“But I’ve already been to the museum!”

Negotiating with teens when they say “been there, done that!”

The entire school was taking a trip to the relatively new National Museum of American Jewish History, located in Philadelphia. The museum, with thousands of historic treasures, interactive exhibits, and multi-media presentations, has caused many people to say that they could spend days there and not see everything.

Yet, we heard that one student, when he learned about the trip, went home and confidently told his mother: “I don’t want to go. I’ve already been to the museum once.” 

The comment above is not specific to the museum. It is a catch phrase for all things that kids think they’ve already done, if they’ve done it once.

I remember working with a student on his course selections for the coming year. I suggested a class that I thought he’d find really interesting, based on his background. He didn’t ask me any clarifying questions, and without missing a quarter-note, told me assertively: “I don’t need to take that class, I’ve already taken Talmud!”

Put in whatever word works for you here, so that the comment would be equally humorous:

“I don’t need to take that class, I’ve already taken engineering.” (architecture, medicine, fine arts, or any area of study that could be endlessly interesting if someone had the interest).

So, how as parents and educators do we get past the “been there, done that” syndrome?

With patience, explanations, and the confidence that we know better. 

We should never assume because someone is in school, that there is a deep understanding of the process of learning.

We need the confidence to communicate that when it comes to learning anything, revisits are important and necessary. Gaining depth of a subject matter, seeing things again from a new perspective, is a good thing.

Let’s think about that, and let that very thought bring sweet smiles to our faces when we meet at our Seder tables and hear “But we did this last year!”

Doing a 360 on Attendance in a Part-Time School

Class Clowns: Not That Funny

Recently, I participated in a webinar, sponsored by JESNA, on issues related to complementary (supplementary, part-time) schools.

This was an unusual experience. I was asked to facilitate a group of about ten online participants and discuss the topic of declining attendance. Aside from one familiar name, I didn’t know any one. We examined the issue from the point of view of these stakeholders; Education Director, Parent, and Teacher, and we brainstormed a list of issues surrounding the topic.

It was interesting that this online group of educators and school directors, representing schools from all over the country, mentioned a familiar list: conflicting activities, less parental engagement, too few class expectations, too much school homework, class management issues, social pressures, plus other reasons that were sound and thoughtful.

I’m sure many of us approached this issue of declining attendance in a variety of contexts and perhaps came up with similar but expanded lists of reasons and issues. So, what’s the news here?

I’m not sure what anyone else took away from this online discussion, but for me, there was a particular enlightening moment.

When I suggested we view this issue from the vantage point of the student, I was literally overwhelmed with all of the emotional baggage that our students have to deal with when they attend erratically.

To be clear, these are not going to be things that haven’t come up in conversations before.

It’s just that listed all together, I felt such compassion for that poor kid having to attend any program in this way.

Would any adult be able to handle such a thing? “Kind of” attending a program? Participating “now and then”?

Really, just think about this for a minute. How comfortable would you be in this situation? Think about the social and academic implications.

Now, think of how you might experience this as an adolescent:

You are lost most of the time. Most likely, you haven’t kept up with the work. You don’t really know everything the teacher is referencing, but you pretend because you don’t want to ask questions or ‘stick out’. You may be out of things socially. You may cover up this inadequacy with acting out behavior. You need some sort of role in the class, and class academic is out. So the other roles available that unconsciously suit you may be class clown, troublemaker, blocker, etc. Other kids may resent the fact that you’re not there regularly, as they are. You  haven’t really formed a connection with the teacher.

Though you’ve been absent often, it actually becomes harder to attend.  So you think of reasons not to go. Like complaining a lot. Finding excuses to do other things. Begging your parents not to send you to that ‘awful’ place.

No surprise then, that declining attendance begets a further attendance drop.

I was totally overwhelmed with what students like this experience when they don’t attend Jewish education programs on a regular basis and the challenges they probably face as a result.

How can we use this information?

I know that as a teacher, I’ve often expressed frustration/guilt when my students did not attend regularly. It’s not that I was ever harsh, I just wanted them to know that I missed them and wanted them to be part of the class.

I’d change that now and say something a little different.

I’d make a real effort to show much more compassion for what they’re coping with, maybe privately even get a reference check about the unique challenges they must feel, and help ease their transition into the classroom world any way I could.

They’re dealing with enough.

Related articles

• Great Neck puts off policy on teachers tutoring (newsday.com)

Catching Catfish: Real and Unreal Life for Jewish Teens

Just when you think you can keep pace with the bizarre events of the everyday, you find yourself having a discussion with Jewish teens that blows the dust off your brain just a bit.

This is necessary.

It keeps the distance between the generations and confirms for teens why they’re glad they’re not as old as you are.

Last week I sat with a group of teens taking a Current Events class.

After chatting about the Israeli Knesset and the elections, the conversation veered way weird when they got to talking about the Manti Te’o business.

That was not news. What was news to me was the term Catfish, the MTV show “Catfish”  and the verb “catfishing.” I was fascinated, but in a sad way. Just listening to these teens talk about the real, the fake, and the in-between relationships they have to negotiate between real life and online personas, I was overwhelmed with the amount of distrust they experience on a daily basis.

How do they begin to navigate through these murky waters? When shows like “Catfish” keep their interest (most watch the show), how do we counter the values of the day with Jewish values that build character, strong identities, and a commitment to honesty?

There is now, more than ever, a compelling reason for instilling in our teens a strong sense of self.  A way to know who they are and what they stand for.

Plus, we have to always be current. Always on the look-out for the next challenge.–so we aren’t caught acting like a catfish, slinking along on the bottom of the river.

“After My Bar Mitzvah, My Dad Decided to Convert. Is He Still Considered Jewish?”

Some labels might be useful. Others, not so much.

I wasn’t prepared for such a troubling question by this slight yet earnest 8th grader. He had been so patient; holding his hand up until the discussion left an opening.

This evening, the teens were very talkative once they got going about the topic: Intermarried Families. His question arose during a workshop on sensitizing Jewish high school students to the many issues intermarried families face.

They had personal experiences about the issue, since about one-third of them were from intermarried families themselves.  The conversation had relevance for them and  they shared personal stories peppered with jokes, hurt feelings, and sometimes defiance.

The program was specifically designed for teens and consisted of film clips to trigger conversation and raise awareness.

His question came after I shared an experience I had when I was a teenager myself, while attending a large suburban Conservative synagogue in my town. I have a very clear memory of asking a congregant who someone was. He pointed to him and then lightly said: “Oh, this is Mr. So and So, who converted to Judaism….” I couldn’t figure out why I needed to know that. This man was forever labeled in my mind as ‘the one who converted.’

I’ve experienced this practice even as an adult. Why must we use labels?

Let’s come back to the boy sitting in front of me. He was obviously very concerned and wanted an answer. Yet, in the format of the program, with a full agenda and little time, I could not engage him in a full discussion of all the questions I wanted to ask him.

For example, why does he feel a need to ask this question? Does this first question represent other, more pressing questions about the choices his father made? What does he think about how the Jewish community responded to his father? Is it what he expected? Did he feel his Dad was welcomed? Rejected? Did he sense a total acceptance of the choice by his father’s family? Is he still wondering about his father’s reasons for conversion? Was it only for the ceremony or was there some deeper reason that his father made the choice he did? What impact did the father’s conversion have on him? Did it make him doubt his own choices going forward or feel more secure in them?

How would you respond to this student when there is so much more to discuss?

What I said next created some comedy, but my intention was to offer a really concrete example for this student: “Here’s how I see it. You know when someone gets his/her nose fixed? Or some cosmetic work done? Once it’s done, we no longer say, “You know, this is Ms. So and So…she recently got a nose job. We accept that the person has a new nose, and we move on. No need to reference it. We don’t need to go back to past history and label that person any differently than anyone else. Similarly, Your father’s Jewish. He’ll always be considered Jewish.”

He seemed to be reassured and we continued on with the discussion.

The students had a lot to say, and more questions to ask as the evening progressed.

The question above demonstrates just how much work we have to do to create more understanding among all of us about those who ‘choose Jewish’. Here are some tips to consider when a family member converts:

1. Have a family discussion about the decision. Teens are at the stage when they are actively questioning many things. Especially about religion, the meaning of life, their place among their peers, and more. They will appreciate knowing your reasons for the decision, and being included in some thoughts you’ve had.
2. This is an opportunity to connect with your teen about spiritual journeys. We often reserve conversations with our kids to the mundane. These conversations about religion and faith are of an entirely different level. Personal yes, but it opens so many doors.
3. You might schedule a meeting with the family and the Rabbi together, so all parties are aware of any new roles and  responsibilities.

Photo credit: BazzaDaRambler, flickr. Creative commons license.

Related articles

• Does the Jewish Community Connect Teens to a Jewish Network? (jteennews.wordpress.com)
• Rabbi Jason Miller: The Sisterhood’s Christian Bar Mitzvah: Can Jewish Ritual Be Borrowed? (huffingtonpost.com)

Writings about Jewish Teens: 2012 in review

The WordPress.com team sends me a summary e-mail at the end of the year (complete with fireworks!) that lets me know my progress (I’ve been blogging for two years) and more about what you, the readers of this blog, find interesting to read about Jewish teens.

There is a list of the most viewed blogs–can you think of a better motivator?  Even in my very, very small niche world, this list gets compared (ready?) to the number of climbers of Mount Everest! See below.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,900 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 12 years to get that many views.

See what I mean? Here’s the list:

A Few Top Posts from 2012

1. From Jewish Camp to Synagogue: Five No Brainers

This post talks about the chasm experienced by many campers when they return home after a summer injection of Judaism, and what synagogues can do to bridge the gap.

2. Judging Jewish Education by Fun

What are the trade-offs between programs that offer fun and those that offer content?

3. Five Things Parents Should Know

I know what you may be thinking. People seem to like the number five. (See number 1.) Interesting, no? These are things that parents should know about Jewish education for their teens.

4. Hiring Teen Aides? (Full disclosure: this title had the number five in it too, but on my end, it’s just how many tips I wrote at the time).

Synagogues use/hire teen aides in the classroom for all sorts of reasons. Here are some reasons to think about the intentions of these efforts.

5. One minute, three reasons why Jewish education helps teens focus on what’s important.

The title pretty much says it.

6.”Please feel free to contact me….”Advice for #Jteens and others

I wrote this in response to an e-mail I received from a job applicant, and found the comment an ironic one from a person wanting to make a favorable impression.

7. “Wow, You’re Soooo Jewish!”

I wrote this post after hearing a student tell this to another student in a Jewish values class. It’s interesting to see the students’ take on just how “Jewish” things are.

One more thing, a 2011 post made the list, and you can read that here:

What I learned about marketing from working at a Jewish community high school 

You might have missed some of the ones above, or want to read more about Jewish teens. Hit the subscribe button, and you won’t miss a thing!

Israeli teens use cell phones in class: What we can learn

Cell phones: not an opt-out tool for most teeens

According to a recent University of Haifa poll, over 94% of Israeli High School students use social networks in class (via cell phones). Mostly, they’re not checking facts, but Facebook profiles.

This came to my inbox today, a day after I wrote a blog from a cell phone’s point of view.

In that blog, I mentioned that Jewish teens may not be aware of the rich Jewish resources available for the taking from such a small device.  I also referred to the fact that teachers sometimes take away cell phones all together.

I was once a proponent of this.

I thought that (much like the practice at summer camps of instituting a ‘cell phone fast’ for campers to increase the ‘here and now’ opportunities) keeping phones out of the class increased class connections between students and teacher.

I don’t think in those black and white terms any more.

What I believe now, is that like any good educational tool, media needs to be mediated.

In this light, it’s particularly interesting to examine the findings of the poll, which states that the more permissive a teacher is, the less that cell phones will be used in class.

Interesting, no?

Conversely, the study results also showed that the more authoritarian the teacher–those with a more rigid approach, the more students will use cell phones in class.

So, what are the boundaries that teachers should put in place? What are the school’s policies that should not be broken, but bent to advance the curriculum? These are things that need to be thought through before the school year. From a student’s point of view.

So, this what I learned, none of which strikes me as so illuminating, but for me, the benefits were a game changer:

1. It is very difficult to separate teens from their phones, as some teens see it as their lifeline.

2. Teachers need to figure out ways of using the phones as tools, to expand teen’s horizons about the subject area.

3. The way in which this is handled, can be crucial when building community in the class, and respect from students.

Photo credit: wikipedia

Related articles

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A Q & A : with a Jewish teen’s cell phone

There’s an app for that?

I recently followed a WordPress blog that offers a daily dollop of inspiration to bloggers.

What a gift, right?

Today’s challenge: “Write a Q & A style interview with an inanimate object.”

So, with a nod of thanks to WordPress, here goes:

Reporter (R): So, I see that you’re a smart phone, right?

Teen’s Cell Phone (C): Duh, you can see the apps, can’t you? (Did I mention that this cell phone has an attitude and a particularly expensive-looking case?)

R: Okay, point well taken. So, I do see that you have tons of apps. Impressive.

Any Jewish ones?

C: Wha? Jewish apps? Never heard of that. Anywhere. You’re kiddin’ right?

R: Nope. (trying to sound cool). Know what the Hebrew date is? There’s an app for that.

R: Feel like whipping up some latkes? Matzo balls? Check out the Jewish cooking app.

(Gaining traction here). Mood strike you to see when Passover is? There’s an app for that too.

(All of a sudden, C ‘s index finger finds the App store, and the keyboard starts buzzing when C starts to search for Jewish apps.)

C: No way!!!! Jewish rock music? Free??? Jewish Quotes? From the Bible? Cool!!! Live streaming radio from ISRAEL? No way!

R: Yes, way.

C: There should be a class on this! Well, maybe not a class….that’s going, like, way too far. But some way for me and my owner to find out.

(Getting a little sad….) Like in Hebrew school I have to keep out of sight. In my owner’s backpack. Or pocket. Or worse….on the teacher’s desk where I know my owner feels the lifeline is gone.

(Feeling guilty here…) My owner once got in real bad trouble, so I’m off-limits.

But, someone should tell someone there’s all this cool stuff….

R: So  noted.

Photo credit: Patrick Gage

SuperStorm #Sandy: Getting Beyond OMG!

OMG (Photo credit: mac.lachlan)

In our terribly connected world, we’re never really far from seeing devastation up close.  Like unwilling voyeurs, we watch some fantastic yet unreal world that is occurring in real-time right in front of us—-on a screen in our kitchens, dens, and yet the media itself creates an incredible distance to whatever we’re seeing.

It’s like the caricature of a parent eagerly taping her child’s recital while missing the real impact of the performance.

We see instant pictures, read tweets and blogs, hear news updates, and feel others’ pain very acutely. But it passes. Too soon.

At these times I’m sure most of us think about the fragility of life. The thread that holds everything together sometimes feels very slippery indeed. We can take this as adults. What we need to do is open conversations with our teens about what they’re witnessing beyond the OMG! reactions.

How do they feel about the loss of human control these events portray?

What other events have happened in their lives when they felt a loss of control?

What helps them gain a sense of strength?

How can they focus on gratitude for the ordinary?

Do they think about G-d in any of these contexts?

Here’s our chance as Jewish educators, parents, and teachers to help facilitate these conversations.

Related articles

• Jewish groups begin Sandy relief efforts (timesofisrael.com)
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Jewish Teens: Do you want to be the same or different?

Figuring out where you stand is the challenge

I believe every Jewish teen has to make a fundamental decision, especially when getting ready to think about college.

Behind that decision are responses to feelings about Jewish identity.

The question begins with: How do I feel about being Jewish?

Is there anything in the way I feel about my heritage that makes me different?

Is there anything I do that makes me feel different?

How do those differences contribute to who I am? Are these differences that I should celebrate or run away from?

Would I rather be the same or different from other students who aren’t Jewish?

Are our Jewish teens getting any guidance about this?

These prompts are either-or in nature, though we know that life is not generally like that.

But in order to really prioritize values, the black-white choices are what helps clear the dust from the corners.

Underlying any choice is the light shining on the things that matter for our teens’ future Jewish involvements in college and beyond.

There are no easy answers to this one.  It depends on what the family has decided to value.

Research and studies have shown that the more multiple connections to Jewish life, the more Jewish identity is secured.

But that only matters if Jewish parents want their teens to maintain their differences.

Right now, the pull seems to be toward sameness.

Are you facing these challenges? Please share your thoughts.

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Photo source: wikimedia.org

These Questions Weren’t Answered in Hebrew School

Will Jewish Teens Find Answers Here?

Hebrew School may answer questions like “what do I need to know for my Bar/Bat Mitvah” but there are many questions Jewish pre-teens have about Judaism that most schools just don’t have the opportunity to answer.

I was teaching a class to eighth graders called “What Makes Me Jewish?” and for an opening ice breaker, I asked them (95% of whom ‘graduated’  a typical Hebrew school, 100%  had become a Bar/Bat Mitzvah) to respond to  ”A question I have about Judaism is…..” with one of their most pressing questions.

This exercise is interesting on two levels. One, it lets us know what students of this age wonder about. On another level, it demonstrates quite candidly, though from a very small sample, what Hebrew School can and can’t accomplish.  It does help make the case for continued Jewish education.

The questions ranged from the very general to the very specific.  Some are humorous, some reflective, some painfully poignant.

All are worth noting.

I have not left any question out. Here are their questions:

What does Judaism think about Heaven and Hell?

What is mysticism?

Why are tattoos bad (sic) in Judaism?

Why do we bow to the ark/G-d, if we aren’t supposed to worship idols?

How does the Jewish calendar work? When is the leap year and why?

Why are the jews (sic) always the scapegoat?

If we believe in G-d, why does the beginning of B’reisheet (Genesis) use the plural form of G-d? (this questioner clearly has done some studying of the Bible to ask this question)

What are the different values or points of view between the different types (sic) of Judaism?

Why do we have kashrut rules?  (yes, this student wrote ‘kashrut’ instead of kosher!)

What is it like to be a teen in Israel?    (interesting, this student’s question was not exactly about Judaism, but an inference made about Israeli teens).

How do we know that everything in the Torah is true? (notice that the questioner doesn’t write “if everything” but “that everything”)

How many religious Jews are there in Israel?

How many rules of the 613 do we actually follow these days? (immense credit is given for knowing the number of mitzvot –   commandments!).

Why are we looked down upon as Jews?

What do kosher Jews (sic) think about Jews who don’t keep kosher?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What do you think of these questions?  As an adult, how similar or different are the questions you have? Did you have these questions as a teenager?

Photo Credit: Flickr JP

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Can Character Be Taught to Teens?

Is Building Character Enough of a Focus in Schools?

 

What are the most important traits to develop in students?

At the end of high school, what would you want your teenager to know?

What character attributes will help teenagers succeed beyond school into the journey of life?

These questions are different from ‘outcome’ based education, which is based on content knowledge.

Instead, they ask the larger, more complicated questions that have no specific answer.

Yet, the quantifiable often gets the nod over those things that are difficult to measure and assess.

In a recent New York Times article, some schools have determined that building character is more important than building curriculum, and are backing that goal up with new initiatives.

What are the essential qualities to build character? Leadership?

Most of us recognize that the turmoil of years past, with ethical missteps and outright criminal behavior being acted out in the public arena, by formerly esteemed individuals, we need to really think about how to instill character-building activities in our youth.

Schools are stepping up to the plate, and regardless of how little or much parents are doing, most see this as a good thing.

One Chicago school professional labeled character traits as “resilience, integrity, resourcefulness, professionalism and ambition” which lead to leadership skills.

But this change will take time. What does exist now, are experiences for teens that work on these very things. Think scouting, faith-based after school education, and informal leadership activities like youth groups.

So, if you agree with this concept, that we need to pay attention to character traits (however you define them), your task as a parent and/or educator is to create opportunities for these traits to flourish. Starting  now is a good idea.

Related articles

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Selling Tomorrow Today to Parents of Jewish Teens

Long-term or Short-term: Pick one

Marketing and Selling.

Terms that were not very much used in the Jewish community just a few short years ago, let alone in the field of Jewish education.

So what happened?

Well, the reality is that people are not flocking in droves to ‘join’ synagogues, or sign up/pay for Jewish education experiences.

David Bryfman, Director of the New Center for Collaborative Leadership, gave a talk about the downside of offering “free” in the Jewish marketplace.

“Free” is a great short-term sales pitch, but tends to devalue what you’re trying to ultimately sell.

And what we’re selling is hard enough.

Seth Godin writes a blog about marketing, and made some points relevant for the Jewish community in a post I read here:

“If you are selling tomorrow, be very careful not to pitch people who are only interested in buying things that are about today. It’s virtually impossible to sell financial planning or safety or the long-term impacts of the environment to a consumer or a voter who is relentlessly focused on what might be fun right now.”

What we’re selling to Jewish teens and their parents, is about the future. Yes, some of our programming is about now, but most of what we do in the way of Jewish identity-building, leadership development, critical thinking, college readiness…is about later.

So, his point here is what we must take to heart:

“Before a marketer or organization can sell something that works in the future, she must sell the market on the very notion that the future matters (bold typeface mine).  The cultural schism is deep, and it’s not clear that simple marketing techniques are going to do much to change it.”

How do we navigate through this, and market effectively to Jewish parents or teenagers?

Will scare tactics work? Perhaps. But only if the resulting long-term effect matters.

Any ideas for how to sell tomorrow today?

Related articles

• Jewish Education: What is its value-added for Jewish Teens? (jteennews.wordpress.com)
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• Two minutes, three reasons why Jewish education helps teens focus on what’s important (jteennews.wordpress.com)

Are we reaching middle school students?

When did things get so serious for middle-schoolers?

A new Gallup poll studied factors related to student engagement, optimism, and well-being revealed that students scored relatively high on all these factors.

Except when you examine the findings for middle school students: (italics mine)

“Many adults are apt to blame hormonal and other life changes for the drop in student engagement at the middle school level, but that is not how students tend to explain it, he added. Instead, students are more likely to say that they are “not known, not valued, not recognized” at the secondary level, as they were in elementary school. They also indicate that their school days are stripped of “play” in middle school.

So, turn that reality into goal statements and we should have a very clear idea of the work we need to do.

Public school teachers have their challenges for sure. On top of handling large class sizes, coping with intense student tracking and detailed record-keeping, managing curricular pressures, there needs to be a focus on emotional and social learning.

They would think our work in these areas with students is a piece of pie.

As Jewish educators, we have the luxury of working with teens on an emotional and spiritual level.

For the most part, we have small classes, little curricular pressure, less record keeping.

We should be aceing this challenge and making such a difference with students in this age group.

Instead, students face the middle school reality, along with the intensity of the 7th grade (Bar/Bat Mitzvah) year.

How playful is that?

Not very.

So, how can we make it more so? Mentoring? Trope contests? D’var Torah write-ins?

We can not continue with the ‘business as usual’ paradigm.

So, I know, Gallup’s results aren’t directed at Jewish educators.

And, there is no call to action in the article detailing Gallup’s results.

But we know that we’re not succeeding with this age group.

And yet, again, we need to step it up, quickly.

Photo credit: License, Free-use,  creative commons.

 

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One minute, three reasons why Jewish education helps teens focus on what’s important

One minute. Three reasons.

Why just three reasons?

Simple.

Your time is valuable.

Plus everyone’s way too busy getting ready for the school year to spend so much time reading blogs.

And, most importantly, if I keep the reasons limited to three, it will take you less than 1 minute to read.
We’ve all got at least 1 minute.

Here goes—

Jewish Education:

1. Helps your teen get away from the mundane interactions with peers to focus on meatier things: ethical choices, responsible decision-making, moral values. All of which help your child succeed in a challenging college environment.
2. Provides your teenager with an instant core group of teachers and mentors, happy to partner with you in getting your child to travel in the right direction.
3. Offers your child the opportunity, on a regular basis, to focus on the big, big questions like the universe, the meaning of life, relationships with friends, spirituality, and God (that will come in up in conversation elsewhere….when?).

OR…….you can just hope that things will turn out all right.

Have you been on a college campus lately?

Related articles

• Jewish Education: What is its value-added for Jewish Teens? (jteennews.wordpress.com)
• How Would You Market to Jewish Teens? (jteennews.wordpress.com)
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Learn these four leadership skills at a Hebrew High

Ronald A. Heifetz: ”Leadership in times of crisis”   How can you make this connection for #Jteens?

A blog I read in the Harvard Business Review mentioned all the bad habits that accrue from being part of a hierarchical and bureaucratic school system.

Coleman writes:   “Our entire education system, from elementary school to graduate school, is poorly constructed to teach young people leadership. Schools do many things well, but they often cultivate habits that can be detrimental to future leaders. Given that most of us spend 13-20 years in educational institutions, those habits can be hard to break.”

Of course, I immediately thought about how, in a community Hebrew high setting, we develop future leaders.

Mostly, we run contrary to most of the details the author wrote about.

Let’s explore four of them here, with the bad habit taught listed first, then very brief examples of how these leadership habits might be experienced differently in a Hebrew High setting:

1. Schools have an emphasis on hierarchy. Examples given are: “Teacher in front of the classroom” syndrome and priorities given to class rankings, class standings, etc. 

Teachers are often called by their first names, and when asked, share personal insights. Teachers are more often the facilitator of learning rather than the expert in a subject area.

Class rank? Often doesn’t exist in a school where some classes consist of multiple grades, with mentoring going on between students.  Coleman says it best:  ”Leadership is an activity, not a position,  a distinction explored deeply by Ron Heifetz in Leadership Without Easy Answers. ”

2. Schools generally teach that there are right vs. wrong answers. 

Courses in Hebrew high schools are often discussion based, where critical thinking skills are necessary. There are rarely right or wrong answers. Students delve into complex situations like Mid-Eastern politics or ethical issues, where multiple vantage and view points need to be considered.

3. Schools don’t encourage or deal well with failures.

Yet, we know that it’s precisely the activity of trying, and trying again that is part of many leaders’ accomplishments (Lincoln, Einstein, Steve Jobs, etc.).  Students who experience leadership classes or work on programming for the school deal with failure, problem-solving, and work to rectify difficult challenges presented by the student body: lack of motivation, time, interest, etc.

4. Most school reinforce the “serve-yourself’- over-others” attitude by the emphasis on individual test scores, grades, GPA’s, etc. 

The very nature of a school oriented around Jewish values is not only are you learning about core altruistic values, but you are acting upon them through school programming.

I know I’ve created a very generalized portrait of a Hebrew high experience.  All schools differ and their goals are not the same. However, in a school that develops future leaders, the examples I listed would be very typical.

So, interested in building a leader? Becoming one? The shortest route might be to head over to your local Hebrew high and sign up.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Related articles

• The Bad Habits You Learn in School (blogs.hbr.org)
• Replacing The Classroom-As-Factory With Collaborative Learning (fastcoexist.com)
• How to Take Your High School Classes to the Next Level – College Planning (bigfuture.collegeboard.org)