Prizmah Podcasts: Podcasts by Prizmah Center for Jewish Day Schools

Research Encounter _ Power Tools, Paper Weaving, Tightrope Walking: Purposes and Methods of Jewish Arts Education

Listen to a far-ranging podcast and expand your understanding of what Jewish arts education is and can be. Explore how one teacher sets up an artists beit midrash, and how students go about creating art from tefillah. Hear how students at another school pass through a collaborative, multilayered iterative process from study to the creation of objects. Explore the way that a rabbinical school teaches Biblical narrative texts and Talmudic Halakhic passages through the embodied learning of circus arts experiences. Discover how these programs conceive of the relationship between the social and individual aspects of creativity.

 

Presenters

Dr. Ora Horn Prouser is the CEO and academic dean at the Academy for Jewish Religion, an accredited, pluralistic rabbinical, cantorial, and graduate school located in NY but serving students throughout the US and internationally through our distance learning program. She is the co-editor of Under One Tent: Circus, Judaism, and Bible, which is an extension of sacred arts work at AJR. AJR is now home to a Center for Sacred Arts. 

 

Ayal Prouser is a circus artist, choreographer and academic. He is founder & director of Time Flies Circus.

 

Linda Parmet is Hebrew content dean and director of interdisciplinary Jewish studies at The Weber School in Atlanta, Georgia. She also serves as a mentor on the staff of The Teacher Institute for the Arts run by Kol HaOt. Linda and her students study Jewish sources, values and concepts then use creative design and visual arts to illuminate their thoughts and express their insights. Follow this link to see the class portfolio of Torah, toolkits and power tools. 

 

Ahuva Winslow is the director of visual arts at Yeshivat Frisch in Paramus, New Jersey. She teaches the 9-12th grade art track, which includes artist beit midrash, as well as a 12th grade Biblical portraits Nach elective. 

Research Encounter: Foundation for Life-Excellence in Jewish Early Childhood Education

Learn about the vital, sophisticated work of Reggio-inspired Jewish early childhood educators from two day school administrators and a field leader who is also the author of a recent dissertation. The conversation ranges from the ways that educators understand the minds of young students to the development of Jewish identity and creativity, with a glimpse into the state of the field as well.

 

Dr. Anna Hartman is the Director of Early Childhood Excellence at the Jewish United Fund in Chicago and the Director of the Paradigm Project.

Carla Goldberg is the Director of Early Childhood and Admissions at Akiba Schechter Jewish Day School, in Chicago's Hyde Park. She has been a teacher at Akiba for 32 years  and the Director for 27 years.

Abby Aloni is the Head of Early Childhood at Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School, an independent Jewish Day School located in the Lakeview area of Chicago. Entering her 25th year at Bernard Zell, Abby moved from the classroom to administration in 2008 as head of the Lower School and has held her current position since 2016. 

Prizmah Podcast Live: Jewish History -The Core Element of a Jewish Day School Education ( Whether You Realize It or Not)

Where does Jewish history live in your curriculum, culture, and approach to education at your school? Jewish history is central to Jewish education, and can be a locus of meaning, authority, and knowledge for all Jewish day school students. Listen to this interesting discussion with Rachel Bergstein, Director of the Center for Excellence and Engagement in Jewish History and Jewish History Department Faculty Member at Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School and Rabbi Mitchel Malkus, Head of School at Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, MD. 

Podcast Live: Organizational Structure as a Driver for Institutional Alignment and Change

Learn from Rebecca Lurie and Dr. Jonah Hassenfeld how a leadership team structure that is aligned with institutional values has the capacity to effect impactful and sustained change within a school environment. Explore the process by which the organizational structure of Schechter Boston was transformed into a distributed leadership model. This Podcast Live episode was recorded in person at the Prizmah Conference in Denver, January 10, 2023.

Rebecca Lurie is the head of school, and Dr. Jonah Hassenfeld is the director of learning and teaching, at Solomon Schechter Day School of Boston in Newton, Massachusetts.

Prizmah Podcast Live: Teaching Towards an Ethical Democracy

How can Jewish schools ensure that their graduates go on to be stewards of democracy? And how can Jewish educators teach students to connect Jewish ethics to the practices of citizenship? The Brandeis School of San Francisco has been wrestling with these questions since the 2016 election cycle. Hear from head of school Dr. Dan Glass about how Brandeis has worked to connect Jewish ethics and democratic habits of mind, from daily classroom rituals to annual celebrations. Dr. Glass will share about the school’s ongoing “Mifgash Project,” a collaborative design project seeking to build out a K-8 model of experiential civic education rooted in Jewish values.

Presenter

Dr. Dan Glass, Head of School of The Brandeis School in San Francisco, previously held leadership roles at Wildwood School in Los Angeles and The Girls' Middle School in Palo Alto. He has written extensively on progressive education, Jewish spirituality and ethics, and contemporary poetry. A Bay Area native, Dan holds a Ph.D. in English from UC Davis, and a B.A. in English from UC Berkeley. He has published four collections of poetry, and has taught children and adults of all ages in subjects ranging from Ethics and Design to Poetics and Rap Music. Dan and his wife Kate have three daughters, two of whom are current Brandeis students.

Research Encounter: Embracing the Joys and the ”Muckiness” of Israel Education

Debby Artz-Mor, director of Jewish learning at the Brandeis School in San Francisco, and Rabbi David Stein, Judaics studies principal at Shalhevet High School in Los Angeles, join Sivan Zakai to discuss her new longitudinal study of Israel education , My Second Favorite Country. They consider understandings of "age-appropriate" learning that can impede educational engagement and exploration, discuss the relationship between school mission and student influences, and consider pedagogy that opens up student curiosity and discovery.

Presenters

Debby Arzt-Mor is the director of Jewish learning at The Brandeis School of San Francisco. Raised in Jerusalem, Debby has been living in San Francisco with her family for many years. As a member of Brandeis’ senior leadership team, Debby partners with faculty and staff in guiding Jewish and Hebrew programming and curriculum throughout the school. Debby is a cohort 10 graduate of The Davidson School’s Day School Leadership Training Institute, and of the Melton Senior Educators program at The Hebrew University. Debby holds a BA in psychology and Jewish philosophy (University of Haifa), and a graduate degree in nonprofit administration (USF).

Rabbi David Stein is the Judaic studies principal at Shalhevet High School in Los Angeles as well as the co-founder and managing director of the LaHaV Curriculum Project. David attended Yeshiva College and RIETS for his undergraduate and semikhah studies, and also holds master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Columbia University and in Jewish education from American Jewish University. He is currently studying towards his doctorate in education at Yeshiva University’s Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education & Administration and was a Wexner Graduate Fellow/Davidson Scholar.

Sivan Zakai is the Sara S. Lee Associate Professor of Jewish Education at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and is an affiliated scholar at the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education at Brandeis University. In addition to directing the Children’s Learning About Israel Project and co-directing Project ORLIE: Research and Leadership in Israel Education, Sivan serves as a senior editor of the Journal of Jewish Education and as a member of the faculty of the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute.

Research Encounter: How Gender Impacts Education

How do students internalize and act out gender narratives in their relationships to their school, to different subjects, to their teachers and other students? How do teachers sometimes reinforce gender roles in the classroom, in ways that can harm students' confidence and limit their expression? Heads of school Jason Feld (Northwest Yeshiva High School in Mercer Island, WA) and Hannah Bennett (Briskin Elementary School at Temple Israel of Hollywood in Los Angeles, CA) join Jason Ablin to discuss these and other issues raised in Ablin's new book, The Gender Equation in Schools: How to Create Equity and Fairness for All Students.

Research Encounter: Educating Jewish Producers

What are we trying to achieve in Jewish education? What do martial arts have to teach us about pedagogy for Jewish learning? How do we think about community and autonomy, tradition and innovation, in day schools? Brandeis education professor Jon Levisohn is joined by heads of school Stephanie Ives at Beit Rabban in Manhattan and Rafi Cashman at Netivot HaTorah in Toronto to discuss what our schools are and might be.

Podcast Live: Making Diversity A Strength In A Polarized Age

At the center of the mission of Luria Academy is diversity as a core value. But what happens when you’ve achieved your goal and you have created a uniquely diverse community? What does it mean to be in relationship with people whose religious practice is different from yours? How do our students learn to approach one another from a place of curiosity and respect? How do we navigate political diversity in an increasingly polarized society? And how do we expand the lessons of the classroom into the parent community?

Learn about Luria’s journey of diversity from conception to reality. Head of School Amanda Pogany presents the success and challenges of leading a diverse community in general and in this moment. Gain strategies for this work with students, faculty and parents.

Prizmah Podcast Live: Creating a Culture of Storytellers

We are the story we tell ourselves. In 2019, parents and school leaders at Brandeis Marin, a K-8 Jewish day school located in San Rafael, CA, began exploring ways to create a storytelling and story-capturing culture to enable deep, authentic and consistent connection within the school community. When the pandemic hit, the Brandeis Marin school community had developed its own version of The Moth (radio storytelling), doubling down on storytelling to deepen the sense of connection and belonging among its parents and in its community. Hear from Dr. Peg Sandel, Head of School and Barbara Cohen, Director of Techonology and Innovation at Brandeis Marin how a Jewish day school created a schoolwide initiative involving parents, teachers, students, staff, administrators and board members.