Schools talk a lot about the importance of mission and vision, though understanding the ways in which this matters in practice is more subtle, and frankly, took me quite a while to appreciate. Many schools I’ve seen can function pretty well without a clear mission or vision. Sometimes it’s because they have a legacy culture…
Category: Education
John D’Auria – Ten Lessons in Leadership and Learning
I was at a planning meeting for the Day School Leadership Training Institute, a program for upcoming or new Heads of Jewish Day Schools, where I am a mentor. We were doing some ‘get to know you’ questions, and one of them was, “What book have you read more than once?”. The person who chose…
Not a Regular Book Review: My Quarrel with Hersh Rasseyner, by Chaim Grade
Normally book reflections go on the Netivot Monday Morning Reading email. This one, however, is only on my blog. The reflection is both too long, and the book too different from what I normally write about, that keeping it here seemed the more natural place for it to reside. Onward. Reading Chaim Grade is a…
Sustainability and the Headship – A Prizmah Conference Reflection
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…
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…