I was recently the only social worker in a sea of occupational therapists at a conference in Colorado about our eighth sense: Interoception, by Kelly Mahler. I have been working with children for 30 years, however, never heard this word before, nor did I know that we have 8 senses...
The ultimate challenge for Jewish education today is to determine for ourselves and our students, “Why do we need a Jewish education?” Or, more to the point, “Why be Jewish?”...
So what can we do in schools to make the atmosphere of the school more gender balanced and fair? The first thing we can do is start to acknowledge that atmosphere really matters, much more than we think it does...
Teaching both in the MAed and BA program has so far been an amazing experience for me. I’ve been meeting so many early childhood educators from multiple Jewish and non-Jewish ECCs. Students drive and hour or two for our classes; that is dedication...
The month of Tishrei is a marathon for Jews everywhere. For educators, it’s an iron man. We do not want to look back and count even one missed opportunity, so we take advantage of it all and do our best to create as many teachable moments as possible...
Recently, I had the privilege of sitting in on two of our classes: Dr. Bruce Powell’s class on Educational Philosophy and Bill Cohen’s Teaching Jewish Holidays. The philosophy class was discussing Buber’s seminal work I and Thou and its implications for education...
On November 3, 2019, Dr. Gil Graff, Head of the Builders of Jewish Education (BJE) in Los Angeles, will be visiting our class. Aside from his role as an educational leader, Dr. Graff is a world expert on the history of Jewish education...
I applied to this program because I thought one day, maybe, I might want to try my hand at being a preschool director. I had been working as the Director of Family Programs at Westside JCC since graduating from my first round of graduate school in 2011 (MSW from USC and Masters in Jewish Nonprofit management from HUC-JIR)...
Our students are not blank slates. They are complex beings who live within the context of what is becoming a more complex society every day. Not understanding the “society” within which our children grow up, not understanding the pressures, the media, culture, and families in which our children reside, is to be terribly hobbled as an educator...
The etymology of the word “philosophy” is simply, “love of wisdom.” “Wisdom,” in my view, is the accumulation of knowledge, values, and experiences that guide us as we make decisions in life, and thereby bring a sense of order, meaning, and contribution...
