FRONTAL FREE: The Death Star

Dave Smolar is co-founder of Kikayon Productions, creating turn-key solutions for Jewish education. Our “TORAH TIME LIVE!” Parashah Play series is now for sale!  From Creation to Mt. Sinai, click on “Our Store” for more!

OK, fine, the above title might sound a little overdramatic.  But it’s a specific reference, not to the Star Wars saga, but rather to a metaphor often and effectively used by the director of my college a cappella group.  It was often complicated getting the guys in our all-male group to settle down, pay attention, and put away their snark long enough to practice some actual music.

But as the end of the semester performance approached, and we realized we night soon face upwards of 800 ticket-buying customers waiting for a fantastic show, rehearsals became more intense.  It was absolutely crucial that we quiet down and focus up in order to hear each other, emphasize our dynamic crescendos, and be sure not to overpower the lead singer.  All of these were pitfalls we’d encountered from other groups countless times, and we refused to put on an underwhelming show, especially one that alienated the paying crowd.

So, one time around October, our director, in his own quiet, metered manner, had us stand in a circle, no music in our hands regardless of whether we’d really committed the sheet music to memory.  The old “feel the music” bit seemed to loom in the air.  But rather than giving us his best Robert Preston monologue, he instead told us to close our eyes and picture the Death Star.  In the most recent Rogue One solo film from the saga, there are numerous sequences featuring the Death Star firing its planet-vaporizing laser as the device blazes a path of destruction through a stream of guinea pig worlds.

But each time the laser is fired, we see the same guys in helmets push the same button array, then throttle up the same switcher handle, then, for some ungodly reason, cower right beside the green beam as it spouts from the sphere towards an unsuspecting doomed population.  It’s the same visual sequence each time.  And each time, it yields massive success, albeit in massively destructive form.  But hey, they’re building a weapon, so bully for them.

Back to the rehearsal room in college:  what our director would tell us is how all those techs in the Death Star worked together to yield the full destructive power of the laser weapon.  And if we could focus ourselves likewise, centering ourselves in the circle on a single purpose, a unified sound, then we would be able to unleash that sound directly at the audience, leaving any other group in our wake.  I must say that, even the first time we tried it – standing in a circle, eyes closed, stretching out our arms with hands sandwiched together directly into the middle of the circle until we just barely touched fingertips – it worked.

From the quietude burst forth a high energy, yet fully controlled sound.  We learned, we experienced, in an instant how powerful the group dynamic could be, how capable we were when we found focus and solace, and how difficult it can be to get yourself to that point.  The Death Star metaphor brought us there in an instant, and we continued to use it throughout the year.

So this blog post is about many things:  shared experiences, group dynamics, meditation/self-awareness/mental contraction.  When dealing with students or kids coursing with energy, whether because of personality or time of day or their excitement over an upcoming event, it really is possible to find a way for them to self-calm, self-soothe, and move along smoothly into the next activity.  If you have a busload of kids jumping at the bit to hit the street and run into whatever your destination was for the field trip, and you need to give them rules and regulations regarding where they are, don’t waste your time shouting. 

Establish a visual metaphor for them to practice their focus, find their inner calm.  You will never, ever be able to calm them down any more than you can make a kid go to sleep or do their homework.  There’s no sense using logic to convince a child to do something if they’re too hungry/tired/ramped up to pay attention.  Give them a visual to clue them in to your expectations.  Have them practice the calming when they’re able, in a predictable setting, so that they can recall the feeling of calm on cue. 

Find your Death Star and teach it to the children.  It could be the best gift you ever give.

FRONTAL FREE: Coddling

Dave Smolar is co-founder of Kikayon Productions, creating turn-key solutions for Jewish education. Our “TORAH TIME LIVE!” Parashah Play series is now for sale!  From Creation to Mt. Sinai, click on “Our Store” for more!

Sometimes, someone I work with will overhear a classroom activity I’m doing with my 5^th or 6^th grade and peek in.  In fact, they might just listen in from nearby.  And sometimes I hear about it later, from them, or my principal, or feedback from a parent.

Of course, there’s always going to be a disconnect when someone partially observes your class or group session or meeting out of context.  Imagine you’re at work in the middle of an icebreaker where folks have names and facts of other people at the meeting put on a sticker and stuck to their back, and they must learn what’s on their back from having other people read the sticker, then they have to find the person who’s mentioned in the sticker and meet them and confirm the info…you get the gist. 

NOW imagine someone with no idea what’s going on suddenly entering the room.  They’re confused.  They’re out of place.  And maybe they simply write off what they’re seeing as a bunch of people screwing off at work instead of taking things seriously.  Considering that an icebreaker has many benefits to it, not the least of which is improving employee morale and boosting team bonding, what the person peeking in has to say about the activity, and how they couch what they’ve seen when complaining about it to someone else, can become altogether destructive to the office.

For me, this perfectly sums up the occasional unfortunate turn of events when a parent or shul officer happens to be near my classroom when my students are engaged in an energetic and even silly game.  If my students are tired and I want to build their energy and enthusiasm and focus, all I need to do is play a game, any game, that gets them on their feet.  Doesn’t have to be complicated at all.  Could be something as simple as having 2 teams of kids try to walk across the room by laying Hebrew flash cards on the ground in a path and telling them they can only move ahead after they’ve read a card.

While many teachers I’ve met will complain about having to teach grades 5-7 Hebrew school students, from what I’ve heard, the complaints seem to revolve around the fact that this age of students doesn’t like to sit still and be told what to think.  And if you think that you’re not necessarily telling them what to think, well, the kids are reacting to and rebelling against a passive and frontal style of teaching, having the teacher stand in front of the group and talk while the kids passively sit and presumably absorb the information.  You, dear Reader, might know by now that the theme of my blog, and what permeates my teaching efforts and educational products, is the clarion call to frontal free pedagogy.

I’m hoping and praying for a day when someone walks by and sees or overhears my class doing something fun, whether it be loud or silly or both, and rather than unfairly judge me and the group as flaky or irreverent, they assume that we’re find new and exciting way of making Judaism come alive.  I am not coddling the students by doing a fun activity, or a food-making activity, or an outdoor dance activity, or a play or songs or improv or artwork or anything else.  I don’t do an activity without a lesson attached, without a tangible takeaway, without assessment and follow-up and a depth of understanding for my students. 

My biggest mistake over the years has been not overindulging but under-indulging students in creative approaches to learning.  The truth is that Hebrew is more fun when you can keep the kids on their feet, and the kids who seem the mouthiest become the best leaders in the class, sometimes taking the reins on a project or activity and improving upon it.  So if you come by my class some time, and you see a kid whom others have written off for bad behavior, and that kid is now leading a class activity…and the activity addresses and explores something within our curriculum…and the kids are wearing masks or making funny noises or building something elaborate and cartoonish…please don’t judge.  Because the next time we have class, they enter the room laughing, they’re open with their opinions in discussion, and they remember and understand the material we explored during that activity.  And that is how we not only teach but inspire these students as they’re flung headfirst into the age of the b’nai mitzvah.

FRONTAL FREE: A Fallacy of Empathy

Dave Smolar is co-founder of Kikayon Productions, creating turn-key solutions for Jewish education. Our “TORAH TIME LIVE!” Parashah Play series is now for sale!  From Creation to Mt. Sinai, click on “Our Store” for more!

My goal in teaching children is to teach Empathy.  And Empathy cannot be taught.  If Empathy can be defined as the human being’s inherent capacity for reaching into their own experience in order to connect with another’s tragic loss or inspiring achievement, then lording over a group of teens or toddlers or seniors, and dictating how they should feel, isn’t the course of action.  And yet for me, teaching Empathy is the most important aspect of Jewish education.  So out of necessity, I’ve tried to develop a teaching style that somehow, even indirectly, reaches this goal.

Unless you’re teaching students in a daily, formal pedagogic setting, I argue that you must create lesson plans that get the kids out of their seats.  By acting out scenes or walking through their lessons, kids begin to internalize the material you’re trying to convey, creating their own sense memory which then helps them somehow attach and associate their own personal experiences to the lesson.  I repeat this idea to myself every time I see their eyes wander, squint, and gradually migrate to the clock on the wall above me in the classroom…and if they actually get to the point of asking “When’s recess?” before I’ve transitioned them into something active and fun, I know I’m behind the 8-ball and should’ve been moving faster in my lesson and paid better attention.

That being said, all of us are now experiencing what appears to be a ramp up of anti-Semitism in the United States.  If it’s possible for me to face and address the course of recent human events without emotion or personal opinion, I’d like to be true to my blog and this company of Kikayon Productions by talking about Empathy.  And I’d like to explore how these nefarious times we live in can be used constructively to build sensitivity in the next generation.  Experiential learning helps kids take the subject matter we teach and find connections to their own lives, helping them build those emotional and synaptic bridges that lead to a deeper, more personal understanding of why their Jewish identity and heritage should mean so much to them.

I write this in the wake of at least 16 bomb threats called in today alone to Jewish community centers and day schools in multiple states across the country, on the heels of numerous similar incidents that have occurred just since the beginning of 2017.  And I insist that we need to use the awful events of today as teachable moments.  We should imply to students the gravity of the situation without dictating to them how they should feel and react.  We must trust in them that, once the kids are in the right frame of mind, their minds will accept what we explain to them is going on around them. 

And then what?  Which kids will feel righteous anger?  Which will feel pity for those communities affected?  Which will feel mercy for the lost souls committing these crimes? 

I don’t know.  You won’t know.  But I’m not afraid.  I’m not afraid of the perpetrators of these crimes, I’m not afraid to live in my community as a Jew in my own respect, and I’m not afraid of opening discussions, and dialogue, and creative outlets and outward responses with a group of ten-year-olds. 

And I have no agenda.  I want to see what happens, what they do, what they come up with.  Maybe the greater good in the room will lead to discussion.  Maybe it will lead to their wanting to write letters of support, or raise money for a cause, or plan a trip to somewhere to support a silenced minority in our community, who knows.  But any one of these elements arising from a quieted room will mark the burgeoning and blossoming of Empathy in our children, in their hearts, in their minds, and in their collective conscience. 

 

We have a golden opportunity now to make a true “gam zu l’tova”, find a Jewish silver lining from the recent ravages of anti-Semitism, whether brutal or subtle.  Give your kids an article about what’s going on.  Have them read one paragraph. 

Say to them, “Circle a location you recognize.” “Tell me if you’ve heard about this from your friends.” “Do you think it could happen here?  Because it’s happening…right…now.” 

This isn’t about kids today being hyper and sugared up and disrespectful to the extent that the only way to teach them is to play a game.  To me, this is about the empiric need, in our community and society in general, to help our Jewish children find and grow their sense of Empathy.  When they truly feel for the characters or events or Torah stories at hand or in the world around them, they will automatically become sensitive to the material and take it personally.  No lecture, no arm-twisting, nothing more needed.  And once you as a teacher, leader, or parent, realize they’ve crossed that line, you can do as I do.  Stare at them, stand up before them, and simply ask them:

“So…what do we do now?”

FRONTAL FREE: The Fiction of Circadia

Dave Smolar is co-founder of Kikayon Productions, creating turn-key solutions for Jewish education. Our “TORAH TIME LIVE!” Parashah Play series is now for sale!  From Creation to Mt. Sinai, click on “Our Store” for more!

This shouldn’t take long, but it might.  And as always, my situation might be specific to Hebrew school but should apply universally to any teaching activity geared towards grades 5 and up [ages 10+].  Kids, folks, crowds are different in the morning than they are in the late afternoon and evening.  I know, this isn’t rocket science nor is it breaking news, but I’m just here today to shine a light on it.

It needs to be addressed, in a world of curricular goals but infinite pedagogic methods and modules, that we have to prepare lessons while taking into account a myriad of factors.  But those factors, while limiting our scope, shouldn’t hamper us but, rather, guide and fashion how we approach each topic and how we unpack the material for the kids.  Of any or all of these factors, many of which are clearly independent variables that could never be foreseen and, consequently, must be dealt with on the spot, there are the predictable behaviors and expectations of students in proportion to the time of day of the lesson and activity.

And I’ve known teachers, master teachers with decades under their Torah belts, who completely eschew any classroom or activity planning whatsoever, depending only on a combination of their classroom management skills, wrangling kids into appropriate and acceptable decorum, and their Spidey^® sense, knowing right away which games to play or stories to tell or art project to develop in class based on the overall tone of the kids in the room that day.  And I applaud those teachers.  And I am them, at times, though I don’t think “winging it” to be an ideal plan for success, nor is it ultimately an inclusive way to teach, as I’ve often heard from students of these teachers, and their parents, who complain throughout the year that their kid’s needs are overlooked in lieu of the rest of the class. 

While it’s easy to predict that kids will be more tired on a Sunday morning in consideration of the fact that preteens, for the most part, are just getting to the point in their lives where they’re finally allowed to stay up and watch “Saturday Night Live” or some other social late night activity [or maybe a Shabbaton], it’s just as easy to predict that the mid-week Hebrew school kids will be tired after a 630am wakeup and full day of school, thin lunch, sugary snack, and schlep in the car or bus to your classroom. 

This means, as it seems, that the students are always tired, regardless of the time of day.  Chronobiology, be damned.

So in planning classroom lessons and activities, we use what we know, or think we know, to our advantage whenever possible.  But when we overthink whether the students will be tired walking into class on a given day, we end up with the Catch-22 that could lead us, frankly, to thinking the kids will be tired EVERY time they walk in the classroom.  And if that’s the case, or at least, if that possibility is an impediment to your attempts to plan anything at all for your class, then simply take that factor as a given and take it out of your equations.

I would argue the contrast between “being tired” and “acting tired.”  Kids are tired, kids are nudgy, kids like to complain, and it’s age-appropriate for preteens to act this way.  Notice that I said they “act” this way, not that they truly “feel” this way.  Kids want to be heard so badly at this age, they often instinctually revert to the non-verbal cues, almost as if they’re assuming that nobody will pay attention to them if they simply open their mouths and say how they feel. 

From this, we realize that many of the kids now have a decade of experience of being taken, brought, driven, and dragged from place to place without their consultation.  And even if that’s not entirely the case, by the preteen years, they have the emerging need to make their own choices for their own lives while still assuming that a grown-up will say “no.”  It makes sense that they’d feel that way, and that their manifest behavior reflects this notion. 

They want to want something, and even if they don’t really want anything, they feel they should want something.  Wait, but they also assume that nobody will give them what they want no matter how they ask for it, even though they don’t really want anything.  So they jump over the steps of identifying and clarifying what they want as well as asking for it out loud, and they skip right to the point of internalizing their resentment for grownups or leaders or older kids or anyone who might take their request and hold it over them, tantalizing them with…well, nothing. 

It’s this feeling of “I’m never gonna get what I ask for, so I’m gonna sulk to get attention” that must be addressed.  And it’s my assumption, every single time I’m in front of a group of kids ages 10+, that they’ll have this attitude.  They’re not tired, they’re not lazy, and they didn’t suddenly forget the English language.  There’s no such thing as spontaneous illiteracy, and I would guess that sudden onset nominal aphasia would probably be ruled out as a reason that they’re non-communicative.

So I leave you with this notion.  While teachers, leaders, and program facilitators want so much to include every single child – and that’s a great instinct – we must assume that kids need the time to ease into the classroom each time, even when you’re bringing them back from recess or break.  They don’t want to be lectured, they don’t want to feel like someone’s going to pounce on them or fire 100 questions at them, and they aren’t so eager to launch into a complex activity with a lot of rules and boundaries. 

I try to gauge my students’ attitude and energy level by standing out in the hall for 30 seconds, listening to who’s talking, what they’re saying, and if it’s relatable to Hebrew school.  Then I walk in.  Sometimes, especially if it’s a small group, I join their conversation and have it bloom into a more pointed discussion related to one of my lessons of the day.  If they’re very quiet that morning, I often take out the Hebrew texts and workbooks and have them do a few pages, then review and have them read answers aloud.  The next activity would start with reading something aloud, then asking what they think, getting them talking about their own experiences, and families, and traditions. 

Then they have to get up.  Have them act out a story, or dramatize a situation they were just relaying, or even offer up alternate resolutions to a moral conundrum you’ve presented.  Then gradually move the class into a more independent activity, where they’re either doing individual projects, working as teams, or creating and running their own activity.  By the end of the day, they see themselves developing and facilitating their own program, insinuating both a sense of independence and a feeling of ownership in the group. 

Those are the feelings the carry out the door.  And those feelings of belonging and responsibility will grow until they return.  And when they return on the next class day, they’ll openly express to you their excitement for certain activities, their enthusiasm for creating even more new experiences, and their sincere appreciation for where they are.  And you will share with the students the joy and mystery of our Jewish legacy, which must be rebuilt and renewed by each generation.

FRONTAL FREE: Amalgamation

Dave Smolar is co-founder of Kikayon Productions, creating turn-key solutions for Jewish education. Our “TORAH TIME LIVE!” Parashah Play series is now for sale!  From Creation to Mt. Sinai, click on “Our Store” for more!

I’ve written before about students in class, or in a bunk or cabin at camp, or in a junior congregation or a friend’s party or any group dynamic, who don’t tend to socialize.  Some are quiet, some resort to chronic avoidance, some are oppositional.  You might see a kid who sits down when you ask everyone to stand up, or keeps asking “when’s recess?”, or simply puts their head down.  In fact, one of the few rules in my classroom is that you’re not allowed to curl up in a fetal position under the table in the room, which might sound extreme, but I’ve had plenty of students who think it’s appropriate or that nobody will notice.

Not to give the wrong impression that the antisocial child is the quiet one exclusively.  Sometimes, they’re the one that constantly has to change the rules.  Even if you give an open-ended graphic arts project to the class, offering them to use markers and pens for drawing, this one will use pencil.  And they’ll do a great drawing, but nobody will be able to see it because it’s purposely drawn so faintly.  Here you have the child who acts resentful that you’d give them a fun activity to do when they simply don’t feel like having a good time that day.

OK, so if this behavior happens once in a blue moon with a certain kid, so be it.  I have my bad days, my energy crashes, my moody blues.  But when you have a child who consistently stands up in the middle of a lively discussion, goes to the window, and just stares outside, you might not stop the class entirely but you should definitely take note of the behavior.  A distraction is a distraction, and sometimes, for me, a kid doing that can be just as disruptive as a kid calling out, or asking questions and making comments unrelated to the discussion, or simply walking out of the room in the middle of an activity. 

If these things have happened in my group work, they’ve happened to you.  And especially for the kid who simply walks out with a blank face, you’ve no idea what they’re up to or what they’ll do.  You can’t just leave them unattended for a variety of legal and pedagogic reasons.  And maybe most importantly, for their own sake, they can’t wander the building, because when something goes wrong, they’re unaccounted for and therefore suspect number one. 

I had a class I taught where I was asked to take over mid-year, and when I asked about what the kids were like, I was told, well, there’s a mix of interests and behaviors…and there’s also been items stolen from cubbies, holes poked into the eyes of the photos of younger children posted on the walls, and the occasional fire alarm.  And I’ll be perfectly honest with you:  I knew which kid was the probable culprit, not only of these alleged infractions and vandalism but responsible for driving out not one but two teachers, both of whom quit by January. 

So?  Big deal.  Kids are kids, everyone’s different, everyone has challenges, you’re not in their head, you don’t live their lives, and who are you to judge why they do what they do?  But, at some point, I have to do my job and teach the class, or lead the services, or have a discussion at camp, or train them to read Torah, or plan a holiday celebration, or even write a Purim shpiel. 

Obviously, I can’t let their aberrant behavior go unaddressed.  But for me, that’s not enough.  I’m not interested in kids who are complacent.  I don’t want robots, or sponges, or whatever the metaphor would now be for a child who hears everything I say, writes it down, and regurgitates it in a monthly exam, following which they promptly expunge the information from their noggin.  So what do I want?

I want the future of the Jewish people.  I want pride, I want focus, I want recognition of personal acceptance of legacy, foundation of religion in Torah stories, and the understanding of the elasticity of Jewish tradition and family customs.  I want them to know what they need to know to get them started thinking about who they are as Jews, what it means to them, and how their own personal code can be found in our beliefs.  I can teach them text, or a story, or prompt them into discussion, but they need to do the discovery themselves.

So if I have a child in a group who is having trouble, the trouble they’re having is allowing themselves to feel a part of the group, allowing themselves to value THEIR OWN thoughts and deeds and beliefs and opinions.  Only they know what they need, and sometimes the seemingly unfitting or inappropriate behaviors they exhibit – maybe even through no fault of their own – signal us as facilitators that what we’re teaching, or how we’re approaching it, isn’t what works for them. 

I love discussions, getting kids to brighten up and talk about themselves, couching their responses into Jewish ideals.  But I know that discussions, as fair as you might try to conduct them, will die off with preteens and teens after about 10 minutes.  So when my brightest student stops me mid-sentence to ask me what time it is – with a clock on the wall that’s been there for 5 months – I now know that they’re not interested in knowing the time but want to get out of their chair.  So I get them up.  Whatever I’m teaching, even if I’m in mid-thought and want to continue the idea, I try desperately to stop talking, get them up, and do some activity where they’re working things out with each other, without me in the loop.

There is no alternative, there are no choices here, and if you simply ignore one kid’s behavior, write it off, or even marginalize it, you’ll marginalize the kid.  Rather than feel a part of our people, they’ll feel more alone than they could make themselves feel in the first place.  The world doesn’t have to revolve around them, nor does it stop for them.  But creating a dynamic teaching atmosphere that brings the kids into the activity, to the extent that the kids are leading each other and creating the module that day, just by seeing their peers running the circus for a while, the “quiet kid” will realize that they, too, can be the leaders.  And they will begin to focus their energies that, once distracting and disruptive, now become creative and productive. 

And there’s the respect that makes a success of such lovingkindness in our small worlds.

FRONTAL FREE: The Flag of the Snowflake

Dave Smolar is co-founder of Kikayon Productions, creating turn-key solutions for Jewish education. Our “TORAH TIME LIVE!” Parashah Play series is now for sale!  From Creation to Mt. Sinai, click on “Our Store” for more!

In my classroom, I keep a copy of the page from the ship's manifest that recorded when the oldest of my father's uncles arrived at Ellis Island. Like so many other things in the room, this too becomes a conversation piece. Often when I teach about the ever-tightening US immigration quotas in the years leading up to the creation of the state of Israel, I use this document as a tool for unpacking my own family's history and travails in the Holy Land pre-1948. 

As the years slip by me, I'm increasingly fascinated by my recent ancestors' footsteps around the world. But simultaneously, I must remind myself that each student or program participant I encounter has their own story about how their family survived as Jews to this day. And as we hear these various stories and map them out, the stories grow stronger as their connections to each other become real, intersecting through countries and journeys, and enhancing our collective Jewish identity. 

These Jewish kids are snowflakes. Each is a delicate but unique mix of heritage, secularism, modern tech, and personal Judaism.  Each is influenced by all aspects of the world around them, both the passive elements that envelop them and the active elements that are often so forcefully thrown at them.  

Young women and men approaching b’nai mitzvah often face their first true identity crisis.  They feel a need to figure out and concatenate the wide-sweeping pieces that make up who they are as people, as Americans, as Jews.  And as it is for grownups too, their search for identity can lead to an inner revolt and a demand for individuality, raising the flag of the snowflake while declaring that they are their own person and cannot and will not be told who they are or how they should live.

This is why outreach, inclusion, and empathy are so crucial in our approaches to teaching them what it means to be a Jew.  They need to feel us trying new techniques in the classroom and at home, with games or puzzles or songs or anything that gets them up and moving.  They need to see us bringing them into a larger circle of the Jewish community, with synagogue activities or youth group events, anything to help them visualize that they are part of something that’s not only a horizontal timeline of Jewish history and legacy but a vertical connection to communities around the world and Jewish kids just like them. 

And above all, they need to feel us empathizing with them, in their world and in their minds, relating to them on a level that’s beyond adult and kid, involving them in discussions and planning holiday celebrations and creating new and novel liturgy, until they gradually feel the pull, the deep-seated responsibility, the personal need to take ownership of their Jewish heritage and contribute to their home, or school, or shul, or community. 

My ultimate goal is to teach them to be empathetic towards the Jewish people.  But as empathy cannot be taught directly, it must be seeded and nurtured, inspired and cultured.  And then, one day, you find them teaching you, and they’re ready for the world.

FRONTAL FREE: The Fragility of Judaism

Dave Smolar is co-founder of Kikayon Productions, creating turn-key solutions for Jewish education. Our “TORAH TIME LIVE!” Parashah Play series is now for sale!  From Creation to Mt. Sinai, click on “Our Store” for more!

Before I begin a teaching session, I look around the room. Maybe I'm in a classroom, or running a junior congregation, or just chatting with my kid's classmates or friends. And I often start off by asking them an open question, where they could really come up with any response. 

And then, I listen. 

I listen because I need to know everything I can about them. Where do their traditions come from? What do they do at home to be Jewish? Would they rank their Jewish identity ahead of their nationality, their school, or even their gender?

One evening when I was a student in Hebrew high school, a teacher pointed out to us that the term "Judaism" shouldn't really refer to our religion, per se. A "Judaism," by definition, would be an act you perform or behavior you display that demonstrates that you are Jewish, that defines your Jewishness. So when I'm engaging a group of Jewish tweeners nowadays, I prompt them to discuss their Judaism, their collective body of thoughts, opinions, knowledge, and traditions that make up their religion, culture, and personal dogma. 

The fragility of Judaism lies in the personalized legitimacy of the child's Judaism. At some point, it's only natural for someone, at any age, to question the validity, source, or true meaning of a custom or a text. The individual thinks about a "Judaism," wondering where it came from, how it started, what it really means, if it's meaningful to them, and if they should keep it up. 

But if they drop traditions entirely, so goes the Jewish people. 

As I continue this blog’s theme of “frontal free” teaching, I emphasize the value in not standing in front of the kids and telling them what they should know or believe.  As kids approach the traditional age of b’nai mitzvah, they begin to evolve in more thoughtful beings, instinctually wanting to think things through for themselves.  At some point, most of the 10 year olds I’ve encountered will even push back against any approach to tell them something rather than demonstrate something.

Lest you, the parent or educator, risk pushing them away, I’ve come to value the need to engross them in the material you’re trying to communicate.  Give them a context for the lesson, a taste of the material, then hand it over to them for them to explore themselves, at their pace, in their own way.  Without leveraging them, or intimidating them, or, dare I say, guilting them, you must find a way for them to approach the lessons themselves. 

Each year, I have preteen students who are agnostic, some with attention issues, some with lots of personal experience in Israel compared to the others.  So how do I teach them deeper understandings of Jewish ethics, or the value of learning Torah stories, or an overview of Israeli history?  Well, it’s always hard, but the hard part for me is letting go:  sitting back and letting them drive.  Give them the material but let them create a project around it; let the more experienced kids mentor the others; and have them do something active and on their feet to demonstrate their learning and understanding of the lessons. 

In the end, when they’re given the reins of their own education, they come to respect you, the institution of learning, and the value of finding their own personal Judaisms within the curriculum.  Their connections to tradition strengthen, thereby shoring up that fragility.  It’s my hope that through non-frontal, creative, experiential learning, we’ll imbue the next generation with the impetus to further their education and pass along their legacy of leadership and learning to the next generation.

FRONTAL FREE: The Chanukah History Mystery

Actual photo from my actual classroom.  Actually.

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So I was looking for a fun, open-ended, creative approach to teaching my Hebrew school 5^th graders about Chanukah this year.  I just needed a sign of what to do or where to start, something to fall in my lap.  Wouldn’t you know it, but our synagogue is giving away books from the library.  Every day when I drop off my boy for daycare, I glance at the rack, looking for free literary gold.

And there it was.  Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman’s From Text to Tradition:  a History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism, one of my favorite books from my Jewish History studies in college.  I like the book because it’s so easy to find what you need, everything and anything about Jewish life under and Jewish revolts against the Greeks and the Romans, replete with charts and maps and honesty.  That’s right:  honesty.  It’s a book that tries very quickly to demonstrate to the reader how the period of Hellenization in ancient Israel was real.  Without the Talmudic story of the 8-day miracle, and without the apocryphal Maccabee books – and without using a dreidel or a latke or even the contrast with Christmas as a talking point – the book can teach the honesty, the reality of the story of Chanukah, even to the 10 year old minds of a twice a week, 5^th grade Hebrew school class.

But they need something tangible to make the reality happen.  Sympathy, if not empathy, is not innate in a child and must be learned over time.  When they hit the decade point, they have the tools to begin to feel things and understand things about the world around them, if only from their own perspective.  You need to get an object and put it in their hands, then ask them to relate it to their own lives, or at least have them prove to themselves they can relate.

The mystery of Chanukah to which I refer comes from all directions.  How do you get kids today to relate to events from 2100 years ago?  How do they reconcile their past experiences with the holiday?  How do they dig out from under the media blitzes that hit them from all sides every year just past Thanksgiving?

So I create my own mystery.  For them.

One day in December, I brought out a big world map, threw it on the table, had them gather round, and told them about ancient Israel from Babylon to Greece, then the dissection of the Greek empire following the death of Alexander.  They had in hand from Professor Schiffman the lists of Greek emperors, Ptolemies and Seleucids, that followed Alexander so they could see the links from what they’d learned in grade school history class to the Chanukah story.  I worked them up and ran out of time.

The next time around, I handed them some old Israeli coins I’d found.  I didn’t really look at them before handing them out.  I just placed one in front of each pair of students and told them to identify the value, the monetary unit, the year, and any symbols on the front of the coin.  They’d never heard of any of the units, which gave me a chance to talk about the Israeli economy.  They used their gematria skills to decipher the year.  And we examined all the different symbols – animals [a lion], foods [pomegranates], and flora [wheat and olive branches] – used to establish Jewish connections from Torah to the land of Israel.

And then I enticed them by creating the mystery of the last and grandest of the coins.  They couldn’t figure out what was on the front of the coin.  There was a tree, or a plant, or something like that.  There were very ancient letters.  But one student recognized that the whole decoration was made to look like it had been…stamped there.  They now realized that the front of this modern coin had a replica of an ancient Jewish coin.  I found them a chart of ancient Hebrew on my phone which we used to try to decipher the strange lettering.

Before the next class, I did some online research.  Would you believe that this coin – a 50 shekel bronze piece minted in the mid-80s by Israel, only 2 years before the state’s economy was revamped and the coin itself demonetized – this nearly worthless coin had on it a depiction of a Jewish coin minted during the 4^th year of the first revolt against Rome, the year that Rome starved, raided, pillaged, and destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, carrying off the golden menorah?  With this coin, the class felt a tangible connection to the history of Jewish rebellion in the ancient world, even putting the triumph of the Maccabees against the later tragic loss and exile at the hands of the Roman Empire.

With two more classes to go, I brought in heavy decorative foil and some thin wooden 3” discs I’d found at a crafts store for them to make their own coins.  They knew I’d planned the art project as a way of celebrating the coin studies we’d done.  But when I showed up with shiny gold, bronze, pink, and electric blue foil, they thought it was pretty wild.  The foil sheets had adhesive backing, like contact shelf paper, so I cut out foil discs which they stuck on both sides of the coins and, using pencil tips, dug into them their pre-drawn designs.  Of course, I made sure the designs included something written in ancient Hebrew lettering and some Jewish cultural objects.  Some drew menorahs…some drew pickles.  Shiny, blue pickles.

Suffice it to say that the mystery of Chanukah for me entails the annual attempt to engross my class with both the historical context of the holiday and the modern-day cultural celebrations.  In the end, they wrote a play, on their own, which I rehearsed with them for them to perform last night at the synagogue’s latke party.  They took the Chanukah story – including the rebellion, the Seleucid motives, and the Talmudic miracle of the oil – and used it as an archetype which they transported to a not-too-distant-future dystopian Tokyo setting, albeit with a Greek king trying to invade.  It was a little scattered, very funny, and for me, a completely satisfying confirmation that they’d fully absorbed and retained the material. 

With an old college text [now available almost entirely online for free], some random coins collected over my lifetime, and a piece of foil, these kids are ready for the holiday.  Little do they know that our talks about the ancient menorah, the Roman diaspora, and the Arch of Titus will also serve as a segue into our spring semester talks on the history of, and the true reasons for, the founding of the modern state of Israel.  Of course, I’ve no idea what my source of inspiration will be to start things off, what tangible object I’ll put in their hands to get them talking about their own experiences.  But I’m not worried:  I’ll know it when I see it.