New Spins on Old Traditions
How HMJDS Adapts to Changing Needs
Ray Levi, Head of School
The excitement among third and fourth graders at the beginning of last week was palpable at every turn. They were eagerly anticipating their Torah evening. If you were a parent who has older students, you might have been anticipating the Torah play, the very dramatic and impressive staging of stories from the texts the students have studied that had been the focal point of third and fourth grade curriculum nights. The programs last week included familiar elements, particularly dramatization and song. But rather than simply including an elaborately planned and extensively rehearsed play, the evening focused on shorter skits in which students worked from scripts, including skits written by the students that involved contemporary applications of the lessons of Torah texts. There were also opportunities for discussion with parents. Some of you may have been disappointed by this new format. Others have told us how much they enjoyed the more informal, interactive format. All of you might be asking, “Why change a program that has been a highlight of the third and fourth grade experience for so many years?”
The work that we have undertaken with the Standards and Benchmarks program (funded by the AVI CHAI foundation at the Jewish Theological Seminary) has provided opportunities for Judaic Studies teachers to review, assess, and refine their curriculum. As our teachers looked at the Torah evening, they realized that some changes in the program would offer a number of opportunities:
- Drama that required less rehearsal time would yield more instructional time;
- Skits written by the children would allow the teachers to assess their understanding of the themes of the texts studied, as would visual representations of story symbols;
- Skits set in contemporary times would permit the students to apply their understanding of essential questions (why we study each story) that are the focus of each unit of study;
- Discussions with parents would foster inter-generational connections around core texts.
- Among the fourth graders, I was impressed by the way in which the students chose symbols to represent elements of Jacob’s dreams, reminding us that our students are so able to move beyond the literal to think symbolically.
While the first run of new programs always has some logistical kinks that need adjustment, I was impressed by so much of what I experienced. I was particularly excited to see how the application of conflict resolution techniques that are being used across the third grade applied in the student skits. Torah text lessons became the launching pad for the development of social skills.
Most importantly, the children’s excitement offered an important measure of their engagement. Perhaps because we had preserved the best of the old evening in these new formats, while providing new and meaningful program components, students' pride in their work, and their desire to involve their parents in discussion, offered an important reminder that we should look at change through the eyes of the students.
Preserving the best of what we have offered while embarking on programmatic change is also guiding us in the decision to move from multi-age classes in grades 1-2. Over the years, as we moved to grade-separated Hebrew, Judaics, and math classes, some of the social opportunities for friendships across grades were lost. With first and second grade classrooms, there will be more social peers and fewer transitions as students remain with their homeroom teacher for math and remain as a unit during Hebrew-Judaics. The continuity of experience with the same general studies teacher in the multi-age settings will be preserved through looping in which a teacher will move with a class from first to second grade.
Like the changes in the third-fourth grade Torah evenings, this change comes after much careful study by teachers and members of the leadership team. Like the curriculum evening, there will be some transitional adjustments. Not all teachers will be able to travel with their students to second grade this year. But together we can build on the strong foundation of what we’ve had in the past as we act to make our program responsive to the needs of our students.
B'shalom,
