Archive for the ‘From the Head of School’ CategoryWelcome!
ברוכים הבאים
B’ruchim HaBaim Every school “integrates” its subjects, but that often takes the form of students discussing the same book in both language arts and history classes. At Agnon we take the concept of an integrated curriculum pretty seriously. Our fifth graders learn the different phases of the moon and how its gravitational pull affects the tides in science; in language arts they explore how the moon has been used as a literary metaphor; in music they learn the Moonlight Serenade; and in Judaics they dive into the concept of “rosh chodesh” – the celebration of the new moon – and its profound impact on Jewish philosophy and theology. At the end of the unit they develop a comprehensive appreciation of the moon, from varied perspectives and disciplines. It’s a learning process that goes far beyond the memorization of facts (or worse, factoids – little bits of non-connected information); it moves a student from the accumulation of knowledge to the appreciation of understanding. But a school is even larger than its curriculum. We believe strongly that Agnon is a learning community, in which parents are encouraged to participate in Shabbat dinners with their children; where our students engage in acts of g’milut chasidim – acts of righteous behavior – in their broader community, both in Cleveland and in the world; in the Jewish and in the non-Jewish world as well. We also deeply believe in a genuinely pluralist day school environment, where everyone’s affiliation and background and observance level is respected. Agnon is a “big-tent” school community, in which we celebrate our diversity and our unity. We’re able to provide this wonderful opportunity to our students and families largely because of the donors who so generously give of themselves, their time and their dollars – because they too believe in the mission of a school that reaches out to the broadest spectrum of the Jewish community; a school that does not ask parents to choose between academic excellence in general studies “or” in Jewish studies. They believe in offering our students and our community the best and brightest future we can provide. To everyone who has so willingly contributed – to our parents, our Board members, our generous supporters throughout the community – thank you. Welcome – once again – to Agnon. Jerry D. Isaak-Shapiro Head of School | There are moments. Last week on one of my too infrequent agenda-free strolls around the school, I dropped in to one of our Kindergarten classes, only to be immediately accosted by five- and six-year old enthusiasm. “Did I hear about the dominoes?” “Do I know how many dominoes there are in the school?” “Can we tell you about the dominoes?” I don’t have to have a building fall on me. “Does this have anything to do with dominoes?” Never feed a straight line to a Kindergartener. “How’d you know?” It turns out that a random reference to dominoes led to a spontaneous hunting-and-gathering of all wayward dominoes in the classroom, which of course led to grouping, counting and accounting. Evidently the grand total wasn’t grand enough for the class, and they petitioned their teacher to go off on a school-wide search. You’d think it was The Search for the Golden Domino; they explored the middle school, they looked into the early childhood classrooms, they hunted in specialists’ rooms. Once again, they took their dominoes and their tallies and added, tabled and toted. We now know that The Agnon School is the proud owner of over 2,000 dominoes, courtesy of a band of intrepid domino seekers. But what really propelled them into this learning adventure was a combination of their own innate imagination – and their teacher’s ability to recognize it and fan its embers into a bright flame, all the while weaving in a lesson plan of math, scientific inquiry and problem-solving. This kind of creative, take-advantage-of-the-moment learning only happens with teachers who can appreciate the difference between seizing the moment and losing control of the agenda. It happens when they get genuinely excited at the magic of discovery; and it makes beautiful sense when they can use the experience to provide horizontal and vertical learning – a kilometer long and a kilometer deep. It doesn’t appear in the curricular map and it can’t be found in any of the outlines and lesson plans developed over dozens of meetings and scores of cups of coffee. But when it happens – it’s a transformational moment. And there are other moments. Tonight I received a call at home I’d be willing to get six nights a week. A parent wanted me to know how well a team meeting went today, at which his child’s entire team of classroom teachers, specialists and learning specialists met to discuss the student’s progress. That there has been progress – tremendous, positive progress – is terrific in and of itself. But the parents were particularly moved by the clear picture the team had of their child. They saw and heard that the teachers knew the whole child, with all his strengths and challenges; that he wasn’t defined by his limitations or labeled by a presumed inability; and that he was afforded the dignity and respect and learning opportunities as were his classmates. I’d naturally be thrilled to get a call like this, but on this particular day it came on the heels of a troubling conversation with a mom whose child currently attends one of the city’s purportedly “better” public schools. Her son’s experience with the “resource room team” in particular and with the faculty and administration in general has been anything but supportive; to characterize it as adversarial would not be an exaggeration. I’m as leery of the hovering and smothering parent as the next head of school, but this is not a case of a mother refusing to see her child accurately or realistically. It’s not enough to grudgingly accept the need to modify a curriculum or to provide educational accommodations only when pressed to do so – and a teacher’s sideways glances or raised eyebrows can reverse the benefits of a modified curriculum in a heartbeat. Too often a teacher’s laissez faire (or worse) attitude toward learning differences will passively sanction students’ negative behavior in the classroom. It’s a double loss: the teacher foregoes an opportunity to model accepting and inclusive (not just “tolerating”) behavior; and the lack of a strong, positive model encourages non-acceptance, even ostracism. The juxtaposition of the two conversations couldn’t be more jarring. This is not solely about outcomes – it’s also about intentions and environments and expectations. It’s about creating a context in which educational values are really life values. |
Welcome!
ברוכים הבאים
B’ruchim HaBaim Once again, another year has begun. All of us at Agnon – board members, staff and teachers – are excited about the new year ahead of us. Here’s to a wonderful 5769-70 (otherwise known as 2009-2010)! A school is so much more than the mere sum of its parts. This year at Agnon, you’ll see grade-level Shabbat dinners – because we know that while we may teach and learn about Shabbat in the classroom, we celebrate this weekly gift by experiencing it with our family and friends. You’ll also see “milestone” events – science camp for 6th grade; Washington, D.C. for 7th and our life-transforming Israel experience for 8th grade – because all learning is not accomplished within the four walls of a classroom. And parents will participate in their share of evening programs – our justly celebrated “integrated curricular nights” – that will give them a glimpse of how one learns at Agnon, by taking in concepts and ideas through multiple lenses. Seeing a topic from the perspective of art, music, science, Jewish history and social studies brings it alive – and moves the accumulation of facts toward the development of wisdom. It’s that simple – and that profound. There is both a ‘why’ and a ‘how’ to all this. We choose to blend formal and non-formal educational methods because we want to take the best practices which will provide the most meaningful experiences for our students. We choose to integrate our curricula and to create a pluralist Jewish educational community because we believe that now, more than ever, we need to connect our various worlds – that sectioning off our learning is just as limiting as dividing our community. How we accomplish all this – and how we’re able to dream about the next phase of education and of this school in particular – is due to the many, many donors who give of themselves, their time and their dollars, not to receive acknowledgment or praise. They give because they too believe in the mission and the mandate of a school that reaches out to the broadest spectrum of the Jewish community; a school that does not ask parents to choose between academic excellence in general studies “or” in Jewish studies. They believe in offering our students and our community the best and brightest future we can provide. To everyone who has so willingly contributed – to our parents, our Board members, our generous supporters throughout the community – thank you. Welcome – once again – to Agnon. Jerry D. Isaak-Shapiro Head of School By Jerry D. Isaak-Shapiro, Head of School The oddest things catch your eye – or in this case, the eyes of your wife and daughter. A few weeks ago Debbie and Naomi saw something at Nordstrom that forced a double take, and it had nothing to do with a fashion trend or clearance sale (does Nordstrom even have clearance sales?). Prominently displayed by the children’s shoe department was a sign advertising “shoelace tying lessons” for those in need. It certainly used to be in vogue for some educators to be disdainful of such crass business terms as marketing and positioning and branding, and even customer service was once upon a time, if truth be told, derided as a necessary evil at best. Such sentiments were and remain arrogant. Anyone who truly espouses a theory of multiple intelligence has to be open-minded enough to look to every field – sports, business, theater and every other section of the Sunday paper – for insight and experience. Not doing so, not borrowing from hard-won theories and winning practices is not only arrogant – it’s intellectually lazy and selfish to boot; giving short shrift to other, less ivory arenas shortchanges our students and our institutions. All this is to say I take no issue with Nordstrom’s management nor even their legion of knot-tying tutors, apparently eager to help children master the reef square knot (and you thought it was just a shoelace! So did I). Good for them to find a niche and fill it. Free-for-the-taking knot tying lessons will no doubt engender customer satisfaction and loyalty, something Nordstrom justifiably wears proudly, because it takes both so seriously. This has little to do with Nordstrom and its after-school tutorials. It did however prompt me to think about how we, when we – and when we don’t – parent. I’m sure that I’m one of the first to agree that parents should not be their child’s teacher in many areas (driving comes to mind, as does algebra II). Were it not for this simple truth, schools and teachers would have long gone the way of the brontosaurus, and I’ll bravely go on record and say that I think that’s a lousy idea. We need the expertise, the concentrated knowledge and the subjective objectivity of a professional educator; our students need this, our society needs this and our children’s parents need this. Yet the metaphor of the knot practically screams, “What about balance?” Are our lives so out of kilter, so harried, so weighed down by Blackberry and travel schedule and life’s treadmill that we have to enlist the aid of the retail entrepreneur down the block to teach our toddler a basic life skill? While Jewish thought and history unambiguously support and celebrate the role of the teacher and school in our society (indeed, the building of a school traditionally took precedence over the construction of a synagogue), and notwithstanding all that Really Important Stuff above about the role teachers must play in the lives of our children, our Sages were just as unequivocal (and just as right) when they spoke about a parent’s obligation to his/her children. One of the more oft-cited statements is from the Talmud (Kiddushin 29a), which offers a Top Six List of parent responsibilities: “A father is obligated to do the following for his son: to circumcise
him, to redeem him if he is a first born, to teach him Torah, to find him a
wife, and to teach him a trade. Others say: teaching him how to swim
as well.”
Gender neutrality can only go so far with this one. Certainly we can stipulate that these obligations belong to both father and mother. Working backward, the swimming lessons are understood to impart practical knowledge of the world, to ensure our children’s very survival (think checkbook balancing, basic car maintenance and the ability to understand apartment rental agreements). To “find” a spouse for one’s child doesn’t have to be a Tevye-esque ordeal; this is understood as a parent’s responsibility to teach one’s child (better: to model) what’s truly important in a life partner. Teaching Torah is just that and more – providing a spiritual base and a sense of there being More in the universe is enormously important, and it doesn’t require a doctorate in Hebrew letters or years of personal study. What is necessary is a genuine appreciation of the essential nature of Torah learning, as a roadmap to our People’s history, as a guide to values (universal and particular) and as one conduit to a relationship with G-d. Contrary to Western intuition, the redemption of the first-born and circumcision are not immune to gender equalizing efforts. Both speak about the need for parents to usher their sons and daughters into the Covenant, to provide them a sense of nation as well as family, to link them to a millennia-old chain. Parents are – always have been and always will be – our children’s most important teachers, and the responsibility is profound. A small sample of (gender-neutralized) Jewish thought on the matter: - The parents who teach their child, it is as if they had taught their children, their children’s children and so on to the end of generations. (Talmud Kiddushin 36) No pressure – what we do today will have an impact on our grandchildren and our great grandchildren. Choose the lessons we wish to instill carefully.
- Parents should be careful to keep their children from lies, and should always keep their word to their children. (Talmud Sukkah 46b) Personal examples rule the day – and do not ever believe that “they don’t really notice” or don’t hear. They always do.
- A parent should not promise to give a child something and then not give it, because in that way the child learns to lie. (Talmud Sukkah 46b) See above – the rabbis of the Talmud were big on role modeling.
- If a small child is capable of shaking the lulav correctly, the parents should buy the child his/her own lulav. (Talmud Sukkah 28a) This wasn’t inserted by the lulav makers association. Appreciate our children’s spiritual capabilities – they are infinite.
- [It was] said that a parent should never show favoritism among his/her children. (Talmud Shabbat 10b) A Holy Grail (we can also borrow metaphors) of parenting. The fact that Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Rebecca, et. al. were not so great at this no-favoritism rule doesn’t diminish its essential legitimacy; if anything, the Torah teaches us to learn from poor modeling as much from those who win the Parent of the Year award.
We could forego the entire exercise in list-making by concentrating on what’s arguably the foundational prayer within our liturgy, the shema. The sixth chapter of D’varim (Deuteronomy) is where we hear Moses exhort the Children of Israel with, שמע ישראל ה’ אלקינו ה’ אחד Hear, Israel, the Lord is our G-d, the Lord is One. The salient line comes three verses later, and is the foundation for Judaism’s values-based parent-teaching: ושננתם לבניך ודברת בם V’shinantam l’vanecha v’dibartah bam: And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall speak of them… In this case, we’re to teach and to speak of how we are to love G-d (with all our heart and soul and might). But v’shinantam l’vanecha can be the marching orders for parent-teachers irrespective of subject matter. Teach them – and teach them diligently – about cooking and jazz and rock-climbing; about your family’s and your nation’s history; about what’s important and about what’s important to you. Of course the world is complicated and of course we need teachers and schools (even heads of schools) to provide that which parents cannot provide. We’re quite ready, more than willing and the teachers here are extraordinarily able to do their part, all the while remembering that you are always your child’s essential teacher. Thousands of years before Graham Nash wrote the line, we knew how important it was to teach your children well. Let’s stipulate (as my legal friends would say) the obvious: any Jewish day school presents a pretty tough organizational model. There are multiple constituencies (students and staff, parents and lay leadership, donors and other community partners) with overlapping and, at times, conflicting priorities. There is, of course, the educational mission, made all the more complicated by the demands of a dual curriculum. And day schools have the added responsibility of inculcating values, of going beyond the concrete and the cognitive, to connect our students with their personal and collective past and future. Toss in a few other realities – scarce resources, demographic pressures, the state of volunteerism today – and we get a heady mix of challenges. All day schools, irrespective of educational philosophy or organizational affiliation, are faced with the same balancing act. Lest anyone forget, we are also blessed with a mountain of positives – the dedication of our staff and board members, the support of the community, the inspiration of our People’s narrative. Over and above the generic day school balance sheet, each individual school – and each school movement – has its own particular strengths and challenges. A community school like Agnon is sometimes the most difficult to define – and even the descriptors most often employed are understood differently by different people in different settings. Are we pluralist? Diverse? Trans- or post- denominational? How about “just Jewish?” There is clearly more variation amongst the 120 or so community day schools than there is between the schools within any of the other movements. Depending upon the organizational blueprint of the city, community schools are perceived (or misperceived) to be the “progressive” or the “centrist” or even the “right-leaning” Jewish day school in that locale. Ironically, this is not an insoluble challenge; rather, it’s a wonderful example of a true strength of a community school. We need not be pigeonholed or painted into a philosophical or institutional corner. And no, being genuinely and mindfully inclusive does not imply a lack of standards or a dilution of principles. In the context of a Jewish community day school, inclusiveness provides us the means to celebrate our unity while we acknowledge our diversity. Frankly, it’s brilliant. These are not merely theoretical issues for us; they’re manifested in speech and action throughout the year. One of the absolute best examples of actualized pluralism can be found in the morning during our various grade-level t’filot (services). On any given morning, one can find a rabbi from the Conservative or Reform or Reconstructionist or Orthodox movement, working with different grades and partnering with our staff, imparting their love of Torah and their insight into our history and tradition. I have the luxury and the pleasure of learning from them all, as I eavesdrop (observe!) as often as possible. Beyond the specific wisdom I always gain from each rabbi’s discussion with our students, there’s a meta-lesson: with all our different interpretations and perspectives and small-h histories, we have a magnificent common History. We share a love of sacred Texts and an acknowledgment of our collective responsibility; we’re uplifted by the same holidays and are saddened by our common tragedies; and we are all linked to a Land whose ancient and modern history stirs our soul. We are, in a word, a community. We have of course benefitted from cantors and educators from the various movements along with the community’s rabbis. Each brings his/her unique blend of knowledge and training to our students. As a whole, they model an enthusiastically pluralist Jewish world – and our students and the entire school is the better for it. Leah Spector has worked tirelessly to reach out to the rabbinic community to ensure that Agnon students are exposed to the full panoply of Jewish thought and practice (forget about ideology – it’s often the act of scheduling that trips up the loftiest of goals). Thanks to her we can thank the following individuals who will be enriching the lives of our students this year: - Rabbi Edward Bernstein
- Rabbi Sruly Koval
- Rabbi Sharon Marcus
- Rabbi Yossi Marozov
- Cantor Misha Pisman
- Rabbi Daniel Roberts
- Rabbi Steve Segar
- Rabbi Rona Shapiro
- Rabbi Edward J. Sukol
- Rabbi Lauren Werber
“Who is wise? He who learns from everyone.” — Pirkei Avot |
