Avodah She-balev: Shaping the Tefillah Experience at SAR

By: Ms. Lisa Schlaff, Director of Judaic Studies

At any conference of yeshiva day school educators there is bound to be a session on the challenge of tefillah in the Modern Orthodox day school environment. And indeed, there are challenges; be it that the circadian rhythms of teenagers aren’t attuned to sof zman keriyat shema, the words are not always easily accessible, and the first period biology test is looming. But far outweighing these challenges is the import of helping our students cultivate a personal relationship with God, and acclimating them into a tefillah community. This year, our theme is Avodat Hashem, and as chazal tell us איזוהי עבודה שבלב? הוי אומר זו תפילה (Taanit 2a).

With our theme in mind, I’d like to highlight some questions we have considered in years of shaping, and reshaping, our tefillah program in school. How can we best balance communal tefillah with individual paths of connecting to God? How much voice should we give teenagers in shaping their tefillah experience? What is the best way to deepen student understanding of the words of the siddur? Below are some lessons we have learned in our attempt to answer these questions. 

I. Finding the Right Balance

A primary goal of our tefillah program is that students feel part of a tefillah community and are working together to enhance the tefillah atmosphere. As students enter high school, it is important to build upon their years of shul-going and deepen their understanding of the choreography and structure of a shul space so they can be real contributors to this environment.

Taken alone, this goal would lead us to a rather standardized tefillah structure, without room for innovation, and without taking into account individual dispositions. Perhaps the paramount question we have faced in shaping our tefillah program is how to balance this goal with the similarly crucial goal of deepening student connection to tefillah. For a large number of our students, these goals are not in conflict with each other; many students are able to find connection in the daily rhythm of a standardized tefillah. But an equally large number of our students will find connection through music, through intense focus, through slowing down the pace. How to balance?

Rather than allow students to choose alternative tefillah options when they first enter high school, we feel it is important to embed students in a standardized tefillah environment. Hence, our ninth grade spends a year davening together in a daily minyan that resembles those of most of our shuls. With this foundational experience, and as students mature, we open up alternative tefillah options to our 10th-12th graders. Over the years we have tinkered with what these options are, and how often to offer them. Here’s where we have landed: Our alternative tefillah offerings all follow the model of “tefillah with…” We have a tefillah with meditation as opposed to a meditation tefillah. We have a tefillah with explanation, as opposed to an explanatory tefillah. (Click here for a list of last year’s tefillah options). The distinction is not simply linguistic; framing the experience as “tefillah with meditation,” puts the primary emphasis on the tefillah experience. And indeed, at “tefillah with meditation,” students follow the standard matbea of tefillah, with an abridged pesukei de-zimra in order to allow time for meditation prior to shema and shmoneh esreh. The goal is that standardized tefillah is enriched by, rather than supplanted by, these optional experiences.

For this reason, we offer alternative options only three days a week over the course of fifteen weeks throughout the school year. This allows students to explore an avenue of connection without it becoming tired, and emphasizes the paramount role of community in the davening experience. As an individual I may connect in a particular way, but I cannot abandon the community to pursue my individual interest. It is our hope that this carefully calculated balance communicates the message to our students that their religious lives will, and should, always involve balance - of individual and communal needs, of keva and kavvanah.

II. The Role of Student Choice

When we started our alternative tefillah program, we knew students would appreciate being able to choose from amongst a range of offerings. What surprised us though, was how much they appreciated just having a choice - the sheer significance of the autonomy itself. Most surprising is to hear from students who do not partake of the alternative options that they love being in a school in which alternatives are offered. In affording students some choice around tefillah, we are communicating that their individual voice matters. Just as adults might choose to go to the Carlebach minyan, the Hashkama minyan, or the Standard minyan, we are entrusting students with some autonomy over their religious lives. Perhaps more significantly, such autonomy sends the message that they need to actively think about the decisions they make around tefillah; what are the ways in which I best connect? What type of davener am I? These are the types of questions we want students to deeply consider as they mature.

III. The Significance of Student Leadership

It goes without saying that an important part of our job as tefillah educators is empowering students to take leadership in the tefillah space. Conventionally, this means that students lead tefillah and serve as gabaim. In some of our most successful tefillah spaces, student leadership extends beyond that to include students giving divrei tefillah, making announcements, and ensuring that the space itself is ready and organized for tefillah. All of these roles are significant in enabling students to see themselves as active members of a tefillah community, but they are also quite narrowly defined. Last year, we started a Vaad Tefilah, in which we engaged a group of student volunteers to give us feedback about, and help us continue to shape our tefillah program. At Vaad meetings, we invited students to wrestle with big questions embedded in the communal tefillah experience; How can we best engage those to whom tefillah does not come naturally? What is the appropriate balance between explanation of tefillah and tefillah itself? How can we ensure that tefillah itself is smooth and held to a high standard, while also affording a wide range of students the chance to lead, learn and grow? The Vaad provided us with an opportunity to push students to deal with core issues in communal tefillah, and in doing so, imagine themselves as future tefillah leaders in our community. We began the Vaad last year as a series of conversations, and look forward this year to its next steps as we implement ideas together with students.

IV. Tefillah Education outside of the Tefillah Space

Over the years we have become increasingly aware of the difficulty of containing goals for tefillah only within the forty minute space of daily davening. We have added a beit midrash curriculum for ninth grade which centers around biur tefillah - understanding the words. We have designated a faculty member to teach shaliach tzibbur skills to students during lunch or a free.

In our theme kickoff program on September 15th, we will be learning about how the concept of Avodat Hashem plays out in our Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur tefillot. If we are serious about creating a tefillah mindset, tefillah cannot live in an isolated space, but needs to permeate school culture.

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What all of these initiatives share is a fundamental approach to tefillah as a classroom space. Just as in our classrooms we set goals, ask how we can achieve them for a heterogenous group of students, allow students to help shape their experiences, and engage students in big questions, we should aim to do the same for tefillah. There remains a tremendous amount of work to do to further our tefillah goals, and we are proud to engage with a group of people - both faculty and students - who are excited and invigorated by this work.

Senior Grade - Parents' Reflections

The final blog entry of the 2015-2016 school year is different from all of the preceding entries. True to its mission, SAR High School invited parents to be central participants in the SAR Grand Conversation. Rather than being a single essay written by an SAR faculty member, this blog entry is a compilation of letters written by parents of graduating seniors. Each of these letters reflects a unique journey of an SAR family and includes personal anecdotes and perspectives, inspiring moments, and memories to share. To submit a parent reflection, please email your letter to: parentletters@sarhighschool.org.

Mazal Tov to the students and families of the SAR High School Graduating Class of 2016!!



Posted: June 16, 2016

Dear Wonderful Members of the SAR High School,

Our youngest child is graduating. If it were a wedding, we would dance the mezinka. We are hopeful that you are not overjoyed as you “sweep us out the door.” For us, our last graduation is a bittersweet experience, sad because our children have “left the building,” sweet because SAR will always be with them.

Our children have been hard to remove from the school. Zoe would come back and learn with Ms. Schlaff every Friday during her freshman year. Chanan spent a few months interning at the high school when he left Yeshiva. They brought the values they learned from their experience to their respective college communities, whether it was heading up the learning program at Barnard, playing a leadership role in Israel activism and Torah learning at Cornell or supervising the EMT program at Columbia. The SAR values of Torah and the obligation to look out for one’s fellow man have been deeply instilled. Truthfully, I know that two of the children text their teachers that they feel especially connected to and refer to them as their mentors.

Teachers like Mr. Fleischer and Ms. Pepper have taught my children how to think, reevaluate their beliefs, defend their positions and respect others. My children are incredibly liberal and sensitive. In our house, a discussion about gender neutral bathrooms generates a 40 minute conversation that has their parents wishing that they were as passionate. Teachers like Dr. Michnick and Mr. Tokayer stretched my children beyond their comfortable limits. They taught them to struggle with problems, to be focused on the idea that problem solving is about solving problems and not about getting correct answers and 100s. It is a hard thing to teach, but an invaluable gift. The Judaic Studies staff taught my children to enjoy Gemara, to look at Tanakh analytically, and to love Torah.

We are not yet sure of what Matthew will come away with. We see the glimmerings, but a lot will come into focus after his year in Israel and his years in college. Two things are certain: he would not be the person he is without SAR High School, and that Ms. Pepper will probably know as soon or sooner than we, about who he will become.

Rivka and David Heisler



Posted: June 16, 2016

Let's start with the happy ending. We are blessed with two delightful, engaged, menschy, driven, self-sufficient young women as daughters -- but we're their parents, so that shouldn't surprise you. The somewhat more objective happy ending is that after four years at SAR, both girls have: (1) developed a higher level of self-confidence and self-expression than when they entered high school; (2) a close group of loyal friends without so much of the cattiness and bickering typically associated with high school relationships; (3) friends who are more and less religious, though are always respectful of the most observant in the group; (4) developed a love of learning and engagement in academics, beyond what they had when they entered SAR; (5) gone and returned home from school happy, most of the time, despite the long days, early starts, and no shortage of work facing them at the end of the day; and (6) last but not least, each gained admission to their first choice college early action or early decision, equally supported by SAR in both more and less traditional choices.

But the most surprising thing for us as parents was how great SAR served each of them, despite how opposite they were in almost every way. One attends a small liberal arts college on the west coast. The other will attend a Big 10 public university in the midwest. One thrives on history, politics, and writing. The other loves to solve calculus problems and learn about pendulums in physics. One had no interest in going to Israel, and was fully supported by the school in that decision. The other was equally supported by the school in her ultimately successful efforts to attend her first choice seminary program next year. Somehow SAR managed to be the best place for each of them to grow and be nurtured into the amazing young women they have become (i.e. "It's not just what you learn. It's who you become!").

And that is the miracle of SAR.

Every time I stepped foot into the hallways of that school, I wanted to know what they were pumping through the air vents to make everyone so happy, comfortable, and enthusiastic. They weren't concerned with the brands they wore or who drove what kind of car. They were respectful of one another, concerned for each other's feelings, and helped each other with school work and test prep. They supported one another in everything they did -- whether sporting events, school performances, or fundraising endeavors.

Each Rosh Chodesh Chagiga showed the school's ruach in its purest form -- seniors celebrating being seniors, students singing and dancing and shouting, making me thankful for the high school choices our girls had made, and which we had wholeheartedly supported. I can even understand their sense of ambivalence about leaving this school -- proud of all they accomplished, excited for the challenges to come, but sad to leave behind so many amazing memories.

This tribute would not be complete without a thanks to the dedication and passion of the teachers, rabbis, and administrators at the school. The first report card we received with pages of individualized anecdotals spoke volumes -- and that passion and enthusiasm didn't wane over the years they were there. The ultimate testament to that was in the respect our girls had for all their teachers, referred to respectively as "brilliant," "da bomb" and their "besties" over the years.

So if you can't tell by this point, we have been so impressed and blessed by all that SAR has offered our girls, and even more blessed that they have taken it to the limit and appreciate the gift they have been given.

Barbara Harris and Ben Woloshin

Posted: June 16, 2016

Dear SAR,

Jonathan is our youngest to graduate from SAR High School. It is bittersweet, exciting to see our children move on, yet sad and nostalgic to know that the school days have come to an end - we began in 1997. We know that SAR continues to be a part of our children’s lives every day. SAR is not just a school, it is a family. Jonathan has been an SAR student since he was 2 years old. He was one of the first children in the SAR daycare. He was also one of the first and only student to have an Upsherin in school, which we did with the 7th and 8th graders at the time and it became a lesson plan and celebration with our SAR family.

When our oldest, Amanda, started SAR in 4 year Nursery, I remember her saying one day, “I want to go to SAR my whole life for high school and college and forever.” At the time I told her there is no SAR High School, just an elementary school. She was quite upset, yet lo and behold she did get to go to SAR High School.

We have three children that attended SAR High School following the elementary school. SAR provided for each of my individual children an individual high school experience. The High School was able to cater to who they are as individuals and it was almost like being tailor made for each of them. I remember when Emily was once sick for almost an entire week of school. On erev Shabbat on his way home, Yoram Roschwalb, an advisor and fellow at the time, stopped by our home to perform the Mitzvah of Bikur Cholim on his own just because he wanted Emily to know she was missed. When Jonathan wanted to create a Golf Club he was fortunate enough to have an advisor at the time that helped him organize a few tournaments and practices as a team when he was in the 10th grade.

John F. Kennedy said, “The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.” SAR partnered with us to help set the foundation for who Amanda (‘11) Emily (‘13) and Jonathan (‘16) are. Torah values and learning how to be a mensch were of utmost importance to us. SAR also provided them with a love for Israel. Amanda and Emily studied in Israel for a year and Jonathan will follow suit upon graduation. Most of all SAR helped shape them into proud young Jewish people in society with a clear understanding of how to contribute to the world. SAR is not only a school that helped educate our children, it is a part of who they are and it will always be in their heart.

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”

― Aristotle

Thank you SAR and Mazal Tov to the Class of 2016.

Stephanie and Harvey Lederman

Posted: June 16, 2016

Sending our daughter, Shira, to SAR was the best decision we have ever made, bar none. She has never been so happy as she is at SAR. Shira loves to learn with the remarkable group of faculty that is so invested in her learning and development as a Jewish woman and a human being.

SAR provides an environment in which our children receive a strong Jewish education and are intellectually challenged. SAR faculty inspire a love of learning and academic excellence, while simultaneously solicitously caring for our children. SAR encourages students to develop a love for Israel and Jewish tradition. The school imbues students with a sense of Jewish pride as well as a strong sense of concern and commitment to the State of Israel, the American Jewish community, and Jews around the world.

Rabbi Harcsztark sets the example for the entire faculty. He personally knows each and every student in the high school and goes above and beyond to interact with all the students. Moreover, Rabbi Harcsztark encourages a dialogue and partnership with parents to ensure the safety of our children. His leadership, dedication, and commitment to our children have enriched the SAR community.

Our family has been privileged and honored to be members of the SAR mishpacha!

Candace and Mark Silver

Posted: June 16, 2016

I got ripped off!

I went to a progressive elementary school and a mediocre high school. I never realized how much I was missing both academically and religiously until now. You see, I am the only occupant in our home who has not been blessed with an SAR education. My dear wife Shoshana, Class of '78, was imbued with the love of learning and Yahadut through her grade school experience at SAR. She was taught the true value of striving through learning to achieve in secular and holy pursuits.

All three of our children, Sarah, Zachary and Adina, were doubly blessed to attend the Academy as well as the High School. The skills each acquired are priceless both in intellectual curiosity and interpersonal skills.

Where is my grand conversation? Where is my Morah Gaby? The scores of talented and nurturing teachers and administrators that allow growth at all levels is quite unique and humbling. Why can’t I attend the SAR shul/kollel or center for continuing education?

Thank God that I live with four SAR alums who are able to guide me through the challenges of life.

David Noble - SAR wannabe



Posted: June 16, 2016

Graduation is over. I cannot believe that after 21 years we are no longer SAR parents. I feel like it’s forced retirement! I still clearly remember meeting my first SAR friend while we were both waiting in the ELC playground for our oldest daughters’ meet-the-teacher interviews. She is still my friend and those 4-year olds are now young marrieds inviting each other for Shabbos meals. Bob and I have spent an entire generation as SAR parents and I cannot imagine not having SAR as part of our daily lives.

Each of our children went through the SAR ranks, from Morah Rena’s 4-year nursery class through the High School, and each had their own, happy, positive, different SAR experience. One thing they all shared, and to us a most special part of the school, is the relationship each of our children had with their teachers and administrators, relationships that have continued beyond their years as SAR students. Sara would object to any parent or student complaining to Rabbi Harcsztark because she did not want him to get upset - ever. She was so excited for Dr. Shinar to be her senior-ex mentor because they had already had many impromptu conversations about her passion for theater. How great was it to see Dr. Shinar, Ms. Schneider and Russi (and Rabbi Gevirtz!) in the audience at many of Sara’s Riverdale Children’s Theatre plays! Sara’s older siblings looked forward to attending her school events so they could see their former teachers, just as they might attend an alumni event as much to see their teachers and administrators as their former classmates. Teachers would always ask us during parent-teacher conferences how our older kids were doing – and they really wanted to know! Everyone in our family looks forward to running into Morah Rena, Morah Rita, Morah Gaby, Mrs. Schloss, or Ms. Schneider for a heartfelt bear hug.

At SAR, students are respected and their voices are heard. I think the positive relationship between SAR faculty and students is in large part due to the strong mutual respect that exists between them. The faculty and administration are approachable, are interested in being friends with and learning from students, and at the same time are able to maintain their authority and their role as teachers.

I am very fortunate to have had the time and opportunity to volunteer in various capacities at SAR. Being part of a team working together for the betterment of the school is incredibly fulfilling. I always looked forward to spending time in the Business Office while working on the dinner journal, because you can’t help but feel happy being inside the SAR Academy building! I developed new friendships and strengthened existing ones, among the parent body and the SAR staff (thank you Heidi, Heidi, Debra, Debra, Rachel, and Sally!).

We graduated from the ELC to the big building, the big building to the High School, and now from the High School to the world beyond SAR. We will cherish our years as SAR parents and who knows, maybe we’ll be SAR grandparents some day!

L’hitraot,
Judy & Bob Friedman

To submit a parent reflection, please email your letter to: parentletters@sarhighschool.org.

Expanding Paradigms: From Digital Citizenship to Digital Literacy

By: Rabbi Aaron Frank, Associate Principal

and Rabbi Avi Bloom, Director of Technology Integration

Recently, during Shacharit, a student approached me (Rabbi Bloom) to ask a nuanced question about the structure of tefillah. I offered an initial answer, but wanted to use my iPhone to look up more information. I hesitated, recognizing that in school we generally ask students not to use their phones during tefillah, and wondered if we could create a structure in which mobile devices could be used to help create a more engaging, informative, davening experience, rather than be viewed as an obstacle to meaningful tefillah. At SAR, this year, we are spending many hours exploring how technology plays a part in the lives of our teachers and students and how to best educate students to be responsible and literate digital citizens.

For the past decade, much has been written about helping children and adolescents make good decisions about technology use, whether in the realm of communications, social media, or information acquisition. In schools, there has been an evolving conversation about digital citizenship and digital citizenship education. Digital citizenship education refers to the idea that we have a responsibility to educate students about their digital lives, and the need for responsible decision making.

Early on, much of the discussion surrounded rules, limits, and policies that were put in place to help curtail technology use, often perceived as a distraction from more productive learning activities. Schools and Boards of Education created cell phone, social media and communication guidelines. Parents expressed concern about “screen time” as a quantitative problem, and there was much discussion about how to ensure that teachers and students maintain proper boundaries and communication in light of the new technologies.

Here at SAR these policies exist as well. During this past November, one week of advisory was dedicated to digital citizenship. The goal was to bring to light some important challenging issues that students face in their daily technology use. This was an outgrowth of conversations with a committee of faculty members who met throughout last year to explore topics and strategies regarding this subject. These discussions focused on social media interactions, ethical complicity through non-action, thinking strategically about online posting, the bystander effect online, and other important issues.

Certainly, the need for appropriate digital citizenship and usage will always be critical. However, we must go further in our digital goals. Conversations around “screen time” and other quantitative barometers of healthy technology use are outdated. While quantitative policies and clear rules play a role in the conversation, the focus must continue to evolve to more thoughtful and strategic engagement given the realities of how devices play a role in almost every aspect of our lives .

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has articulated this shift and amended its guidelines regarding screen time to reflect a more qualitative, rather than quantitative approach. In his article in Forbes about the new guidelines from the AAP, Jordan Shapiro writes:

“Screens are now a ubiquitous part of our lives. It is a technology that has been completely integrated into the human experience. At this point, worrying about exposure to screens is like worrying about exposure to agriculture, indoor plumbing, the written word, or automobiles. For better or worse, the transition to screen based digital information technologies has already happened and now resistance is futile. The screen time rhetoric that accompanied the television—when this technology was still in its formative age—is no longer relevant.” The AAP now seems to agree. “In a world where ‘screen time’ is becoming simply ‘time,’” the update reads, “our policies must evolve or become obsolete.”

(http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2015/09/30/the-american-academy-of-pediatrics-just-changed-their-guidelines-on-kids-and-screen-time/)

At SAR, we have broadened our orientation and our conversations to reflect the new realities in the digital conversation. It is a shift from digital citizenship to what is known as digital literacy. Digital literacy addresses three main points:

1. The ability to use digital technology, communication tools or networks to locate, evaluate, use and create information. 
2. The ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers. 
3. A person’s ability to perform tasks effectively in a digital environment... Literacy includes the ability to read and interpret media, to reproduce data and images through digital manipulation, and to evaluate and apply new knowledge gained from digital environments.”

http://www.library.illinois.edu/diglit/definition.html

Responsible digital citizenship is not sufficient, it is but the first step toward cultivating a culture where technology is used as an asset to create a more collaborative, dynamic and effective educational environment. The crux of our professional development program this year is to increase the digital literacy and knowledge of our teachers so they can leverage the digital tools we offer to better prepare our students for the future. Ultimately, our job as educators is to best prepare our students for the realities that lie ahead.

Throughout the year, the faculty has been working on strategically enhancing the student learning experience by leveraging the powerful technology made available through our student and faculty 1:1 iPad program. Faculty members have devoted many hours to learning about new apps, tools, and strategies that will help them create a more personalized, active, engaged, learning environment for their students. The faculty, both individually and by department, are developing curricular goals that highlight areas where the technology available to our students can be used as a powerful tool to help them improve their skills and learn more within specific subject areas. It is designed to encourage them to be digital explorers and intellectual innovators by utilizing all facets of what the technological world can offer them. This professional development program is a key ingredient in helping ensure that we are educating our students to be digitally literate, not just digitally safe citizens.

And while it may not play out in the middle of davening, it is these thoughtful conversations that will lead to a community where everyone, students and teachers alike, can access technology, both in the classroom and outside, as a path toward a more digitally literate, educated, enlightened community, prepared for the digital future that lies ahead.

For Further Reading:

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/

http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/

http://www.digitalliteracy.gov/

https://digitalliteracy.cornell.edu/

Rabbi Frank can be emailed at afrank@sarhighschool.org and Rabbi Bloom can be emailed at avi.bloom@sarhighschool.org

Back in High School Again

By: Dr. Gillian Steinberg, English Faculty

I’d cried in gymnasiums plenty of times before.  As a child in tiny Fredonia, New York, I’d failed at rope climbing, waited miserably to be picked last for teams, and was inevitably felled by the weight of the giant medicine ball in endless games of Nuke ‘Em.  But crying in the gym because I was happy?  That had never happened before I came to SAR.

As a college professor for 15 years, I have been asked again and again this year how teaching at SAR high school differs from teaching college.  The answer, as with many things, is that it’s incredibly, profoundly different and that it’s really pretty similar.

The biggest difference is a very practical one: the schedule.  I’ve lost the extraordinary freedom I had before, when I taught only two or three half-days a week as part of a full-time position.  The rest of my time as a professor was filled with writing and scholarship, and the office hallways were generally deserted as professors, myself included, came to campus only for their classes and office hours and spent the rest of their time in libraries or coffee shops, writing in solitude.

                  

I absolutely miss that quiet writing time, but I don’t very much miss the oppressive pressure to publish, which was not limited to my former university but is integral to professorships everywhere.  High school’s commitment exclusively to teaching feels like an amazing gift.  At the university, I always felt a tension in my bifurcated existence: when I focused on my teaching, I knew I should be researching and writing instead, but when I was writing, I worried that I was shortchanging my students, who were entitled only to a fraction of my time and attention.

                  

The enormous upside of teaching the same high school classes every day, rather than two longer or one very long college session per week, is that the teaching is, frankly, better.  Having tried both schedules now, I realize that we can accomplish more in multiple short bursts than in longer but less frequent meetings.  Students (and teachers!) need not steel themselves for hours of concerted attention at a time, and everyday meetings allow for a continuity of learning that I didn’t realize I’d missed until I finally had it. 

                  

Along the same lines, I’m thrilled that, as my university colleagues now reach the end of their semester and begin to prepare for a new batch of students in several weeks, I can continue working with the same students for six more months.  At the college, just as I began to know my students well, they were gone, on to new classes and new learning experiences.  But at the high school, my insight into the students’ unique needs and learning styles is just being concretized, and I can devote the rest of the year to meeting their needs as effectively as I can.  Simply put, we have more time and space to grow together just because of the differences in high school and college scheduling.

                  

Without the obligation to publish, and with the commitment to being present all day, I find that I have many, many more conversations about teaching and pedagogy than I did at the university.  Because I share an office with my colleagues, we have spontaneous discussions about our classes constantly.  We share teaching materials and strategies; we share frustrations and offer each other solutions to our teaching questions.  The isolation of the university environment, which always felt to me like a privilege, has been replaced for me by a much more valuable commodity: the opportunity for spontaneous and ongoing collaboration.

                  

The similarities are notable too: in particular, I love the college students and the high school students equally.  Both groups are deeply committed to learning, have fascinating opinions and ideas, struggle with their busy schedules and the many pressures they face, and bring me enormous joy.  Both groups remind me of how lucky I am to be in a profession that can touch lives, even in a small and local way.  Each group has surprised with its many talents and occasionally frustrated me with its various needs, and I have felt wonderfully challenged in both environments to focus on what students need and how I can best facilitate their learning.

                  

All of these comparisons, though, speak to the difference between college and high school teaching generally.  But SAR High School is its own creature, and I have had to adapt as well to this distinctive environment.  I've had to learn a surprising number of acronyms (SLC, GLC, MPR, PTC, RPT: I keep a running list), become accustomed to a level of ambient noise I haven’t experienced since I was a camp counselor during my own high school years, expect a new special schedule on a daily basis (so much so that the “regular” schedule feels awfully special now!), and develop an almost Pavlovian response to that electronic bell.

                  

More importantly, I’ve had to adapt to levels of joy, kindness, beauty, morality, thoughtful leadership, and meaningful introspection that were foreign to my own high school experience and have never before been part of my work life.  The phrase that often comes to mind when I think of SAR is “intentional community,” which, although generally referring to a municipality rather than a school, suggests organic and communally-based mindfulness about its philosophies and principles.  That environment doesn’t happen by accident, and I have been so impressed by SAR’s empowerment of its constituents, at every level, who are treated with respect and who therefore act with respect.  SAR High School has created a self-perpetuating environment of goodness, in its broadest and most inclusive sense.

                  

Which brings us back to the gymnasium.  It was my first Rosh Chodesh chagigah, another special schedule, another new event.  We began with the students, arms intertwined, circling the entire gymnasium and singing heartfelt praises of and longing for Eretz Yisrael.  Those slow, moving moments gave way to raucous dancing, students racing around the gym with joy.  The event overwhelmed me, initially seeming chaotic.  But then I noticed the seniors purposely separating from their friends to grab groups of freshmen, sophomores and juniors and pull them into the circles, dancing and celebrating their Jewishness and their membership in this incredible community.  Some students grabbed me too, and I danced with them, noticing not the typical high school cliques that have ruined high school experiences for so many of us  but something else entirely: a sense of togetherness, of responsibility for one another’s joy, an arvut that spread through the room in great, crashing waves of love.

                  

I felt Hashem’s presence with us in that room, and, with tears in my eyes, I said a small prayer of thanks: that this place exists, that this moment occurs, that I am part of it.

THE NEW ARM OF SAR HIGH SCHOOL

By: Rabbi Tully Harcsztark, Principal

In my letter to the school community last month, I announced a new initiative of SAR High School, one that I am extremely excited about and consider to be very important: the formation of Machon Siach* at SAR High School. I take this opportunity to elaborate on the theoretical foundations of the Machon and the first steps it will take in 5776.

The concept of the Machon is rooted in three observations that come together to explain the need for such an institute.

1. There are many issues, some strictly curricular and others that extend beyond the classroom, that require careful study, thoughtful deliberation among educators and parents, and a process for developing an educational plan or program. The first, perhaps paradigmatic, example that comes to mind is sexuality and Jewish sexual ethics.

We are raising our students in an open environment in the United States, one that inundates us and our children with explicit and subliminal sexual messaging. We also raise our children in coeducational environments in schools and camps. We know that helping our children develop a healthy, ethical, halakhic ethos on sexual matters is of utmost importance for them and for us as parents and educators. Still, many of us were raised in environments where sexuality was not discussed; when it was raised, rarely was it through the lens of Jewish texts. Five years ago, we embarked on a project to develop a sexual ethics curriculum for our tenth graders. It is an interdisciplinary halakhic curriculum of about 25 sessions that has now been extended to the twelfth grade as well. I consider it a very important part of our program.

My purpose here though is not to discuss the program but rather, the process necessary to develop the program. It is daunting to consider discussing Jewish sexual ethics in a high school setting - daunting for both teachers and students; and teaching it in a Modern Orthodox setting creates its own set of challenges. To do it well - in terms of substance and sensitivity - requires a serious investment of time and energy. Our process:  a team of teachers spent the better part of a year researching, studying, deliberating, selecting, filtering, translating, and arranging the content to develop a successful curriculum and a trained staff. This process involved a special sort of “pedagogical Talmud Torah” that teachers engage in using a discourse unique to the world of educators.  It involved not only the study of Torah texts, but also figuring out how best to engage students in conversation around those texts, and what interdisciplinary material would be helpful in promoting student engagement. Sexuality was clearly one of the most difficult and most important issues for us to tackle as Jewish educators. We found a way to do the work, it was very rewarding on all fronts, but we were “stealing time” to do it. It became clear to us that there is currently no framework, no structure, no discourse and no time for educators to engage in “pedagogical Torah study” to strengthen our capacities as Jewish educators.    

There are many other issues that teachers should engage in this way. Here are some that are on our agenda at SAR right now: how to teach Israel in the 21st century, teaching Gemara to Modern Orthodox students, the impact of the college process on our children, teaching an “ethics” of technology use to our kids, and developing models of religious guidance and living.

These can be divided into two domains: one focused on the classroom and its curriculum, and the other on school culture and student life. Our school and home environments communicate intended and unintended messages about the college process and the use of technology, for example. All too often, we don’t notice what we are communicating because we are simply reproducing the behaviors and messages that are so much part of the background of our lives. But that is not acceptable. We are obligated to unpack these concepts, behaviors and messages and figure out how best to address them. Once again, all of this takes time and energy. Which brings me to the second observation.

2. High school educators - and, I would add, our high school educators in particular - are uniquely situated, given time and space, to develop thoughtful approaches to these matters. Our teachers are situated at the nexus where generations, cultures, theory and practice all meet. Teachers are uniquely positioned to bridge these worlds, and their voices must be cultivated and heard. We seek to develop a local scholarship of teaching - that is, public presentations on Jewish education that are subject to the critique of colleagues upon which others can build.

I often formulate it in terms of a “pet peeve” of mine: university professors spend much of their time doing research and some of their time teaching. High school teachers just teach - or prepare for teaching. There is no expectation, no sense that it could be meaningful and important for them to engage in serious research as well. If some interested and talented teachers would be supported to invest ten to twenty percent of their time doing some of this work, the contribution to Jewish education would be enormous. The developing of such a discourse would just continue to build on itself and grow.

I must emphasize that the nature of educators’ research differs from that of a university professor. It is certainly no less important; but it is an unrecognized and almost non-existent enterprise. In a word, it is a work of “translation”. Here is an example: our network of high schools must teach Israel in all its dimensions. That is a very large task. It is true that high school teachers are not the experts on any single aspect of Israeli life - not its history, its politics, its security, or its challenges as a Jewish and democratic state. However, we are the experts in a very particular field: how to educate high school students. In order to develop best practice in education, scholarship on Israel education must be “translated” for use in school. This is a process that requires an understanding of four components: the particular students in the school, the capacities of the staff, expertise in the content, and insight into the community’s position and self understanding. Engaging these four dimensions first requires the intensive study of content. That is followed by intense deliberation on the content in terms of the three other elements (students, teachers and milieu). The faculty must then “translate” the content into “useful knowledge” for the classroom and the community and then develop a process through which to share the content. This is the process that we engaged in to develop our sexuality curriculum. In each area there is more to do.

This is an exciting and energizing process. It creates a vibrant, constantly growing school community and will allow us to realize the SAR mission in yet a more powerful way. Yet it takes time.

I am not suggesting that we change the paradigm of what it means to be a Modern Orthodox high school teacher - not yet, anyway. I am suggesting that we should support educators in developing a Faculty Beit Midrash focused on teacher learning, research and publishing on issues of Modern Orthodox education, curriculum and culture. Central to those issues is the question of how to shape a community that integrates deep knowledge and understanding of Jewish texts and practice with the opportunities and challenges afforded by (post)modern Western culture, in the spirit of the Grand Conversation.

3. Finally, parents and graduates - This conversation should not be one that is only internal to SAR faculty and students. We deeply believe in the richness of Modern Orthodox life. In order for it to flourish, we must all engage in meaningful learning and dialogue together so that we develop shared vocabulary, a common set of challenges that we talk through together, a communal set of effective practices and strategies. Returning for a moment to the sexual ethics curriculum, while we have taught the program to our students, we have not yet opened it up to dialogue with parents on the topic. While we offer adult education classes on a range of topics, we have yet to seriously try something like this: not just teaching a class but convening serious dialogue around Jewish texts; shared study of text with the goal of developing shared vocabulary, meaning, questions and practice on issues of central importance to the education of our children.

All of these dimensions of Machon Siach will take time to develop and implement. Building an “arm” of SAR High School dedicated to this type of work can serve as an important contribution to SAR and Modern Orthodox education. This year, groups of SAR staff will be working on each of the areas mentioned in this blog. I look forward to updating you in the future with the goals and products towards which they are working.

* A Machon is an institute; Siach is the Hebrew word for conversation, in the spirit of the Grand Conversation.

Poetry Pedagogy: On Discovering Poetry in Our World and Traditions

By: Mr. Hillel Broder, English Faculty 

What makes a poem a poem? Must a poem have a rhyme scheme, follow a poetic tradition, or contain a particular poetic technique? Must it be written by an author whose intention is that it be read as poetry?

Teaching both the writing and reading of poetry is no easy task: too often, students assume that a poem must rhyme, possess a certain form or shape, contain parallelism or metaphor, or present as enigmatic or riddling in its meaning. No wonder that the study and creation of poetry are both perceived from the outside as arcane tasks or obscure pursuits.

In teaching poetry, then, I begin with the opposite assumption: poetry is not a lofty or obscure art form that is only achieved by the most eclectic or romantic. Just the opposite, in fact—poetry is the very music that underlies all language; it is the confluence of cadence, coinage, and sheer surprise that we find in pop songs and sonnets alike.

To start, I ask students to find poetry in everyday, mundane, and “low brow” language. They might find a startling, alliterative phrase in a news report headline, magazine ad, or television show title. They might locate an isolated but embedded rhetorical flourish that moves, entertains, or inspires within a sea of facts, technicalities, or clichés.

None of this is new in the history of poetry, in particular, and in the arts, in general. Building poetry from the language all around us is akin to the work of the museum curator and collage artist. And discovering poetry underlying certain linguistic expression takes a certain confidence—it is to read the world and all of its “Stop!” signs—with a certain poetic lens. The Russian Formalists described this essential literariness underlying poetry as that which defamiliarizes the familiar—that which makes the familiar, new.

In our world of verbal expression, popular songs and avant-garde poetry alike have been crafted out of new constellations of found and collaged language—on a personal note, my grandmother’s cousin, Robert Feldman, jotted down the hit single “My Boyfriend’s Back” on a bar napkin after overhearing that song’s chorus shrieked overhead. And of course, T.S. Eliot’s modernist poetry is built on a tradition of allusion, as much as John Ashberry’s Tennis Court Oath and Hart Seely’s Existential Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld draw on the language of popular media and politicians, respectively, in a tradition of satirical form.

This is not to say that poetry is solely an attempt to build upon a consolidated literary canon, or an ironic political jab. Nor is it solely a recreational form—a leisurely activity of recollecting experience in tranquility as Wordsworth might have it, or an expressive means for the obfuscating riddler and wit.

On the contrary: As engaged Jews, our students appreciate the complex historical engagement with the immediacy of our verse, as a language of the soul at its most immediate and most pressed —in the cries of David in Psalms and the laments of Ecclesiastes, we derive the very prayers that we harness when most fragmented and broken. In more modern terms, the fragmented rhythms of Paul Celan’s “Deathfugue” in Auschwitz, and in contemporary terms, the simply arranged lists of names in Billy Collins’s 9/11 commemoration “Names” speak directly to loss, to the experience of shattered selves and stories. If anything—and against the infamous pronouncement of Theodor Adorno to the contrary—there might only be poetry after Auschwitz, as poetry doesn’t demand that we impose meaning, form, or narrative.

Our challenge, as students and teachers familiar with Jewish texts, might mean making these comfortable works strange to us—so that we might hear their poetry anew. Instead of reading through the usually paragraphed Siddur or abstracting the Bible’s narrative arcs and moral principles, how might our students hear and speak the rhythms, the strikingly spun repetitions, and the shocking language in these traditional texts? How might they hear the song underlying the Bible, and the music in our Siddur? They might start, as I have suggested above, by collaging, translating, and elaborating upon the striking phrases in Psalms in the form of a found poem, thereby generating their own prayerful intentions (kavanot)—and prayers—within the bounds of the tradition. Later, they might find the unfamiliar and strange—or the familiar and moving—poetry in the language of the Siddur itself through a mindfully versified recitation.

These are some of the exercises that I envision in the Jewish humanities and arts: students rendering their own translations of the Siddur and building their own personalization of the siddur through translation work of liturgy into poetry. And in a similar vein, these are some of the questions that I encourage aspiring performance poets to consider in writing religious poetry for a Sermon Slam: How might they discover their tradition’s spoken rhythms and rhetorical forms when crafting their own verses of exaltation and lamentation?

In so doing, we might reorient our relationship with the Bible and Siddur, and thereby reorient our own selves. For our traditional texts stand as a reorienting mirror, reminding us of our sometimes unfamiliar potential within.