Category: Kids at Risk (Winter 2008)

Tally Wolf Nachim has been involved in the Jewish environmental movement since her first internship at the Teva Learning Center in 1998 and later as program director for the Shalom Nature Center in Malibu, California. Tally holds an undergraduate degree in environmental studies and an M.Ed in Education from York University in Toronto. She is currently living in Haifa, Israel.

Mel and the Mung Gang

Every week, Mel and about ten middle-schoolers sit down in a grassy clearing to a serious lesson on bean sprouts. “There’s a million things you can teach about a bean sprout,” says Mel. “And then you put it in you sandwich and eat it.” Over lunch, Mel tells her students the story of Honi the Wise who came upon an old man planting a carob tree. “Don’t you know that a carob tree takes seventy years to bear fruit?” asked Honi. “You will never eat from the fruit of this tree.”

The old man replied “You speak the truth. But as I came to this world and found it full of carob trees planted by my grandparents, so too shall I leave this world full of carob trees for my grandchildren.”

The next thing that Mel and the students do is plant a batch of mung beans for the students who will be arriving at Teva the next week “—a bunch of kids you don’t even know,” Mel explains, “because when you came to Teva there was a bunch of bean sprouts ready and waiting for you.”

An outsider coming upon this scene would observe a very engrossed group of preteens, everyone intent on the lesson at hand. There would be no way to tell that, in fact, two of the students in this group had been flagged by their teachers as being especially difficult children. There might be no way of knowing that Mel, the group leader had been forewarned about their tendencies to disrupt lessons and about their difficulty dealing with peers.

The reasons for this turn in behavior may have a great deal to do with Mel’s strengths and passion as an educator and with the setting in which this scene takes place. It may also be due to the appeal of the materials being studied and the ways in which they are presented to the students. While Mel did not create her lesson specifically around the two outstanding students, she managed to create a teaching moment wherein all of the students were engaged. The following is a dissemination of the different elements which were brought together to create the scene above.

Introduction

In my experience as an educator with various Jewish environmental education centers, I observed that the students who were in some way marginalized in their school environments were often the same children who best responded to the outdoor education curriculum. I have chosen to refer to these students as ‘starred students’ as an ironic way of drawing attention to their unique needs without resorting to one of the plethora of stigmatizing labels that are often imposed upon them. The term ‘starred’ is at once pejorative and positive, and has two intended connotations. One is the asterisk, a small printed mark which implies that there is more to be learned about whatever it is demarcating. Secondly, the image of a star in today’s culture is someone that is to be admired. I believe that at Teva, starred students really do often portray star qualities.

The material for this study was drawn largely from personal observations during a visit to the Teva Learning Center and also through interviews with its staff and teachers who chaperoned the students during their visit. Several years of personal experience as a staff person at the center lent an interesting perspective to the work. Literature on deviance, student-teacher relationships, the sociology of Jewish day schools, and outdoor education was drawn upon to create a foundation for this study. Materials on Jewish environmentalism were consulted where they could be found; although there are a growing number of works on the Jewish environmental movement, the topic is only just beginning to be addressed in peer-reviewed literature.

Teva

The Teva Learning Center’s philosophy stems from a belief that Jews of today, and particularly urban Jews of the western world, are removed from the connection to the earth which once bound them to their religion. Teva’s goal is to renew the ecological wisdom inherent in Judaism and to thereby “facilitate personal growth, community building, and a genuine commitment to tikkum olam, healing the world.”

The center caters primarily to Jewish Day School groups, and is non-denominational. The motto, “engaging mind, body, and spirit” is fulfilled through a number of programs designed for different ages, mostly structured around camping excursions or residential programs. The students focused on here are primarily 4th, 5th and 6th graders participating in four day, three night residential programs.

The participation of “kids who are not optimally served in the mainstream education system” (Ali 2003:5) at Teva happens regularly. Teva’s programs accommodate up to approximately 120 students at any given time, depending on class sizes and the number of schools attending that week. Out of this number, there is typically at least one student who is flagged by the school for behavioral issues, and it is not uncommon for there to be as many as five or six.

There are a number of factors that, based on the findings of this study, are pertinent in the investigation of the effect of the program on starred students. For the purposes of this article, a few of the seemingly most effective factors will be highlighted – the staff, setting and curriculum.

Staff

The centrality of the staff can not be underestimated or overemphasized. Staff spend approximately 12 hours per visit day with the students. Much of this time is spent in a student to staff ratio of 10:1 or less.

Staff represent an adult authority figure that is radically different from the teacher or parent that urban children in Jewish day schools are used to. Many students who are used to testing their boundaries are caught off guard at Teva, where what would be considered deviant behavior in other settings is either common or even encouraged. Howard Becker (1963) defines a deviant act (one of the forms of stardom) as one which is reacted to as such. Literature on self-fulfilling prophecies, also classified as self verification and the Pygmalion effect (Snyder and Stukas 1999; Madon, Smith, Jussim, Russel, Eccles, Palumbo and Walkeiwicz 2001) support the theory that teacher expectations have a great deal to do with student outcomes. At Teva, starred students may find that their actions are not effective in the way that they are in other environments because their actions are not vilified.

Starred students arrive at Teva with a clean slate. The students don’t know that their group leaders are sometimes forewarned about them. When given the chance and the encouragement to reinvent themselves in a positive way,, many starred students take up the challenge.

Quite a few of the staff interviewed indicated that they are suited for the job precisely because they themselves were starred students in their youth and they continue to function outside the mainstream. It is with this frame of mind that they approach starred students. Idiosyncrasies in students and staff alike are celebrated and all are encouraged to bring his or her own strengths to the forefront. The staff reinforce their acceptance of differences by modeling a high standard of respect and camaraderie for one another. The notion that one’s differences from the norm are a cause for pride rather than embarrassment is a good lesson for children who may fall in to the starred category out of defensiveness or shame. Having the entire peer group learn this lesson may help non-starred students be more accepting of their starred peers.

Staff also model an obvious love for the material – from the Judaics to the ecology – that they are meant to be imparting to the students. Seeing a group of young adults unabashedly enthusiastic about Judaism, nature, and the environment creates a forum where students feel safe to relate their own feelings. This breaking down of barriers builds trust and further reinforces good relationships between all students.

Part of the staff’s love of the material stems from the ownership that they feel about all aspects of the program. They are free to constantly reinvent different parts of the programming and presentations. They try out new ideas while learning from their mistakes. Through a process of natural selection, the best practices remain while less successful ones are discarded.

At the same time, the staff subscribe to an integrated system of professional development whereby they review the past week’s happenings, their performance as a group, and their individual performances. This system builds humility and promotes professional growth, which in turn feeds all of the benefits outlined above for the starred students.

Setting

In the cases of most of the schools who visit, there are numerable and obvious differences between the physical, or classic, sense of environment at Teva and the one in which they operate on a daily basis. Broad open spaces replace confined streets and homes. Flora is abundant in all seasons, and the stillness is noticeable after arriving from a busy city.

The way that time is experienced in this setting is also effective. By far the most astonishing ‘time of day setting’ experience, agreed upon by staff and students alike, is the night hike. The night hike, during which the students are led by their group leader through a series of activities having to do with nightfall and darkness, is an activity that inspires an intensification of confidence in many children. This growth may be attributed to the setting, which provides a safe environment for students to be exposed to what might otherwise be unfaceable fears.

The idea of the ‘normal zone’ or the ‘comfort zone’ was raised numerous times in the course of the interviews with regards to the way that the environment affects students. The expression refers to the rules according to which one functions in a day-to-day environment, whereas taking a student out of his or her comfort zone would imply exposing them to experiences that are out of the range of familiarity for them. In the cases where stardom is the effect of one’s environment, taking starred children out of the environment that they are comfortable in can alter their behavior or even the way that others perceive them.

The largest chunk of programming at Teva occurs outdoors and on hiking trails. The new context tends to polarize kids at first between the students with ‘roughing it’ mentality and kids who are more wary of the outdoors. Kids who are labeled ‘deviant’ often thrive in this kind of environment because many of them seem to be more physically adventurous and able to take risks. Learning in a setting without walls or desks brings out different feelings in every child, however, for kids whose energy is tempered by their physical surroundings, the hiking often takes care of their inability to sit still, and they are better able to focus on the task at hand. Additionally, being in and learning about a new environment often gives the child a chance to gain a fresh perspective on their regular environment.

Curriculum

The curriculum engages a broad spectrum of learning styles. Lessons are taught verbally and experientially, artistically, and creatively. There are elements of drama, writers craft, science, experiments, music, and more. The curriculum also approaches Jewish studies from these perspectives, which is a decidedly unusual method for the children attending the program. The following elements of the curriculum demonstrate the differentiated way in which students may be approached and engaged.

A.Flexibility

Teva’s curriculum, according to one founding member and alumni, is the interaction between the student, teacher, resources, and goals. It must therefore be treated as a process and never as static. The flexibility of the program, agree several staff, is one of the strengths of the program. In order to achieve this, staff are trained with about two weeks worth of curriculum activities from which they apply the most appropriate ones depending on the location, weather, and group dynamic.

B. Multi-layered Learning

The beauty of many Teva activities is that any one may contain a multitude of lessons and learning modalities. In one example, a staff person tells of the on site free-range chicken farm which she uses weekly as a lesson tool. The chickens, she says, lay a lot of eggs, but because they’re more likely to have blood spots [rendering them unkosher], they’re more likely to go to waste. The initiative of this particular staff person was to pack a few hard boiled eggs from the local chickens amongst the factory farmed eggs provided as part of the pack-out and have the students compare the fresh, organic eggs with the mass-produced eggs that the kitchen orders from their distributor. Students learned about tza-ar ba-alei hayyim (the Jewish injunction against causing pain to animals), factory farming, and the laws of kashrut. This multi-sensory activity ended with a lesson that no child could resist, and would probably never forget – a taste test!

C. Kvutzah Time

While staff are restricted to a few hours per day of kvutzah (small group) time (you may hear more than one of them grumble about having to wear a watch), they have the freedom to focus their lessons for as long or short a time as the students need – a virtual impossibility in an environment where hours, recess, and class change times are predetermined by a bell. The relatively relaxed schedule allows them to spend more time on a topic if there is a need for it, or to spend extra minutes processing a lesson or in group discussion, should the need arise.

D.The Manual

The three pillars of awareness, interconnectedness, and responsibility form a loose structure for the weekly lessons. Reinforcement for these three pillars is the Teva manual, the workbook containing exercises pertaining to the activities taught in the field. It also offers opportunities for students who are more inclined towards writing and drawing a chance to showcase their talents or just have the information in written format.

E. Music and Drama

Some of the most exciting and memorable times happen with the help of a dose of silliness and a temporary abandonment of inhibitions. Every dinner time is followed by song sessions in which almost every child gets caught up. Most group activities incorporate dramatic elements in some way. Students are always incorporated in to the action in some way, be it creating skits to perform in front of the entire visiting group or playing guest roles in the more structured productions. Teachers, too, are often invited to participate.

Some staff speculate that the expressive environment is ideal for starred students. One believes that the artistic opportunities give starred students “a chance to shine” because there are many venues in which the loudest or most rowdy students may be called upon to provide an example for the rest of the group. “We encourage participation so much at Teva that often times the loudest ones are the ones who get called up on stage. Come dance and hold this poster. Or come lead this song with us.”

Conclusion

The lessons discussed herein are not a complete catalogue of how to approach starred students. Nor are they intended to be viewed as foolproof methods differentiated education. Indeed, although my personal impressions of starred students remains that they are the most responsive to the Teva curriculum, there are others who, for various reasons, do not feel as strongly about it’s effects.

In any case, many of the findings in this study may be applied to try and engage starred students in the classroom setting and other educational environments. Teachers may try to avoid villainizing the actions of starred students and instead encouraging them by creating realistically high expectations for them. The teacher’s attitude toward a child may influence his or her self-concept and also others’ concepts of that child. Modeling positive sentiments towards every child and also towards the material to be taught may encourage sleepy participants into responsiveness.

Creating a setting that addresses the kinesthetic needs of different students may draw positive results. Try holding lessons in unusual spaces or creating spaces that are relevant to lessons learned. Bring students to places where they are not as familiar and confident with the territory.

Wherever possible, try to build lessons around things that are tangible and relevant to the students. Don’t be afraid to mix two lessons together to form multi-layered teaching. If the situation permits, try to shape lesson times around the needs of the students rather than the schedule of the structure of the institution. Infuse lessons with opportunities for self expression.

Most of all, as many teachers will agree, it is important to love your students and treat them with kindness and respect.

Bibliography

Ali, Anessa. (September 2003) Examining the Value of Alternative Schooling for At-Risk Students. York University Faculty of Education.

Becker, Howard S. (1963) Outsiders: Studies in The Sociology of Deviance. The Free Press, New York.

Becker, Howard S. (2003) "The Politics of Presentation: Goffman and Total Institutions". Symbolic Interaction 26: 4, pp. 659-669

Madon, Stephanie; Smith, Alison; Jussim, Lee (2001) "Am I as you see me or do you see me as I am? Self-fulfilling prophecies and self-verification AU: SO:" Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 27:9 Sept 2001. pp. 1214-24

Snyder, Mark; Stukas, Arthur A., Jr (1999) "Interpersonal processes: the interplay of cognitive, motivational, and behavioral activities in social interaction." Annual review of psychology [0066-4308] Snyder vol. 50 pg:273

The Teva Learning Center: http://www.tevacenter.org