My youngest child has begun second grade (where did the time go?), and while that may not seem like the most momentous change that is happening in my house this school year - our oldest has headed to high school, after all - in some ways this is a game-changing moment that is about to take place. Why? What earth-shattering learning happens in second grade that is more important than that which is learned in 6th or
I first fell in love with Gemara Berura a dozen years ago. I had just finished my most ambitious project-based learning assignment I had ever attempted with my 9th grade class. We designed a “How To Learn Gemara” website. In this project, my students culminated a year of a careful skills-based approach to learning Gemara by summarizing the various Sugiyot they had learned complete with keywords and color coding. They
Today is the Yahrtzeit of Sarah Schenirer (July 15, 1883-March 1, 1935); in fact she passed away in Adar Aleph as 1935 was a leap year. Sarah Schenirer was really an amazing individual. Although she lived only 51 years and never had any children, she literally impacted the lives of thousands of women and men!
A question that seems to always surface both internally and with other educators is: “what exactly is the role of a Jewish educator outside of the classroom and more importantly outside of school?” It is very obvious that effective teachers play a vital role in the classroom.