Participating congregations include Ansche Chesed, North Shore Synagogue and B’nai Jeshurun. We have asked the congregations afterward about their successes, and what they have learned in the year’s process. Rabbi Helayne Shalhevet, J.ello Director at North Shore Synagogue, said “First and foremost, we learned that even as teachers, we will never stop learning. We discovered new ways to assess learner outcomes and new strategies for teaching and, above all, learned to question our “old” way of doing things and to be open to new and sometimes better ways.”
Rabbi Shalhevet said the cohesiveness of the ELT and their willingness to share successes and difficulties with one another, as well as the feedback received, contributed greatly to the success.
Discovering new ways to teach Hebrew to our K-2 students was rewarding in itself, she said, but giving our teachers an opportunity to see what they have accomplished and the opportunity for students to track their progressions throughout the year was the icing on the cake to the experience.
Lauren Kurland at Ansche Chesed shares that given the opportunity to learn from other synagogue models really helped their congregation. “We got a better sense of who we are (and who we aren’t) relative to our size, culture, professional learning opportunities, and we learned that we can adapt other models to create on that reflects our unique composition.
Emanu-El NYC’s Saul Kaiserman said their success was possible due to a lot of mutual respect, good listening, and a sincere desire to do the best for the students.
“We were proud of the way in which teachers collaborated with one another to build curriculum and to support one another‘s growth as teachers,” Kaiserman said.
Take a look at the slideshow to view the Year of Learning for 23 participating congregations.
To view all of the photos from the presentation, please click here.
