Tag Archives: education
All Aboard “The Health Express”!
This update comes to us from AmeriCorps member Gernelle Nelson. For her year of national service, she’s working in the Community Engagement Department at the ISJL.
Greetings from the Community Engagement Department!
I am proud to announce that The Health Express, our peer-to-peer education publication, is now available to read online! This year, we began working on implementing a health initiative at Blackburn Middle School. This initiative focuses on empowering students with knowledge about physical health, establishing healthy eating habits, and promoting a safe environment. Rather than have the information just given to them by the adults, this is a peer-to-peer learning model: students are the ones researching and learning about healthy living, and they’re also the ones sharing their new knowledge with their peers and community via a student-published blog and magazine.
With the help of Bertha Hardy-Smith, Blackburn’s health teacher, we designated a small group of students to participate in the program. During my first months working with the students, we focused on teaching them the basic principles of publishing. The students came up with possible article topics, conducted focus group research and received staff positions and duties. The students began writing their first set of articles and named their publication “The Health Express.”
Our partnership with the School of Nursing at the University of Mississippi Medical Center begins this week. Through this partnership, the middle school students will have the opportunity to work with health professionals as they continue to generate more articles for The Health Express. We have started working towards getting the Health Express printed and distributed throughout the Jackson Public Schools district at the end of this school year.
We are very proud of the work our students have produced thus far – and we hope throughout the community, folks will be excited to get on board with The Health Express!
Please feel free to leave comments and questions on The Health Express blog – the students will love it!
Note: The opinions expressed here are the personal views of the author. All comments on MyJewishLearning are moderated. Any comment that is offensive or inappropriate will be removed. Privacy Policy
From Georgia to Jerusalem in 6 Easy Steps: Sending Prayers to the Western Wall
An envelope of prayers from 5th grade students in Columbus, Georgia.
By ISJL Education Fellow Dan Ring
The ISJL Education Curriculum addresses Israel in many ways at various grade levels. The fifth grade, for example, contains a lesson about the Western Wall (also called the Kotel) in Jerusalem. For an activity, teachers can have students write prayers to be placed in the Wall and ask their Education Fellows to arrange for the letters to reach their intended destination.
Although you can easily do this virtually through different websites, I was excited when the fifth grade class at Temple Israel Religious School in Columbus, Georgia, wrote physical letters, which I was able to have delivered through face-to-face social networks.
Here is how it went down:
1. During Lesson 7 of the 5th grade curriculum, students in Columbus composed their own prayers and put them all in an envelope.
2. During my fall visit, the class surprised me with the collected notes.
Dan is very surprised.
After recovering from his surprise, Dan poses with the class. It was “pajama day” at the religious school.
3. Two weeks later, I attended a bar mitzvah in Baltimore, my hometown. My friend Josh, a Yeshiva student in Jerusalem and the brother of the bar mitzvah boy, was visiting for the occasion. So I gave him the envelope.
Josh (center) and Dan (right) celebrating together at the bar mitzvah.
5. A few days later, Josh returned to Jerusalem, where he took the written prayers to the Wall.
Josh at the Western Wall.
Josh inserts the prayers into a crevice in the Wall.
6. The prayers have been delivered (to the Wall).
The notes from Columbus, Georgia, join other prayers brought to the Western Wall.
Thanks again to Josh for helping out the fine students of Temple Israel, and to another Josh for taking such great photographs!
Note: The opinions expressed here are the personal views of the author. All comments on MyJewishLearning are moderated. Any comment that is offensive or inappropriate will be removed. Privacy Policy
Surely the LORD is Present in This Place
By Education Fellow Benjamin Chaidell
The weekend after Thanksgiving I had the opportunity to speak about my experience as an Education Fellow at my home synagogue in New York City, the Conservative Synagogue Adath Israel of Riverdale.
It is always inspiring to return to where I was bar mitzvah’ed and where, as a baby, I took my very first steps amid the dancing on Simchat Torah. This, though, was extra special. It was a chance to share just what I am doing in the South with the folks who always ask my parents what I am up to. It was a time to explain to born and bred New Yorkers that there are not only Jews in the South but also vibrant Jewish communities. Finally, it was an opportunity to show this loving community that has supported me throughout my life how their investment in me has paid off, that I’ve grown into someone who can share their vision of Judaism with others.
The reaction could not have been better. People were intrigued by the work we do and by the opportunities that I have been given, which made me appreciate this fellowship all the more.
With help from my coworkers at the ISJL, I crafted a dvar Torah on the week’s Torah portion of Vayetzei. I focused on the line that Jacob exclaims after his dream of a stairway to heaven: “Surely the LORD is present in this place, and I did not know it!” (Genesis 28:16).
From this jumping off point, I described how I have discovered Jewish communities and God in the places that I least expected and how those discoveries have transformed my views of other people and of the divine.
I talked about three kinds of places: physical places, cultural/idea spaces, and spontaneous/ improvisational places, and how God has surprised me in each of them.
The giant Shofar outside of Ahavas Chesed in Mobile, Alabama.
Among the numerous locations I’ve visited, a few stand out. I experienced a moment of joy next to a huge shofar sculpture outside the Congregation Ahavas Chesed in Mobile, Alabama, and enjoyed heartwarming Rosh Hashannah meals in a garage in Greenwood, Mississippi, where over 25 family and friends gather with the nine remaining Jews of Greenwood to celebrate the holiday.
Beyond the pshat (literal interpretation) of a physical place, I’ve realized that we can find God in cultural spaces and “idea places” that I once thought had nothing to do with religion. I’m now an accomplished paper bag puppeteer, having performed a Purim play with my coworkers for small children in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I’ve also found that “When the Saints Come Marching In” can infuse new energy into Adon Olam.
Finally there is the very place of the unexpected: spontaneous, go-with-the-flow, improvisational space. What I’ve learned most from this job in Jewish education is that it is OK for life not to go according to plan. Man plans, God laughs; the best thing to do is to embrace those surprises as God-given gifts.
I think back to the intimate impromptu hevruta text study I had with a man named Alfred in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Alfred was the only one that showed up for my program, and we were both locked out of the Temple. So we went to a nearby congregant’s bakery. at the bakery, two folks from Mississippi introduced themselves when they saw my kippah. Their son had converted to Judaism and they were looking for a kosher turkey for their Thanksgiving meal in Hot Springs. Alfred knew where to find one! Because we took our setbacks in stride, we were at the right place to help someone else maintain his own practice.
Judaism is all about being present and open to the unexpected. Surprises spice up life, reminding us to live in the moment, to learn and to explore and to wonder at the beauty of the world we live in.
“Surely the LORD is present in this place”…and maybe we do know it.
Note: The opinions expressed here are the personal views of the author. All comments on MyJewishLearning are moderated. Any comment that is offensive or inappropriate will be removed. Privacy Policy
