A Jewish Perspective on a Famous Catholic

Senator Ted Kennedy died last week, and was buried on Saturday at Arlington National Cemetery near the graves of two of his older brothers - President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy. The entire nation mourns his death.

The story of the Kennedy family is a story of power and privilege, of positive impact and of serious imperfection. Because we live in a world today in which there are few secrets for people in the public eye, we know about JFK's infidelities, about RFK's children and their problems, and some with longer memories are aware that the family's fortune began in bootlegging liquor during Prohibition and includes support for Hitler and his policies in Europe during World War II.

And in spite of this knowledge and history, Senator Edward Kennedy is widely considered one of the best and most effective senators - one who has brought immeasurable good to the country and to its people. He has sponsored and help pass numerous measures to help the less fortunate in America.

The question is - how did he get from Point A (Chappaquiddick, Palm Beach) to Point B (champion of health care, "lion of the Senate") in his lifetime?

Marc Ambinder writes for The Atlantic. His article at the link here describes Ted Kennedy's life in very Jewish terms. I think it is interesting to read about this famous Catholic political power from the point of view of what Ambinder shows are very Jewish actions.

"Mark Lilla, in The Stillborn God, describes two forms of rebirth: a "Jewish" redemption where one's works and deeds promote a redeemable soul -- one that awaits the Messiah -- and a Protestant "Christian" redemption, where the expiation of one's sins are entirely the province of God, and not necessarily intelligible or accessible in our earthly lives. ... it is sufficient to say that redemption for Jews is an active, continuing process, one where doing good will hasten the coming of the Messiah.

In America, mostly Christian, we're most fond of spiritual redemption, but successfully redeemed politicians have tended towards the Jewish model -- work, work, work, work, even if, as Kennedy certainly did, they identified as a Catholic or a Christian." Marc Ambinder, The Jewish Redemption of Ted Kennedy, The Atlantic, August 28, 2009

For the Classroom:

Big Ideas:

• No one is perfect
• Actions are important in teshuvah
• Teshuvah is a process with multiple steps

Essential Questions:

• What are the steps necessary for teshuvah?
• What evidence is there that Kennedy understood the process of teshuvah?
• Is it possible for someone who causes another person's death to do teshuvah ?

Activities for Learning:

• Read about teshuvah at the links here: at Aish.com, in Everyperson's Guide to Judaism, at Jewish Justice
• Go the the August 25th blogpost for more resources on teshuvah and more suggestions for student activities.

More on Revenge after the Shoah

Last night I saw a preview of a new play by Daniel Goldfarb - "The Retributionists". The story is loosely based on history - you can read the background at this article in the Jewish Week.

Truth behind the story of "The Retributionists".

(excerpt below from 8/25/09 Jewish Week)

"Cohen’s book “The Avengers: A Jewish War Story” tells a revenge tale more fully, while also noting the consequences: Jewish acts of vengeance made Zionists uneasy since they knew it would hurt the cause of statehood. He focuses on partisans Abba Kovner, Ruzka Korczak and Vitna Kempner as they escape from the Vilna ghetto and form a paramilitary group that fought alongside the Lithuanian and Russian armies. After the war, several wanted to take justice into their own hands and formed a Nazi-hunting group called Nokmim, Hebrew for “the avengers.”

The group planned to poison the water supply of several German towns, but was thwarted by someone suspected of being a Zionist informant. Kovner was arrested by the British military before the plan went through, but the group’s backup plan eventually succeeded: a partisan disguised as a baker snuck into a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp where he rubbed arsenic on 3,000 loaves of bread. He then fled, anxiously awaiting the result. It remains unknown how many died, but The Associated Press reported days later, on April 26, 1946, that “nineteen hundred German prisoners of war were poisoned by arsenic in their bread early this week in a United States camp and all are ‘seriously ill.’”

You may want to examine this incident in more detail with your high school students.

One can also see this play through the lens of today's world - a world in which some people wish to right what they understand as historical wrongs through revenge against those they hold responsible, others seek to look ahead to plan positively for the future.

Big Idea:

• After the Shoah ended, those who survived had differing responses to the tragedy.
• The world continues to be a place in which some groups suffer at the hands of others.
• We face a challenge in deciding on appropriate responses to wrongdoing.

Essential Questions:

• What does Jewish wisdom tell us about response to evil?
• What does Jewish wisdom teach us about punishment of wrongdoers?
• What can we do about injustice in the world today that is aligned to Jewish thought?

Activities for Learning:

• Read about Jewish social action here
• Mazon, a group dedicated to fighting hunger in the world, has the following list of text sources on its website. Incidentally, the website also has quotations from every parashah along with suggestions for social action projects associated with each.
• www.islamtoday.com is a site you may or may not want to visit. It includes an article about a joint Jewish/Moslem effort to fight anti-semitism and Islamophobia.
• There was a symposium in 2005 entitled "Freeing the Captives; The Jewish Response to Human Trafficking. After reading the brochure, you or your students may want to contact one or more of the presenters for more information about this massive problem.
• There are many Jewish organizations devoted to fighting injustice. Teams of students may research some of them: American Jewish World Service, Jewish Funds for Justice, The Jewish Service Corps, Hazon, Tzedek, Mechon Hadar, Uri L'Tzedek.
• On1Foot is "an open-source online database of Jewish texts on social justice." It is a wonderful resource for planning learning.
• Create with your students a plan for activities in pursuit of social justice in your community. Research needs, available services, population, etc. and decide how your efforts can be most productive. Be sure to include study of texts in planning and executing your activities.

Guilt, Shame, Elul and Research

Today's NY Times Science section carried an article about the development and usefulness of guilt in children.

The title of the article is 'Guilt and Atonement on the Path to Adulthood'. When I saw the term "atonement" I thought- and how could I as a Jewish educator at this time of the year NOT think - about the upcoming Tishrei holiday season, and about the month of Elul, and I'm really beginning to think that the writers and editors of the NY Times may be studying Torah with us!!

What prompted me to write this note is the following quotation in the article:

'“The key element is the difference between shame and guilt,” Dr. Tangney says. ...

She recommends focusing not just on the bad deed, but more important, on how to make amends. “Both children and adults can be surprisingly clueless about whether and how to make things right,” Dr. Tangney said. '

Enter the Rambam, who gives us clear directions for teshuvah, for getting from wrong to right, from guilt to atonement:

1. Recognize the wrong
2. Apologize for the wrong
3. Make amends to the one you wronged
4. Promise not to repeat the wrong
5. When in a similar situation in the future, behave correctly, don't repeat the wrong.

In addition to the actual steps, the fact that the process is called in Hebrew teshuvah, or 'return', is a concrete way of separating the action from the individual. I may have done wrong, but I am capable of turning toward doing right next time.

This concept aligns so well with the instruction in the article for parents - not only to verbally separate the child from the misbehavior, but to do so with a concrete action that empowers the child to act to right the wrong.

Isn't it wonderful when research reaches conclusions that Jewish wisdom has come to so many years ago!!

Big Idea: Teshuvah is a process

Essential Questions:

1. What does the word teshuvah actually mean?
2. What part of the process is internal?
3. What part of the process involves actions?
4. What makes the process complete?
5. Why are there 5 steps listed above, when Maimonides lists only 4?

Activities to Promote Learning:

• Read about Maimonides' steps of teshuvah here.
• David Blumenthal writes about teshuvah here
• Write your own story of teshuvah, either fiction or non-fiction
• Create a visual display that symbolizes teshuvah. Be prepared to explain the elements of the display
• Write and perform a song or poem about teshuvah for the rest of the class.
• Collect true stories of teshuvah from the world around you.
• Private: choose an area in which you would like to do teshuvah and do it. You don't need to share this with anyone else if you don't want to.
• Compare and contrast 'teshuvah' with 'reflection'

Hoping Elul is a time for all of us to participate actively in the process of teshuvah.

And to encourage our students to do so in a meaningful and personal way.

Jewish Thoughts on Revenge

You may or may not want to see the movie "Inglourious Basterds" - I am personally not a fan of Quentin Tarantino's work, as I find the extreme violence is not to my personal taste - but I think we can not ignore the conversation that the film has motivated. You may be interested in reading the following article in the Wall Street Journal about reaction to Tarantino's newly released film.

First of all, the story told in this film is not history. That much is acknowledged by the creators and producers and emphasized in every story and review I have read.

Second: it is - as are all Tarantino's movies - filled with as much gratuitous violence as it is possible to include in a movie.

Third: when shown in preview to a group at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City it was greeted with vastly different reactions from the audience - some cheered, some walked out.

Your high school students may very well have seen this film before school begins for the year - it opened BIG its first weekend. If you choose to ignore it you will miss an opportunity to use it as a trigger to discuss some important Jewish values:

• What does Jewish wisdom say about revenge?
• What does Jewish wisdom say about guilt? about forgiveness? about compassion? about contrition? about reward and punishment?

Big Ideas:

• There is evil in the world.
• People are responsible for evil they do.
• Judaism has some clear guidelines governing reward and punishment.
• Judaism includes the concept of teshuvah - translated either as repentence or returning.
• Elul is traditionally a time of the year when Jews work at teshuvah

Essential Questions:

• What is the Jewish understanding of teshuvah?
• Is there a Jewish response to evil?
• What are some Jewish ideas on reward and punishment?
• What does Judaism say about taking revenge?

Some Resources for finding the answers to the essential questions:

• OU.org on teshuvah in Elul
• Rabbi Louis Jacobs on Reward andPunishment
• The Uniqueness of the Holocaust by Dr. Eliezer Schweid
• Some Ghetto Thoughts on Rescue and Revenge, 1942

Assessments:

• Your students will see how Jewish thinking is and is not supported by popular culture.
• Students will be able to support their opinion, with reference to sources, that teshuvah is or is not possible for those who perpetrated the Shoah
• Elul will become a time during which students will purposefully work at teshuvah in their own lives
• Students will begin to use "Jewish language" in describing the world around them.

Further Thoughts:

Your students will probably return to class having heard at least some minimal discussion about the release of the person who was convicted in Scotland of responsibility in the Lockerbie disaster. Why not take the opportunity to discuss this in the context of the information they have read concerning "Inglourious Basterds" about reward and punishment, compassion, revenge, etc.

If you are addressing any of these issues in your Jewish classroom, please share your thoughts with the rest of the readers by commenting on this post. We have much to learn from each other.

Parashat Ki Taytzay Update

I couldn't resist this - last week we read about prophecy - and how to know if a prophet is a true prophet.

Is it possible that Joe Martin (the creator of the Mister Boffo comic) is studying Torah?

August 23, 2009, Mister Boffo go to this link, then choose the August 23, 2009 date in the archives to see what made me laugh!!

Enjoy.

Parashat Ki Taytzay

First I want to say that if it weren't for this parashah there would be many fewer movies, plays or novels in the world. Why? Because this portion is filled with the kinds of statements that make good theater!

You may want to read through chapters 21:10 - 25:19 yourself. Or look at the following link to a synopsis from Teaching Torah, by Sorel Goldberg Loeb and Barbara Binder Kadden.

As you read either the text or the synopsis, try to think of the movies, plays or books you are familiar with that wouldn't exist without the ideas portrayed in this Torah portion. Make a list to share with us.

In fact, there are so many ideas, so many laws, so many seemingly unrelated items that I wanted to think of a way to organize the teaching and learning in a way that is consistent with my last post about Big Ideas.

What are the BIG IDEAS in this parashah? Remember, the Big Ideas are those concepts you want your students to remember after they have forgotten all the rest. Are some ideas more important than others in this parashah? On what do you base your decision?

Is there a theme (or are there multiple themes) into which these discrete ideas can be divided?

I think that a big principle of this Torah portion concerns power

• how it is to be used
• how it is not to be used
• what the restrictions are on those with power
• what support is available to those without power.

This week's NY Times Magazine section is all about women's issues, and devotes most of its articles to the lack of power women and girls have in most places in the world. You may want to read one or more articles and decide if any of the statements in Parashat Ki Taytzay seem to address the same issues as the articles in the magazine.

One more thing - many years ago I remember studying with Shoshana Glatzer about this parashah, and her telling about how she taught her students the following verses:

יג וְיָד תִּהְיֶה לְךָ, מִחוּץ לַמַּחֲנֶה; וְיָצָאתָ שָּׁמָּה, חוּץ.	13 You shall have a place also outside the camp, And you shall go there.
יד וְיָתֵד תִּהְיֶה לְךָ, עַל-אֲזֵנֶךָ; וְהָיָה, בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ חוּץ, וְחָפַרְתָּה בָהּ, וְשַׁבְתָּ וְכִסִּיתָ אֶת-צֵאָתֶךָ.	14 And you shall have a paddle among your weapons; and, when you sit down out there, you shall dig with it, and shall turn back and cover that which comes from you.

I'm willing to bet that very few of us learned this in Hebrew school!! So why did Shoshana choose, with all the other ideas in this parasha she could have chosen, to present this excerpt.

What do you think her Big Idea was?

I look forward to your comments in person and on the blog.

Thoughts on Teaching Big Ideas in Torah

Don Hewitt, the creator of 60 Minutes, just died.

He is quoted in an article in the LA Times as follows:

My idea was that television reality ought to be packaged as entertainingly as television entertainment," Hewitt said. "I believe that it all comes down to that ancient phrase: 'Tell me a story.' I think people are interested in stories, not issues, even though the stories may be about people coping with issues. In the Bible, the issue was evil, but the story was Noah."

What a wonderful trigger for thinking about teaching and learning Torah.

During the month of Elul we are close to the end of the Torah cycle, which means, naturally, that we are also close to the beginning. So perhaps in thinking about how we will learn Torah this year with our students we can remember to keep in mind that while the story is the "hook," the Big Ideas are the "issues".

Planning a lesson ought to begin, therefore, at the end:

I. Big Ideas/Enduring Understandings/What do I want my students to remember after they have forgotten everything else?

II. Essential Questions/What are the questions they need to challenge themselves to answer in order to reach these understandings?

III. Activities/What are the learning activities our students can participate in/create/view/organize to help them answer these essential questions? What are the resources to which I can direct them so they can be active participants in their learning?

IV. Assessment/How will I as the teacher be able to know if my students have learned the big ideas?

This lesson planning strategy is known as Understanding by Design, or, more informally, as Backward Design, and was popularized by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. No matter what you are teaching, it suggests that you must start with the important outcomes you hope to reach. This is a different from a model that states goals and objectives as discreet bits of content knowledge. It is about learning things that are IMPORTANT.

If you want to learn more about this strategy, you can type the words "Understanding by Design" into any search engine and read about it on the web. While most of the articles refer to meeting state learning standards and other issues in general education, the ideas for planning learning are equally relevant in Jewish studies.

I would suggest that if our students are learning Torah without the sense that what they are learning is FUNDAMENTALLY IMPORTANT, then what they may know temporarily will soon be forgotten.

What does it mean to be Jewish?

Daniel Goldfarb, a playwright, has written a play called The Retributionists. It is a story based on a historical event - a plan by a group of Jews in 1946 to take revenge on the perpetrators of the Holocaust.

You can read more about the play here at the Playwrights Horizons site.

Goldfarb has written other plays, all examining the question of what it means to be Jewish in the world today.

An interesting article about both the play and the playwright appeared in the NY Times this past Sunday. You can access it through the link here - At Ease In His Own Pigeonhole

The last paragraph of the article reads as follows:

"He said his goal is not to provide answers so much as raise questions. When pressed to take sides [about the characters in and subjects of his plays] he demurs: 'I am a big proponent of: Write what you're confused about. Being Jewish provides endless confusion.... If you are in the process of trying to figure out what it means that you're Jewish, then you're Jewish.'"

What a wonderful quotation to bring to our students in high school and perhaps middle school.

How to do this? Please share your suggestions here so we can all learn from each other.

Jewish Thoughts on War and Peace

It happens that this week's parasha, Parshat Shofetim, includes some guidelines for behaviors in war. The Israelites are given certain limits, including the requirement to invite a peaceful surrender before initiating battle, and restrictions on destruction of both people and, interestingly enough, of trees. You can read the text in Deuteronomy Chapter 20 at this link: Mechon-Mamre.

I found this particularly interesting in view of a speech President Obama gave recently, in which he referred to the war in Afghanistan as a necessary war. His words:

"This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity," Obama told the annual Veterans of Foreign Wars conference -- cautioning that the insurgency would not be defeated overnight. "Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which Al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans." (from the LA Times, reporting on a speech given Monday, August 17, 2009)

This speech can serve as a trigger for discussion of what those words - "war of necessity" - mean in the context of Jewish thinking.

Big Idea:

Jewish wisdom can be a way of understanding the world around us

Essential Questions:

1. Why does President Obama consider the war in Afghanistan a war of necessity?
2. In what way would Jewish wisdom support or not support his description?

Learning Activities:

1. Read Obama's speech. It is quite long, so you may want to divide it into sections for your students to read. Discuss what he said, focusing on his reasons for considering the war in Afghanistan a necessary war.
2. Read the articles at these links below.

• Maimonides on War
• War 101 in Jewish Thought

Compare and contrast Obama's thoughts on necessary war with those of the Jewish thinkers in the articles you read. Your students may choose to create a chart, have a debate, or express their understanding in another way. The important outcome is that they understand that they can apply Jewish thinking to the world in which they live.

The Challenge of Change

Reading yet again about the challenge of changing our health care system in the United States it occurred to me that there is a parallel to Jewish educational improvement here.

The health care system needs change.

The Jewish educational system needs change.

Change is difficult.

Systems resist changing.

Change is messy.

Meaningful change needs constituent buy-in.

And here is the BIG QUESTION!

CAN MEANINGFUL CHANGE OCCUR INCREMENTALLY, ONE ELEMENT AT A TIME, OR MUST IT BE SYSTEM-WIDE?

In the case of an educational system that exists within a fundamentally conservative setting, which I would suggest Judaism is, I believe that the necessary constituent buy-in is much more likely to support change that is incremental than that which is system-wide.

And I really believe that this incremental change can be meaningful in improving outcomes.

What can you change in preparing for the school year that can improve student learning outcomes?

What can you change about your teaching throughout the year to support improved learning outcomes?

What can you change about your class?

What can you change in your school?

Take a few minutes to reflect on these questions now, before the school year starts. You may find yourself on the way, one step at a time, to valuable change.

Jewish Values at the End of Life

Paul Root Wolpe is the first chief bioethicist for NASA. It is his job to think through some of the the ethical challenges that occur in space. He was interviewed about his role and offered some interesting examples of the kinds of issues he faces in this article that appeared in the NY Times on August 11.

Interestingly, he is also quite knowledgeable about Jewish ethics. He explains in the article how he was able to offer advice after the tragic crash of the Columbia space shuttle, and how the Jewish laws encouraging speedy burial had to be balanced by the impossibility of identifying all the remains of the astronauts (who included Ilan Ramon, the first Jewish Israeli person to fly in the space program)

If you are teaching a course about the Jewish Life Cycle

• Behrman House offers the following textbooks Life Cycle
• Torah Aura Publications includes these
• Ktav has a selection as well that you can see at this link
• There are many on-line resources about Jewish life cycle

No matter which textbooks you use, you may want to supplement your classroom learning with current news articles and on-line material which can engage your students in thinking about how what they learn in your classroom is reflected in the world around them.

Big Idea: What do you want your students to remember after they have forgotten everything else?

• There is Jewish wisdom that can guide our behavior in making decisions in our lives.
• We should consider Jewish wisdom relevant in our everyday lives.

Essential Questions: What will your students have to be able to answer in order to show understanding of the big idea?

1. What does Judaism teach about death and dying?
2. Why is it important to know what Judaism teaches about life cycle?
3. How can you find out what the Jewish perspective is in addressing the challenges inherent in living life?

Learning Activities: What can enable students to learn the information that can help them answer the essential questions

These activities are suggestions, not detailed lesson plans. Please use them as a guide for making your plans for your class. Keep in mind students' age, level of maturity, and the context in which you teach.

1. Read the section of the interview with Paul Wolpe about the situation after the Columbia crash. What questions do you have? How can you find the answers?
2. Read the chapter(s) in your life cycle text about death and dying. What appear to be the big ideas?
3. Invite the Rabbi of your congregation to talk to your students about Jewish values expressed in the customs and laws concerning death and dying. What did you learn that you didn't know before?
4. Most synagogues have memorials for members and relatives of members who have died. Go to visit these memorials as a class and examine them. Who is memorialized? How are they remembered? How does having a memorial fulfill Jewish values?
5. If there is a chevre kadisha (Jewish burial society) in your area invite a representative to come and explain the rituals involved in preparing a body for burial. What did you learn?
6. There are a number of videos available that explain the Jewish rituals associated with death and dying. They are available for rental or purchase at Alden Films www.aldenfilms.com/
7. Read the Mourner's Kaddish with your students. What does it say? What does it not say? What conclusion can you draw?
8. Listen to the memorial prayer, El Mole Rachamim on YouTube. (there are several different versions). How does it make you feel? Find a translation of the prayer in a siddur and read it. How does the music enhance the meaning of the words?

Israel is a pretty special place

This past week Amos Kenan died. You may never have heard of him, but you can read about him at the following links:

An original ahead of his time - Amos Kenan‎ from HaAretz

and

Writer Helped Shape Israeli culture from the Washington Post.

According to these articles, Kenan was part of the heroic generation which fought for Israel's independence from Britain, and in his later years was also one of the leaders of the movement for Palestinian independence. Sounds like a contradiction. He also urged the formation of a new Israeli culture that would be separated from Judaism and would use Hebrew as its foundation, not religion.

This view was not uncommon among the early Jewish settlers in modern times, and is not totally gone today. There are many people who prefer to describe themselves as "Israeli" rather than "Jewish", even if they are in fact Jews.

What other country in this troubled part of the world is willing to acknowledge dissent - even dissent which argues against the very foundations of the country - Israel as a Jewish Country? Can you imagine Saudi Arabia separating its Arab culture from its religious connection? Or any other Middle Eastern country? Perhaps Lebanon, but we know how challenging that has been for that country.

I believe that one of the great strengths of Israel, and its uniqueness in the Middle East, is its ability to support critical differences of opinion among its citizenry. We may be disturbed by what looks like lack of civility in the K'nesset, but we can certainly admire the outspokenness of its members.

In teaching our students, who live in a culture of diversity and who learn from early in their educational experience that opinions can be expressed openly and without fear of retribution, this attribute of Israel can be a powerful idea to explore. It can encourage the kind of critical thinking that is so important in learning today.

Big Idea:

• Israel is a country in which the right to think independently is strongly supported.

Essential Questions to think about:

1. What different ideas about the nature of Israel are expressed by its inhabitants?
2. How does the framework of the government support differences of opinion?
3. What about the political process in Israel shows support for a variety of ideas?

Activities to support learning:

1. Find out how many political parties exist in Israel.
2. Divide the class into teams of 2 - 4 students each
3. Have each team pick 1 or 2 parties and prepare a presentation to explain their philosophies to the rest of the class. Be sure that at least 8 different parties from different areas of the political spectrum are examined by the teams.

Assessment: Choose from among these activities

1. Have the teams present the information they learned about the parties they studied.
2. Discuss the similarities and differences among the parties
3. Prepare a chart to compare and contrast the views of the political parties in the K'nesset
4. Find out more about Amos Kenan and/or one of the groups he belonged to: Lehi, HaShomer HaTzair, the Canaanite Movement.

Learning Bible the way you learn Shakespeare

In a conversation with Israeli teachers of Bible in Israel they said their biggest problem is with understanding language. Huh? It's Hebrew, isn't it? But the relationship between Modern Hebrew and Biblical Hebrew is much like the relationship between Modern English and Shakespearian English.

Here's a teacher who has come up with a way to help students learn Shakespeare that seems very adaptable to learning Bible - in Hebrew or in English.

And how about prayer - what about reframing the essence of the prayers we teach in language that resonates with our students.

Could your students restate Biblical stories in "tweets"?

Could the create prayers as text messages?

Read the article at this link about teaching Shakespeare in the 21st Century and think about the implications for your Jewish studies classroom.

New and Improved?

I read an article in Education Week entitled "Solutions are the Problem in Education". It reminds me of another article - "Innovation, Motherhood and Apple Pie" which discusses a similar issue. Is it better just because it's new? Do we need to allow time for change to develop before we replace it with yet another new program?

In the past few years Jewish education has changed in big, important ways. We are looking at the ideas of general education reform and attempting to apply them to the context of religious educational programs. Some of the reforms have energized our programs, some have not. Some have had valuable effects on learning, others may not have.

And some innovations need time to take hold in practice - they require time, sustained effort, and ongoing support if they are going to improve the outcomes we are seeking.

To use the framework of backward design, here is a suggested outline to help you start thinking about improving learning in our classes/schools/informal settings:

Big Idea:

We need to structure the learning in our educational settings to maximize the outcomes that we believe are important

Essential Questions:

What are the really important learning outcomes?

Are we choosing activities that support these outcomes?

How do we know?

Here is a link to the Ed Week article.

Here is a link to Innovation, Motherhood and Apple Pie.

What are our students learning and why?

In general studies and in public schools we struggle to assess what our students actually learn. We convene committees to decide what they should learn, and why. In Jewish educational settings, what are the life skills we want our learners to have? Are we really teaching toward these skills?

The article at the link here discusses this question in terms of general education. What are the issues for our learners?

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/07/20/37oakes.h28.html?tkn=RRLF8OmkCO9%2BxzTyIQbkB9mhn96vnHkS6ICF&print=1