I spent the first part of this week at the Prizmah conference, a gathering of over 1000 Jewish day school professionals that happens every two years. It was motivating and energizing to be with so many liked-minded idealistic fellow Jewish educators, who are so deeply engaged in this holy work. The conversation I had most…
Category: Education
Being Present: A Leadership Challenge
Midlife: A Philosophical Guide by Kieran Setiya is not a book I felt strongly enough to put on my Monday Morning reading list. However, there are a couple of ideas that I found very helpful and powerful, and want to think through here. They speak to aspects of leadership rarely discussed, having to do with…
How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden power of character – Paul Tough
When I was reading How Children Succeed: Git, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character, a family member said she couldn’t imagine how I continue to find these kinds of books interesting. I took this as a fair comment about where my interests lie, and that they may not overlap with too many others. As…
“How do I keep my child in shul??”
I was speaking to a parent this week who struggles to keep her son in shul. We did the blame game at first: it’s the shul’s fault for not offering enough or the right tefilah options for kids; it’s the parents’ fault for not insisting that their children stay with them during tefilah; it’s the…
The Friction of Learning
I think in the last 12 years I’ve had about one summer ‘off’, which is to say, a summer where I wasn’t doing a Masters, PhD, HOS training, or HOS mentoring. When I had that summer break it was, despite my best efforts, not a great break, or as my wife likes to remind me,…
The Unique Wexner/Davidson Community – Dvar Torah
When I was accepted as a Wexner/Davidson Fellow as part of my doctoral work in 2009, a friend of mine, who had just finished her time in the Fellowship said to me, “The Wexner experience is going to change your life!”. The truth is that I didn’t believe her – but she turned out to…
Does the World Need Another Blog?
No, probably not. And yet… I’ve started one. Why? When I was young, probably between the ages of 16 and 23 I used to write a lot of letters. This was especially true when I was in Israel and there were those aerograms that you could fold up and put in the mail. But then…