From the Editor📄

Six months ago, when we first began planning this issue, we were focused on resilience of individuals, particularly in educational setting. The original introduction included a story about a thirteen- year-old who had a bad morning and didn’t want to go to school, who ultimately pulled herself together and had a fabulous day. The articles we looked for included personal stories about resilience, educational strategies for building resilience, and whether resilience can be taught. Little did we, or anyone, understand then just how critical this topic would become in such a short period of time.

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From the Editor: Winter 2020

When the open classroom was introduced in the 1960s it did not gain significant traction in the broader educational community and it was rare to find Jewish day schools adopting it. By contrast, 21st century learning, propelled by dramatic advances in technology and revolutionary changes in the workplace, has gained a foothold to some degree in nearly every Jewish day school.

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Creating Mutually Beneficial Dialogue Between Different Groups of Educators

I  recall that in my early teaching years, as a high school teacher I yearned to be able to learn from a variety of pedagogical techniques from elementary and middle school teachers. At the same time, in conversations with some elementary and middle school teachers, I repeatedly heard them seeking high school teachers who could enrich and deepen their content. Since making Aliyah, part of my work has taken me to visit many schools, from elementary to high schools. Although there have been exceptions, it seems like the generalizations I experienced years ago are, for the most part, still valid.And I wonder how we can create the kind of mutually beneficial dialogue between different groups of educators – those who have strong pedagogy and those who have deep and broad content knowledge – to create more meaningful, substantive, and pedagogically sound educational encounters for our students.

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Can We Talk?

It is easy to get the sense that in today’s public sphere so much of our discourse happens at each other as opposed to with each other. Sound bites and 140-character messages do little to help others understand our positions, and the louder we shout the less we are heard….

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