#jed21 on tutors, teachers and coaches

A day or three of tweeting while working! My friend Robin Faintich tweeted in response to my last blog posting about an article in the New York Jewish Week on tutoring. More friends joined in: Josh Barkin, Peter Eckstein, Ellen Dietrick and Ruth Abusch-Magder. I am amazed, but not surprised, by the level of dialogue that can occur in 140-character chunks. The conversation began Monday morning. As I write this it is almost noon on Wednesday and Jonathan Woocher just jumped into the pool. As my wife’s accounting professor at the University of Michigan, Chip Klemstein, once said, “It’s not the miracle of birth, but it is pretty cool!

I am posting the conversation to date below in order to continue it with you. I am also posting it as a comment to David Bryfman’s blog about the potential value of twitter in Jewish education. David has some very interesting things to say (and he mentions me-check it out mom!). Please continue the conversation with us here on twitter!

(The left hand column is the speaker, the name in the right hand column is the person to whom they are responding or directing their words.)

@rabbigurevitz	Tutoring vs.Religious School redux - Al tifrosh? http://bit.ly/5hWxwM #jed21
@rfaintich	@IraJWise Tutoring vs.Religious School ... isn't it our job to figure out how to integrate them? #jed21
@barkinj	@rfaintich It’s our job, but Ira's right: we need to be wary of something that is educationally and ideologically problematic. #jed21
@rfaintich	@barkinj one challenge is that I am not sure that @IraJWise would agree that RS is educationally problematic-if that's what you mean #jed21
@IraJWise	@rfaintich Absolutely. It is also our job to bring them in at the beginning, which means offering something compelling & meaningful. #jed21
@redmenace56	@rfaintich RS as it exists might B problematic, but not necessarily. methinks tutoring CAN be integrated w/out leaving community #jed21
@IraJWise	@rfaintich I don;t think it is. It can be. We don;t always get right. But we do more than we get get credit for. #jed21
@rfaintich	I am the product of the tutor/RS integration,i KNOW it is possible. Know of a great model in OC-Mindy Davids special. #jed21
@rfaintich	@IraJWise i agree that some, incl. you, do more than you get credit for... and in a paradigm that i believe is systemically broken. #jed21
@barkinj	@rfaintich No. I meant that Jewish education through tutoring is educationally problematic. #jed21
@rfaintich	@barkinj why? #jed21
@barkinj	@rfaintich Tutoring is fine for cognitive learning. Good Jewish education should also be affective, emotional, spiritual, communal. #jed21
@rfaintich	@barkinj you falsely assume tutoring can't also be affective, emotional & spiritual and then integrated into communal #jed21
@redmenace56	@rfaintich yeah makes sense but challenge is finding resources & institutional will 2 create programs that R NOT 1 size fits all #jed21
@redmenace56	@rfaintich like prev post re: teens, creating mix of tutoring & communal learning needs resources that many of us don't have (more) #jed21
@redmenace56	@rfaintich we want change & know it's doable, but when lay leaders won't provide resources we r stuck with taking very small steps #jed21
@redmenace56	@rfaintich & small steps R not always enough 2 hold funders, parents & kids attention, even though we try. need something big.#jed21
@redmenace56	@rfaintich big change perceived as dangerous-small may not b enough. risk not always positive thing in many funders/parents eyes. #jed21
@barkinj	@rfaintich An observation, not an assumption. I've never seen tutoring do those things. #jed21
@redmenace56	@rfaintich we need mechanism to filter the innovations and drive 4 change down from big centers to the periphery. #jed21
@barkinj	@rfaintich Tutoring is generally used for "training", which by definition is not affective, emotional, spiritual, community-oriented. #jed21
@IraJWise	@rfaintich Not that tutoring can't be those things, but a communal setting can make them richer and deeper! No student is an island. #jed21
@barkinj	@IraJWise @rfaintich Yeah, Ira said it better. #jed21
@rfaintich	@barkinj @IraJWise perhaps the problem is word/implication of "tutor" & not mentor, facilitator, role model, personal educator, etc #jed21
@ellen987	@rfaintich@barkinj @IraJWise On tutor discussion, I love the idea of Jewish life coaches instead of religious school teachers. #jed21
@rfaintich	@IraJWise my "tutor" is the one who brought me into Jewish camping & gave me a new community. I was in RS for judaics-she enhanced it #jed21
@IraJWise	AHA! So it was not JUST the tutor. Sounds like the kind of person we need doing lots of things. Not a Zero-sum game! #jed21
@lookstein	@rfaintich @irajwise @barkinj Abe Unger weighs in on the benefits of tutoring in the Jewish community in op-ed http://bit.ly/5M4csQ #jed21
@barkinj	@ellen987 Not sure what you mean by "life coach" in this context. #jed21
@barkinj	@ellen987 I call them "teachers", you call them "coaches." Good teachers know Jewish education is not about imparting info. #jed21
@ellen987	@barkinj I think there is a real difference between coach and teacher. Especially when you are inviting them into your home. #jed21
@ellen987	@barkinj By Jewish life coach I mean someone to help you figure out how to reach your family's goals for Jewish living and learning. #jed21
@barkinj	@ellen987 What if your family's goal is to have a bar mitzvah and then disengage from Jewish life? #jed21
@rabbiruth	What if the option is a tutor or nothing? that is quite common #jed21
@ellen987	@barkinj If your goal is to disengage aren't you going to do that even if your kid goes to RS? I'm talking people who want to engage. #jed21
@darimonline	@barkinj is it ever someone's REAL goal to disengage? Or an assumed path b/c lack of something compelling, inviting, worth change? #JED21
@rfaintich	@RabbiRuth I would say it is then the role of the "tutor" to try and bring the entire family into other entry points. #jed21
@barkinj	@DarimOnline You're right. Lots disengage because we don't offer anything engaging. But some disengage because that's what they want. #jed21
@barkinj	@ellen987 Religious schools need the disengagers (and their tuition/dues) to pay salaries, keep the lights on, etc. #jed21
@barkinj	@RabbiRuth Why? The vast majority could send their kids to relig. school. The people who choose tutoring usually do so as a choice. #jed21
@rfaintich	@barkinj @DarimOnline i think those who have chosen to disengage before they even see the product are those who are "in" out of guilt #jed21
@ellen987	@barkinj A coach working with entire family provides more avenues for engagement. Goal for enrolling kids in RS is not fundraising. #jed21
@redmenace56	@ellen987 ellen - i'd like 2 talk 2 U more abt this - i'm starting a lifecycle coach program @ my synagogue. how do we touch base? #jed21
@darimonline	@rfaintich @barkinj Can we re-cast the guilt paradigm? It's so not-compelling and will ultimately fail (is presently failing). #jed21
@barkinj	@ellen987 I totally agree. But too many congregations use BM as bait to get people in the door. #jed21
@IraJWise	@barkinj A bit cynical. For those only seeking BM, we meet a need. If we are good, we use their time here to help make more connects #jed21
@jwoocher	Need 2 real conversations w families: when they join, when BBM approaches. What will make this m'ningful 4 u? What must we do & u do? #Jed21
@barkinj	@IraJWise Yes. Playing the "cynic's advocate" here. But what would happen if all those BM-only folks left your school? #jed21
@IraJWise	@barkinj We would have to become a completely different kind of institution to afford serving those who want us the way we are. #jed21
@IraJWise	@barkinj And we still wouldn't reach those who left. #jed21

Conversation continues! Join in at #jed21.

If you don't understand how to follow a twitter hashtag (#jed21 is a hashtag!) go to Mashable's guide.

Here is the rest of the conversation:

@rfaintich @IraJWise what would you project would happen to your school if b/m were universally moved to 18 (or h.s. grad)? #jed21

@IraJWise @rfaintich Not sure. But you can't move it. People won't follow. That's how we got Confirmation in Reform. #jed21

@IraJWise Our conversation on tutors and schools through Josh's last post on line http://bit.ly/5RamqV #jed21 This is cool stuff!

@rfaintich @IraJWise if everyone agreed to move it (not like that will happen) then ppl choice - follow or nothing? #jed21 just hypothesizing

@lookstein thought of #edchat (see http://bit.ly/4Gt48i) when read @IraJWise compilation of tweets (http://bit.ly/5RamqV) maybe need jedchat 4 #jed21

@barkinj @rfaintich @IraJWise What are the implications of this conversation (tutoring) on the larger conversation about post BM dropout? #jed21

@barkinj @rfaintich @IraJWise My hypothesis: Schools that heavily integrate 1-on-1 tutoring have higher rate of post BM dropout. #jed21

@barkinj @rfaintich @IraJWise My reasoning: Maybe families/kids that don't heavily value community have less reason to stay after BM. #jed21

@rfaintich @barkinj one thought- does "drop out" only apply to weekly RS or the community/congregation on the macro? #jed21

@barkinj @rfaintich I say macro. Because I'm not so narrow-minded as to believe that RS is the only way to engage w Jewish education. ;) #jed21

@barkinj @rfaintich But even on the macro level, I would still make that hypothesis. #jed21

@rfaintich @barkinj going with the macro, if done well, I respectfully disagree with you #jed21

@barkinj @rfaintich "If done well" is a big if. My read of the trend (as described in JWeek story) is that it prob isn't usually done well. #jed21

@rfaintich @barkinj so let's find a way to fix it :) #jed21

@rfaintich @remilder or it means that part of the "tutors" job is to be a role model and work to bring them in to J community opportunities #jed21

@rfaintich article http://tinyurl.com/yfrzw36& quote "[judaism] is learning-based, not rite-based." based on discussion about b/m do we agree? #jed21

@barkinj @rfaintich Right. So do we try to improve tutoring (because it's a trend like it or not), or do we try to fix the underlying problem? #jed21

@rfaintich @barkinj i think it's more than a trend & is actually educationally sound (again if done right)...so I think we should improve it #jed21

@RabbiRuth I think that there is much that could be done to support organizations like Milestones in SF that make this work well #jed21

@FlorenceBernard Welcome To The Next Level: #jed21 on tutors, teachers and coaches http://bit.ly/6gTHhl

@rfaintich @jwoocher beyond what makes it meaningful is WHY are you engaging in this? What is motivating your choice for joining & for BBM? #jed21

Reports of the Hebrew School's Demise Have Been Greatly Exagerated

I have dedicated my professional life to supplementary, or complementary or afternoon Jewish Education. In other words, Hebrew School. I am committed to it be cause:

1. It worked for me and my friends. We all came through a wonderful experience at B'nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim in suburban Chicago, learning from Rabbi Mark Shapiro, educators Barbara Irlen, Bernice Waitsman and Marshall Wolf, and dozens of teachers including Sharon Steinhorn (arguably the first - and second - congregation based family educator ever), Sy Bierman, Sandee Holleb, Joan Goldberg and more than I can name right now. It led us to be campers at Olin Sang Ruby Union Institute, to participating in our Jr. and Sr. youth groups, to becoming camp staff and teachers, etc. over 25 of us grew up to go to HUC-JIR and become rabbis, cantors, educators and Jewish communal workers. Lots more became functional Jewish adults and leaders of our Jewish communities.
   
   
2. Something in the neighborhood of 85 - 90% of all Jewish children in North America will not be going to day school. Period. They need a place to learn about being Jewish and to love being Jewish. Waiting for Birthright is too little, too late. Summer camps are awesome, but it is extremely difficult to get the "unsynagogued" to go in many communities. (I know MIlwaukee is different! Please don't flame me from Eagle River you Interlaken folks!) Not much left of the non-Orthodox Zionist youth movements. I mourn Young Judaea's present state. I would like to back up the following statement with actual research (I recall it but can't cite, so therefore it is an opinion, not a fact): I believe that the majority of families with children in Hebrew schools would not choose to enroll their children in day schools if there was no tuition charged.
   
   The decision to enroll in day school or not is, I believe, based on much more than cost. Those who make the choice are either believers in the endeavor day school represents (a valid, meaningful choice), driven there by inadequate public options in their community (equally valid and meaningful, if unfortunate) or looking for something that a particular day school offers that they believe is more beneficial to their child(ren) than the public option (again, valid and meaningful). Cost does turn some away who would otherwise choose day school. I believe if it were free, most would continue to make the choice not to enroll in Day School, because the alternative is pleasing to them. It is not a last resort.
   
   
3. Finally, because I believe in Hebrew School, I have made it my life's wrok to make the experience as meaningful and impactful as I can. I owe it to those who helped me become who I am. I owe it to my sons. I owe it to my grandchildren who are merely dreams in my and my wife's heads (and not yet very vivid -- we have lot's of time!).

I believe Hebrew School can be great. Not for everyone. Certanily not for the kid whose parent says: "I hated it. You'll hate it. You gotta go." Fortunately, we don;t hear that much in our synagogue anymore. I think you can judge the strength of a school by how many B'nai Mitzvah keep coming. Nearly 70% of our B'nai Mitzvah become confirmed at the end of tenth grade. One or two of them choose not to continue to High School graduation. Fifteen years ago it was 29%. Our goal is 85%. We will get there. I don't think we are the best of the best or anywhere near alone. Some things become facts (like the failure of the supplemental school) just by repeating them loudly and frequently.

Why am I talking about this? My friend Robyn Faintich of the Florence Melton Communiteen High School (and fellow Jim Joseph Foundation Fellow at the Lookstein Institute) tweeted about the following blog from Benjamin Weiner on the Jewcy blog.

Jewcy is an online media outlet/blog, social network, and brand devoted to helping Jews and their peers expand the meaning of community by presenting a spectrum of voices, content, and discussion. JEWCY is a project of JDub Records, a non-profit organization dedicated to innovative Jewish content, community, and cross-cultural dialogue. Read it. Join the conversation.

Stop Blaming Hebrew School

by Benjamin Weiner,
January 7, 2010

My weekly unsolicited email from Shalom TV, "America's Jewish Television Cable Network," informs me that Michael Steinhardt, philanthropist provocateur, in a recent "rare, personal interview," launched into a tirade against non-Orthodox American Jewish education. Hebrew school, argued the hedge-fund tycoon and Taglit-BIrthright impressario, spitting the word out through clenched teeth (or so I imagine the scene), "has been, and continues to be, a shandah--an abysmal failure." In Steinhardt's estimation, the ineptitude of this warhorse of an educational model is responsible for skyrocketing rates of non-Orthodox intermarriage, and the plummeting percentage of Jewish philanthropic dollars actually going these days to Jewish causes. (He sets the figure at 15%). "Can there be a worse term in the American Jewish lexicon than 'Hebrew School?" he asks. "There were six kids in the 20th Century who liked it!"

I am still digesting the press release--the lack of a cable hookup means it will take me some effort to watch the actual interview. Other tidbits include Steinhardt inveighing against the use of "mythical" anti-Semitism as a "boogeyman" to "raise money" for Jewish organizations, and against an obsession with the Holocaust that hinders us from thinking "about what we want to accomplish and what we want to be in the 21st century." The "religion of Judaism," he says further, is "so deeply disappointing" in its "practice, its verbiage, its inability to reflect realistically upon our lives."

The only redemption he sees for the "moribund world" of the Diaspora is a relationship with Israel, "my Jewish miracle." He has no respect, mind you, for the political and business establishment of the country, which he described with adjectives such as "awful" and "less than glorious," and he does not seem to be in favor of living there all the time, either. "I have a wonderful house in the middle of Jerusalem," he says. "I love Israel. I love America. And," like Alec Baldwin in bed with Meryl Streep, "it's a complicated situation."

I admit again that I am only relying here on the sampling of quotes provided in the press release, so I don't feel justified launching a full critique of Steinhardt's performance. Instead, I'd like to focus on the first salvo, the oft repeated claim that synagogue Hebrew schools are responsible for the decline of the Jewish people--a claim that is more or less akin to stripping your parents' house of all viable woodwork, plumbing, and appliances and then wondering why they live in such a dump.

Firstly, it should be noted that Hebrew school has not been a failure, as it is largely responsible for the success of many who have spent time on the editorial board of Heeb, or in the Alpine fortress of Reboot, or the stables of the Foundation for Jewish Culture, or most likely, if you will pardon me, the inner sancta of Jewcy and JDub [Editor's note: I should just point out that I didn't go to Hebrew school, but several of my colleagues did].

Anyone who has jockeyed disaffection with the Jewish establishment into a successful career of personal expression on the American mass-media stage, including the Coen brothers (who, since "A Serious Man," I consider the patron saints of the genre), should reflect on the debt of gratitude he or she owes to this half-assed system of religio-ethno-cultural indoctrination. Things might have been far less interesting had the ingredients come out fully-baked.

But, snarkiness aside, the problem with blaming Hebrew School for the collapse of our millennia-old civilization is that such talk, to paraphrase Tevye, blames the cart for the inherent lameness of the horse; exonerates the many who fled the challenge of creating meaningful Jewish life for the sorry state of affairs they left behind, and ignores the implacability of the forces that made them flee in the first place.

For what created the supposition that two to six hours a week of afterschool guttarality could foment a firm commitment to the Jewish people? I don't think this paradigm was determined deliberately from the outset, by committee. At the turn of the last century, there were viable models of Jewish education, and there was a critical mass of Jewish community prepared to embody them. And then there was mass immigration, and genocide, and breakneck assimilation--from a flummoxed traditional culture into a post-War America that was primed with petroleum to give Jewish people the greatest thrill ride they had ever experienced in a Gentile world. And, at the end of the day, Hebrew School emerged because it was the best we were allowed to do. Speaking, gloves off, as a working rabbi and education director, trying hard to find ways to reflect the "verbiage" of the Jewish religion "realistically upon our lives," it is frustrating that, by consensus of the parents of my community, I can only educate their children for two hours a week with no homework, and that those hours come well after regular school hours, and that the expectations for behavior and attendance sometimes fall somewhere between a railway station and a monkey house--despite the fact that they are all, without exception, great kids. But this is roughly the extent of the concession that many American Jewish families are willing to make these days to their Jewish identities, and there should be a category of Nobel prize for whoever figures out how to put these parameters to the best use.

There is a lot of talk in circulation about "what we want to accomplish, and what we want to be in the 21st century;" what it will take to "get our groove back," whether that means summoning the "boogeyman," or replacing religion with spirituality, or pretending we're Jamaican, or humping each other at younger ages with fewer prophylactics, or giving "Jewish barbarians" (Steinhardt's term) free trips to an Israel whose only redeeming virtue seems to be that we only have to be there sporadically. Of course, it is the responsibility of those who care to come up with compelling answers to the question of why be Jewish. But these answers are getting shorter and shorter, and sounding more and more often like marketing slogans, and, at the end of the day, the lack of substance is less the fault of educators than it is the fault of Jewish consumers who don't want to buy, no matter how cheap the cost. Beyond that, it is the fault of history.