                                           - Brakhot 63a

Kohlberg Was Wrong: A Book Review

Haidt, Jonathan. 2012. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. USA. Pantheon Books

I was raised in an education world where Jean Piaget was the sun. In that universe, Dr. Lawrence Kohlberg was the monarch of Moral Development. Much of my own work in Jewish values was predicated on Kohlberg. This essay is, in a way, a chance to begin again.

Jonathan Haidt is a moral psychologist who studies the way the brain actually makes decisions. His new book, The Righteous Mind, is a look at ethical decision-making in light of brain science. The book is built on three metaphors. The first of the three is “The mind is divided like a rider on an elephant and the rider’s job is to serve the elephant. Think the evolved brain resting on the crocodile brain.

Kohlberg suggested that children are moral philosophers who construct from idea of “harm” (that they experience as bad) to a concept of justice. Piaget watched children construct rules for playing marbles and concluded that children were rule makers. Rules went through growing complexity as children aged. Kolhberg applied Piaget’s developmental model to make the development of ethics a series of stages. Haidt debugs that and presents research that suggests that people ultimately make gut decisions about right and wrong. Thinking comes later. He says, “The elephant chooses its path” and reason, “the in-house press secretary,” (the rider) rationalizes those decisions. To firmly establish this he points out that morality shifts by culture.

This is the thinking-brain working with our primitive crocodile brain.

Judaism as a Civilization

Mordechai Kaplan wrote Judaism as a Civilization. Kaplan had a vision that understood that Judaism was a culture, a civilization—not merely a religion. He focused on those things that brought Israel together. He said that “we were a choosing people rather than the chosen people.” The nature of this community, their shared practices and values, were central to Kaplan’s understanding.

An individual is a person, when and because he knows himself as such; a group is a people, when and because it knows itself as such. (Mordechai Kaplan, Future of the American Jew, 1948)

While it is strange to expand an understanding of Kaplan by quoting his academic opponent Abraham Joshua Heschel, it is their confluence I want to show.

A few years back, Barry Shrage showed me a quote from Heschel that read, “The two words I never want to read again are ‘Identity’ and ‘Survey.’ Neither has anything to do with anything Jewish.”

“Who is a Jew?” A person in travail with God’s dreams and designs; a person to whom God is a challenge, not an abstraction. He is called upon to know of God’s stake in history; to be involved in the sanctification of time and in building the Holy Land; to cultivate passion for justice and the ability to experience the arrival of Friday evening as an event. “Who is a Jew?” A witness to the transcendence and presence of God; a person in whose life Abraham would feel at home, a person for whom Rabbi Akiba would feel deep affinity, a person of whom the Jewish martyrs of all ages would not be ashamed.

While Heschel is always theological and Kaplan sociological, what they hold in common is a dynamic and complex understanding of Judaism that is anything but reductionist. It is Judaism not as information, not as collection of individual practices, not as the right percentage of answers to a survey—but, Jewishness as a dynamic communal culture.

Identity, Continuity, Engagement and Less

Let’s talk about “Goal” words. Goal words are the way that people concentrate and express their targets. Goal words in Jewish life have always been interesting. Federated Jewish life has gone through a steady decline in the scope of these words. What began as “enculturation,” became “identity,” then “continuity,” and now is “engagement.” “Enculturation” is being wrapped in the blanket of a full culture. “Engagement” is little more than eye contact. Given smartphones, eye contact may be a lot to ask for.

The lesson of The Righteous Brain is that culture and ethical decision making are intertwined. If, you care about Jewish ethics (and not just liberal ethics with a Jewish quote) then it has to come culturally. They come with mitzvot, Biblical literacy, Hebrew poetry, food, and a whole host of other factors. Think of how a Passover Seder screams “freedom.” This doesn’t mean that Jews have to become religious, but they have to be wrapped snugly in Jewish culture. Hayyim Nahman Bialik got this when he and Ravnitzky created Sefer Ha-Aggadah whichis an all-encompassing collection of rabbinic stories.

The simple truth is that less is less when we come to Jewish education and that despite fiscal and physical needs that make keeping the doors open, we have some questions to face about diminishing returns. When is too little not enough?

I am not standing on the top of the mountain here, and looking down. I want to make it very clear that I too worship at the altar of practicality. What I write today is not the same as what I once would have written. The changes I make are influenced by the choices made on the frontiers of Jewish life. I don’t get to decide what schools look like. I don’t directly face the Jewish people and I deal only indirectly with their desires. I don’t have a stack of pink phone notes and dozens of angry e-mails when I read my desk in the morning. I have learned to accept that there are things over which I do not have power, but in the darkness of night, in the edge of sleeplessness, I still wonder about my own actions. I worry about what is left after I have minimalized it.

Metaphor Two: Morality is Like Taste

Jonathan Haidt introduces the term “WEIRD”–Western Educated Industrial Rich Democratic. Until recently, almost all experiments in moral development were conducted within the WEIRD. And, unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, most of our students (and their parents) are WEIRD, too.

Haidt’s second metaphor is that morality is a lot like taste. Just as we have a number of different taste receptors on our tongues (sweet, sour, salty, umami, and bitter). Most liberals use only the first two of these receptors (that Haidt calls “the Foundations”). Conservatives tend to use all six. So do most people who are non-WEIRD.

These foundations are:

•  care/harm
• liberty/oppression
• fairness/cheating
• loyalty/betrayal
• authority/subversion
• sanctity/degradation

Care/Harm. The Jewish tradition (both Jewish law and the lessons of Jewish history) is committed to the care/harm foundation. This is very key to Kohlberg’s Moral Development. It stems from “one who saves one person is like one who saved the whole world.” It is all of our Tikkun Olam goals.

Liberty/Oppression. Liberty is a value that Jews have come to adopt. I am honestly not sure where the Jewish origins of the liberty connection are, despite “Proclaim liberty throughout the land (Leviticus 25:10).” Passover is the Egypt/anti-slavery foundation. We buy heavily into that value area (but we have our own language for it) . We are very anti-oppression. It is all wrapped up in the word “Egypt,” then shifts to “Haman” and “Holocaust.”

Fairness/cheating. Fairness/cheating is also a big Jewish value complex. This is also the bridge foundation that liberals buy into but nowhere as strongly as conservatives. For Jews this is in a file drawer labeled “fair weights and scales.” It is why we are so strong on business ethics. If you worry less about welfare cheats and more about getting help to those who need it, you do not have this foundation as a central value. (I don’t either!)

Loyaty/Betrayal & Authority Subversion. Theloyalty/betrayal foundation and the authority/subversion foundation also have deep Jewish roots. Traditional Judaism felt it was wrong to ever turn a Jew over to a non-Jewish court. It was a loyalty issue. We label it a “Jewish People” thing. But, while these values still have root (sometimes inappropriately) in the extreme Orthodox community, they have less application in the Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative communities. If these foundations don’t make sense to you, think about the fuss over Obama and a flag pin. It was an American version of the intermarriage issue. These two foundations are where Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan did much of his work. It is the heart of the JCC movement where you pay to work-out next to other Jews. Kaplan invented the JCC, theHavurah, and a lot of other communal processes.

Sanctity/Degradation. Sanctity/degradation can better be understood as holy and profane. These are core religious values that are very at risk in the WEIRD world. Since 9/11 there have been some interesting changes to Western religiosity. Conservatives reacted by saying that “Islam was anti-peace.” This got modified by liberals to “Moslem Fundamentalist are evil.” This soon became “all fundamentalists are all evil.” And in for many of our kids as, “all religion is evil.” “The New Atheists,” Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens” have grown in popularity. This is where Bill Maher likes to dwell. It is the heart of Religulous.

Fewer of our kids now believe in God than have believed in God in a long time. 9/11 put us in a post-post-modern context with belief in, and a rejection of, science—both at an all-time high. The real challenge here is to get our students to perceive the category of the sacred. Or as Lawrence Kushner once taught, “It is not so important to ask our students if they believe in God, but to get them to share one timewhen they felt close to God.

Metaphor Three: Morality Binds and Blinds

Haidt’s last metaphor is: We are ninety-percent Chimp and ten-percent Bee. Simply put, chimps have no sense of cooperation. They may mate, but they are loners. Bees have the “hive mentality” thing. People are “Homo Duplex,” they function alone but also can seriously do the “group thing.” Most often the group thing functions as “we vs. them” (Go Red Sox), but it need not go that far. Humans have what Jonathan Haidt calls a “hive switch” where the power of being a group member overcomes our usual preference for individuality.

Haidt says, “Religion is a team sport.” We know that already. That is why Jewish community and classroom community need to be such a big deal for our schools. We need for our students to be together (1) long enough and (2) in such a way that they bond together.

We get the Homo Duplex thing, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am only for myself, what am ‘I’? And If not now, when?” (Hillel, Pirke Avot 1:14)

Haidt suggests that religion is a triad:

We also get that. Judaism is a combination of the three. When we work on belonging, we are building a path towards the other two. We need to move our clients from aloneness to friendship, and then from friendship to belonging. That is the path to Jewish survival.

The Three Metaphors

The lessons from The Righteous Mind are locked in its three metaphors:

[1] The Brain is like an Elephant with Rider. Reason is the rider, gut feelings are the elephant. The elephant decides where it is going; the rider tries to keep it out of trouble. We decide most things in our gut and then our reason rationalizes them. The major way to influence the decisions the elephant makes is to wrap them in culture. Our schools need to provide a rich, unique culture.

[2] Morality is Like Eating. The tongue has five different kinds of taste buds. Our morality has six kinds of foundations. Liberals only use two and a fraction of these. People who are not WEIRD or who are conservatives use all six. Our job is to expand our students’ ability to taste. We are to treat them with experiences from the other four other foundations. The “sacred” is the most important of these other receptors. Non-fundamental holiness is our challenge.

[3] Humans are Ninety-percent Chimp and Ten-percent Bee. People are individuals, but they have a “hive switch.” If we can flip this switch by building community, we create an import part of the belonging, believing, acting triad. For Jews, action is the second step. When we act as a community we build faith.

This is a great book. I learned a lot from it. I really recommend it. There is a lot that Jewish educators can learn from it.

Not All Hebrew Schools Suck, Part II

Attached to a link that read Should We Send Our Kids to Hebrew School?the website Kveller leads us to an article called “Finding My Jewish Community, or Making it Myself” by Logan Ritchie. The story is that of a homemade religious school created by a number of families in Atlanta called the Jewish Kids Group.

In praise of this camp style school we are told:

…my boy learned the Shema in sign language, sang “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” in Hebrew, and got slathered in a Dead Sea mud bath. Since then he has taught my dad how to play Simon Says in Hebrew, been serenaded by a Jewish American Idol contestant, created a map of the Negev desert in Israel, played with Hebrew puppets, and created his own Hebrew alphabet book.

It is hard to fault any of this learning. It is also hard to say that much unique (other than the mud bath) took place here. You will find most of these activities at most Hebrew Schools. Often fear is worse than the reality. When you create your own Hebrew school it tends to be very much the same.

The author explains: “I want my rabbi bearded, wearing a tie-dye tallit, and playing guitar. I want my son to grow up to be a thoughtful, spiritual, civic-minded, Jewish man.” Not everyone wants a “Hippie” rabbi but most people and most schools work towards “thoughtful, spiritual, civic-minded, Jewish people.”

The families involved did not have to step outside the synagogue system to get this education for their family and their child. They did (as they point out) save on synagogue dues. We know that no one should have to support the Jewish community.

If you want to see just as innovative a school happening in a Synagogue Setting, see Mayim—The Elementary Community at Temple Beth Shalom. They are not so hard to find.

Home-cooked food is often better than eating out. I am not against home cooking and will never oppose parents who work hard to creating a learning process for their children. The Hawthorne Effect virtually guarantees their success. I am all for innovation, because it makes for more involved practitioners and participants. Viva the revolution! Every ten years or so there is the need to invent new educational jargon and reject the methodology of the past. I have done that, too. Now I am the past. For my birthday Jane took me to Bouchon, a Thomas Keller restaurant. It was better than any home-cooked meal.

Bible Story

Let’s study some Torah. We learn between Numbers 11:27 and 11:29:

A young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses’ aide since youth, spoke up and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!” But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Eternal’s people were prophets and that the Eternal would put God’s Spirit on them!”

We, the previous generation of Jewish innovators, are being told that our work is outdated and that newer innovation is all around us. We need to respond like Moses, “Would that all of Jewish schools were innovative.” It doesn’t matter if the innovations aren’t all that new. It doesn’t matter if not all these innovations work. And, it matters less if these innovations are replicable. What matters is that the very investment in innovation will just about always make things better; when parents are part of the innovative process—how much the more so.

Synagogue Schools

Jonathan S. Woocher is Chief Ideas Officer of JESNA and heads its Lippman Kanfer Institute, an Action-oriented Think Tank for Innovation in Jewish Learning and Engagement. Dr. Woocher is the author of the book Sacred Survival: The Civil Religion of American Jews. In his book he argues that synagogues are a dying institution that will be replaced by JCCs and Jewish Federations. As I see it, the new growth in Jewish life is mainly in religious institutions, such as independent minyanim and reboot. Dr. Woocher is probably North America’s leading voice for innovation. Not surprisingly, the most touted innovations on the scene are mainly non-synagogue in origin. Many, many Jews are seeking synagogue alternatives. Education isn’t different. Think tied-dye tallit.

There are a few things I worry about when we talk non-synagogue education.

1. I don’t want it to cover only the bar/bat mitzvah prep years. Gaps and meta-message scare me. I don’t like any education done just for a coming of age ceremony. I want life-long learning or the possibility at least. I care about the before and the after.
2. I worry about the Bermuda Triangle of Jewish Engagement: the summer camp, the youth group, and the Israel experience. While alternatives do exist, they are usually not as content rich and as accessible as Synagogue/Movement connected experiences.
3. I want real Jewish life. I love storefront synagogues that struggle with the whole family. I don’t like Hebrew school in a garage that knows neither brit nor funeral.

So far, synagogue schools seem the best way of doing that for the majority of the community. And we live with the truth that says, “the better the synagogue, the better the school.”

The Godfather of Jewish education in North America was Samson S. Benderly. He hated the Sunday School and called it, “the shande school,” He built communal secular alternatives called the Talmud Torah. These were matched with a system of Hebrew Colleges that extended Jewish education through high school and college and had a system of Jewish teacher training. Almost all of the Talmudai Torah are out of business (St. Paul and Minneapolis are an exception) and most of the surviving Hebrew colleges are negotiating mergers with secular universities to stay in business. This was a failure of civic Judaism and the world is not better for it. What has survived is the synagogue school, day schools, and a few high school experiences. I believe that we have to work with what we’ve got. While the leading alternatives are not synagogue connected the majority of students are.

Gaps Damage Jewish Engagement

I know that changing schools is not a good thing. The greatest loss in Jewish education is between Jewish preschool and continued Jewish schooling, and the gap between Jewish pre- and post- bar/bat mitzvah school is almost as big (see Demography and Jewish Education in the Diaspora… by Sergio DellaPergola and Uziel O. Schmelz ). What none of these alternative strictures offer at the moment is anywhere to continue (see Re-Designing Jewish Education for the 21st Century). Most synagogue schools have two way connections with the before and the after. What I know is that promotions are better for Jewish survival than graduations.

The End Game

American Education changed dramatically with No Child Left Behind Teaching relationships were no longer important, caring about and knowing each student was secondary, only student test scores matter. Government now demands that teachers teach for the test in order to survive. If you read my blog entry on Gary Marcus’ Guitar Zero you will see a very different model of teaching where excellence involves knowing when and how to challenge each student and when that student needs help. Knowing the right way of helping is equally important. I have regularly argued that Jewish teaching needs that kind of intimacy (see my book Teaching Jewishly).

I suspect that a lot of the anger directed at the Hebrew school is deferred anger from the secular schools who are mechanically score oriented and are a harder target. Believe me, public and private school teachers and administration get a lot of flak, too. But, they seem better able to survive it.

Innovation is in the air. Our lives are now literally in the clouds. My cheer-leading for synagogue schools is not regressive—it simply an acknowledgement of an anti-synagogue bias, and an acknowledgement of reality. Everyone should innovate and share those innovations. We should grow the entire interface between Jewish learning and Jewish learners. To embrace technology we need not abandon eye-contact. To applaud innovation we need not denigrate the journeymen who are still working in the mines.

John Dewey wrote Experience in Education in 1938 that is the foundation of today’s Experiential Education trend. In that book he argues against the “straw dog” he labels “traditional education” in order to forward innovation. He speaks as if there are “traditional schools” where all is bad and “progressive schools” where all that is sunshine and light. The same dichotomy has been used pitting “Hebrew Schools” against “innovation.” Not fair and not true. We are all concerned with the survival of the Jewish people and the growth of Judaism. Some places do that well in traditional settings and some places do it poorly and shallowly in the name of “innovation.” Our goals are complex. The population is diverse. The funding at a minimum. And Rabbi Tarfon says, “The Master continues to be demanding” (Pirke Avot 2:21). Remember, not all Hebrew Schools suck.

Not All Hebrew Schools Suck

I took a trip back east to work with teachers. I was reminded that the greater Jewish world lies about the Hebrew School experience. They call it “the drop off school” and denigrate the parents who make a solid commitment to fight their kids to get them there once, twice, or three times a week. It may not be all the commitment we want—but it is a hell-o-a -lot more than over 70 percent of Jewish parents (at any given moment) who don’t provide their children with any Jewish education.

These parents may tell their children: “I hate it and I went—You’ll hate it and you’ll go.” It is not everything we would want—but compared to all those who don’t say anything—it is a lot. These “drop-off” families are the ones who show up for our family education events. They become our partners, they work with us to create the best for their children. We don’t succeed with all of them—but we do succeed with a lot more of them than the families that don’t show up at all.

We all know that every Hebrew School teacher received lessons in torture from Torquemada. We know that Jewish children all have nightmares about having to read the seventh Hebrew line on page twenty-seven. But, back east, I saw a lot of teachers doing a good job. I saw them knowing and relating to their students. I saw them create their classrooms as a sacred space. And, I saw them have the expertise to know when to challenge and when to help.

2012

The Mayan calendar falsely predicted the end of the Hebrew School in 2012. Jewish newspapers have been predicting the death of the Hebrew school and has run Hebrew school horror stories, including the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. The worst I have read was about a kid who was dragged out of his parent’s car, crying and convulsing, on the way into the synagogue.

But to be honest, the Jewish Educational Innovation Establishment has a vest interest in killing the Hebrew school so that they can replace it. If it isn’t bad, if it isn’t a failure, if it isn’t apparently dying of its own degeneration—it doesn’t need to be replace. And a lot of people are in the business of replacing Hebrew school.

So first of all you have the “it’s free and only one day a week” supplemental school system, Chabad, who is now, according to A Census of Jewish Supplementary Schools in the United  States, the largest denomination in the country.  There is the do it at home on-line school,  the Harry Potter Hebrew School method. And there is the do it with the families—and that makes us different Hebrew School movement  despite the fact that just about all Hebrew schools now have attempts (many successful) at involving families.

Then there is the ringmaster who keeps all these alternatives in the air, The Lippman Kanfer Institute.

The congregational school offers a few things that these “innovations” don’t–access to a Youth Movement and a Summer Camp system. Learning opportunities for adults, post Bar Mitzvah kids—and an organic community that is about a lot more than a private ceremony under a tent in the backyard.

Let’s acknowledge some truths:

1. Jewish Education is expensive. Jewish life is expensive.
2. Not all (but not no) Congregational Schools offer quality experiences—just like the one I visited in New York.
3. Technology is now part of family lives and needs to be incorporated into present Jewish learning experiences.
4. That the Jewish teacher (and not just the rabbi) was considered a position of honor and esteem in the Jewish community and they can do some really important things like honoring each student, like building sacred communities, and establishing lifelong Jewish connections that transcend the school setting.
5. The “process” and the involvement of learners in the system—that introducing the word “stakeholders” into the discussion—can dramatically improve the educational outcome.

The Rest of the Truth

While it is a time for innovation and reconsideration, while there are legitimate fiscal pressures, there are some destructive trends that are working to destroy the present system and insure its failure. There are exceptions to all of these.

1. The closing of central agencies of Jewish education and therefore the removal of the only institution that cares about the success of teachers and works towards their betterment.
2. The closing or scaling back of national institutions of Jewish Education—and the promulgation of the belief that Jewish education is no longer a communal obligation but should be moved into the marketplace.
3. The foundation assumption that only the new is worth funding and therefore the lack of funds for that which is extant and successful, requiring the system to be constantly innovational and never pushing for continuity of process or staff. By-the-way, just about no grants, and that has become the funding process of necessity, will ever pay for staff—and that is a suicidal posture.
4. The present need for congregations to fire seasoned and long term Jewish educators in order to higher hire? just graduated and without parallel experience assistant rabbis.
5. The War on Time. While there is pressure from the “regular school” and while working mothers (almost a universal reality) don’t have the time to provide transportation—the downsizing of the learning time, contact depth, and relational ability of the Congregational School is majorly undermining success.

That which is being chronicled and predicted in the media about the congregational school is being insured by public policy. The leading Jewish “educational” thinkers fill their writing and lectures with a chronicling of failure and alternatives strictures—rather than working on improvement of the extant. For them—the Hebrew school is beyond saving.

Here is What I Know…

1. Good to great work with Jewish families is already being done, including Shevet: Jewish Family Education Exchange.
2. A few congregational schools are great, some are good, and, many good enough.
3. No one goes into Jewish education for the money. All educators (and teachers) do it as part of a sense of mission. Many are good at it.
4. Pilot programs and new models and experiments are useful—but the Jewish people are going to be sustained through larger schooling movements. Like it or not—the Hebrew school is going to be the primary form of Jewish education. The right question is: “How do we make it better?”

Back East

The school I visited back east is big on experiential education. The synagogue is big on work with families. This school has a commitment to every child’s esteem and success. They have too high a percentage of success—more than the statistics would ever suggest. But here is my big take-a-way: Every teacher has their own mission statement. They are not written. They would never call them mission statements, but each teacher (and they are not all the same) knows why they are in the classroom, has a clear understanding of what success looks like, and can vision each of their students succeeding. That personal sense of vision—supported and nourished by a good administration—makes for a great school. There may be horror stories here—because they always are—but none of them are true. This school does not suck.

What do you think?

Flipping, Camping, Coviewing and the Future

What’s New?

I am just learning about the second round of magic bullets. What magic bullets? The one that are supposed to save Jewish Education that has been according to every major Jewish newspaper and magazine is in complete collapse for more than ten years. All of a sudden, the discussed solutions are becoming more realistic.

For a long time there were two dominant views on Jewish schooling. The first was “end the drop-off (Hebrew)—send them to Jewish camp instead.” The second was “end the drop-off (Hebrew School)–use technology to let the kids study at home.”

Anyone who knows the history of educational change knows that the system resists inertia. Change does happen but rarely does all the water go with the baby. Change is incremental. To understand how change works, you know that first you are confronted with the radical, then along comes the incremental. We are now at the point where interesting, practical change is now happening.

Flipping

The flipped-classroom is one of the hot new topics in education. It is a simple idea. Watch the lectures at home on line. Then, come to class and do the homework with the teacher’s help. It started like this:

Four years ago, in the shadow of Colorado’s Pike’s Peak, veteran Woodland Park High School chemistry teachers Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams stumbled onto an idea. Struggling to find the time to reteach lessons for absent students, they plunked down $50, bought software that allowed them to record and annotate lessons, and posted them online. Absent students appreciated the opportunity to see what they missed. But, surprisingly, so did students who hadn’t missed class. They, too, used the online material, mostly to review and reinforce classroom lessons. And, soon, Bergmann and Sams realized they had the opportunity to radically rethink how they used class time. (Educationnext: The Flipped Classroom)

The flipped classroom seems to work best in math and science, but the idea is a great idea for “regular” schools. It also seems to have great application for “Complementary Schools.” I don’t know of one that has tried it. If you know of a school that (despite the ubiquitous homework prohibition rule) is trying it, please let me know.

The Jewish version seems to be—background content at home, experiential education when the sacred school community comes together. Most secular schools are creating under six minute videos (think you tube) for home use, usually created in a neo “power-point” kind of way. See “The Flipped Classroom Network.”

Camp NSCI

Camp and Israel trips have long been the winners on the Jewish Education scoreboard. There have been a lot tries at turning Religious Schools into camp like entities. Congregation Ohabai Shalom, Brookline, Mass., tried it years ago when it had a camp-director as its educator. Temple Judea of Tarzana has a much reported two-weeks of day camp called The Nisayon Program instead of Sunday school program. But Roberta Louis Goodman and her staff at North Shore Congregation Israel in Glencoe, Il. have created the drop-off camp-style Religious School. It happens every week. It has bunks and counselors and all of that good stuff. And it has an emphasis on training 7^th-12^th graders as madrikhim (assistants) program. All of this happens in the synagogue building on a weekly basis with an emphasis on experiential learning.

CoViewing

One of the latest terms in tech. education is “coviewing. The Joan Ganz Cooney center, part of the Sesame Street Workshop, has released a number of research documents on the topic of coviewing. The bottom lines here are (1) media is useless below two years of age, (2) there are a series of skills that can be acquired through computer gaming after that, and (3) coviewing (parent and child on-line or watching together) and build their relationship and communication that way.

While there are cautions and limitations, family education can gain from the interaction. How much the more so Jewish family education?

Shevet: The Jewish Family Education Exchange

Family education had its ten minutes of fame in the 1990s. There was the Whizin Institute for Jewish Family Life. It served as a central address, a creative hub, and a voice for Jewish Family Education (EJewish Philanthropy: Jewish Family Education: New and Improved). American Jewish University sent the faculty of the Whizin Institute a “mission accomplished” letter and closed it down. For a few years the people who were Whizin continued as the Consortium for the Future of the Jewish Family and they ran a summer conference within the CAJE conference. In 2010, the Covenant Foundation funded the group who has now emerged as Shevet: The Jewish Family Education Exchange. Shevet is working on recreating a center for Jewish Family Education and growing the field. Join their group site to get involved.

Meanwhile family education has continued in virtually every synagogue in the country, even though just about no one has the job of family educator anymore, synagogues have carried on. Unfortunately, while there are lots of grade based programs and special events, the state of the field is no longer advancing. You can also check out the impact parental involvement brings in the article “Back to School: How Parent Involvement Affects Student Achievement (At a Glance)“.  One of the most interesting attempts to involve parents in their children’s educational process is Yerusha. That has the parents take much of the responsibility for the learning that happens when families get together.

Put It All Together…

I want it all, I want a Jewish education that works like camp; that injects Jewish content through co-viewing and then provokes family education. I want parents active in their child’s education. I want that education both text centered and experiential. I want Jewish Family Education to be part of every Jewish education. I want it content rich. And, I want it to both connect the family to other families in the community and to build family skills in talking and doing things together.

I want a lot. I want it all. Clarity is beginning to come into the future. It has little to do with carpools.