Showing Up is 80% of Life

By Gary Greene

One afternoon we toured Jaffa looking at it through the lens of leadership.  Jaffa’s history can be divided into two periods.  Until the 19^th century, Jaffa was a gentile port city.  Its leaders were divine right kings who had absolute power.  Not a very good model for us in the 21^st century no matter how we might fantasize about it.

The second period is the Zionist era.  Our tour guide Steve Israel suggested that Jews demonstrated three different types of leadership while developing Jaffa. Life in Palestine was bone crushing hard during the Second Aliyah.  “Many despaired of the difficult economic and health conditions and returned to Russia.” (Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 9 page 302)  Over 50% of these Jews left Palestine, but enough persisted to lay the foundation of the modern State of Israel.  Many of the future leaders of Israel like David Ben Gurion came from this era who showed up and remained.

In Jaffa there was a grocery man named Yechezke’el Sokovolsky. He was the community’s connector represented the second type of leadership.  When he saw a need, he immediately filled it without a moment’s hesitation.  He volunteered his services, his connections, and his money to make sure that Jaffa would become a thriving Jewish city.  The third type of leadership became the elected official like a city council person and mayor.

I appreciated the different kinds of leadership because not all of us can be an elected official. I also realize not all of us have the time, money, and inclination to step up to meet every need.  Nevertheless, everybody can just show up from time to time and that too is a form of leadership.  The Celebrate Israel Parade is a wonderful example.

At least in my community, too many parents with their families are reluctant to participate in the Celebrate Israel Day Parade for many reasons including the fear that such a rally will draw a terrorist attack.  Although their fears are real, they are unfounded.  There has never been a terrorist attack in all the years of the Parade’s history and the New York police force does an outstanding job protecting us and securing the parade route.

We need Jewish leaders supporting Israel.  As Woody Allen once said, “80% of life is just showing up.”  All we want are families just to show up at the Parade, Sunday, June 3^rd.  By doing so, they will step up to a valuable position of leadership in our community.  These leaders will lead the rest of us by their example.

BTW, if you want to show up at my synagogue’s screening of the Israeli movie Cables (Irit recommended this movie to me while we were in Israel), please do so.  It is free and begins at 7pm.  Marathon JCC, 245-37 60 Ave, Douglaston, NY 11362.

Let Me Show You My Portfolio...Bazinga!

Alan Rowe is an old friend and one of the principals at Torah Aura Productions. Alan has been a tech guy in Jewish education since before the internet was available to mere mortals (those of us who were not in the military or at one of a handful of universities using PLATO). He for as long as I have known him (almost 25 years) he has been beta testing one program or another. Sometimes to see how it can help Torah Aura in their work, sometimes to see how it might help Jewish teachers. And as often as not, just to see what cool things were possible. He is that kind of guy. 

A few weeks ago he sent me a link to a blog posting about using Evernote to create student portfolios. He wanted to know if I thought there might be an application for synagogue or "complementary" education.

SHAZAM! 

BAZINGA!

[GEEKY EXPRESSION OF AMAZEMENT OF YOUR CHOICE]!

GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST! [O.K. Not that one.]

As soon as you finish this reading posting - or sooner, you may not care about what I have to say - check out Rob Van Nood's blog posting "How to Create a Portfolio with Evernote."

Educational Portfolios

Dr. Helen C. Barrett maintains that one of the many purposes of the educational portfolio is "to support reflection that can help students understand their own learning and to provide a richer picture of student work that documents growth over time." We in complementary schools have many frustrations - not enough time or enough days for learning, the supply of teachers, parents who bring their children to us for many different reasons, and not always the ones we think they should have - just to name a few. I think that getting students to reflect more deeply on the learning and meaningful evaluation are two that we don't often even get to when we are bemoaning the things we wish we could do. Barrett continues:

"Artists have maintained portfolios for years, often using their collection for seeking further work, or for simply demonstrating their art; an artist's portfolio usually includes only their best work. Financial portfolios contain a comprehensive record of fiscal transactions and investment holdings that represent a person's monetary worth. By contrast, an educational portfolio contains work that a learner has selected and collected to show growth and change over time; a critical component of an educational portfolio is the learner's reflection on the individual pieces of work (often called "artifacts") as well as an overall reflection on the story that the portfolio tells. There are many purposes for portfolios in education: learning, assessment, employment, marketing, showcase, best works."

I first learned about portfolios as a graduate student in Jewish Education a long time ago. They sound wonderful don't they? Imagine if we could collect the creative output of each of our students over the course of the year. Every once in a while a teacher could ask each student to share what they think their best work was so far, or to discuss an idea they have been developing. 

Parents could be invited to review the portfolio in a conference with the teacher and student and get a real sense of what their child has been doing at temple each week instead of a progress report with letter grades and a brief paragraph that might include the phrase "I really enjoyed having Ploni in my class this year." And items from the portfolios could be displayed, celebrating each child in the eyes of the congregation!

Ah well. That sounds awesome for a day school or general education school. They have enough hours in the day and enough days in the week. They have professionally trained and licensed teachers who have more time to give. Our teachers are awesome, but they have so little time and we pay them so little. We all know that song. We sing it every time we come upon an educational innovation. Poor us. We are too small, too poor and have too little time. We could never do it.

Nonsense.
(Those of you who can remember the comedian David Steinberg know what that really means.) 

I am tired of those excuses. Saying "Yes We Can" is more than political slogan. I have spent a fair amount of time evangelizing for using Web 2.0 technologies to leverage the things we might be lacking like time, money and staff. 
We can and we should be using portfolios. They hold so much promise for making meaning. And Evernote just might be the way to do it with all of the limitations we believe we are our burden.
 
Evernote
Evernote's logo is the head of an elephant. When you got to www.evernote.com the headline is "Remember Everything."


It is actually "a suite of software and services designed for notetaking and archiving. A "note" can be a piece of formatted text, a wb page or exerpt, a photo, an audio recording or even a handwritten ink note. They can be sorted into folders, tagged, annotated, edited, given comments and searched. They can even be exported as part of a ntoebook."

What's so Shazam about it?

This is where Rob Van Nood's posting comes in. He begins: "I started teaching 15 years ago and that is when I first came across this concept of a ‘portfolio.’ A portfolio is a storehouse for projects, writing pieces, art, and performances. It can be used by students, teachers, and parents to document what they’re doing (either day-to-day things or through their best work or improvements they’ve made). I see portfolios as a way to hold onto and think about what you’re doing." He is on the same page as Dr. Barrett. Here are some the things he does:

• When our school first decided to use Evernote, we set up demos with the students to show them how to use Evernote. At their age, students familiarize themselves with technology really quickly and naturally. A few picked it up immediately and started teaching their fellow classmates. Getting everyone up to speed didn’t take a lot of time.
• Before setting students up with Evernote accounts, I created a set of guidelines for the students so they knew what kind of things to put into Evernote. We also discussed the kinds of tags that they should be using, so we’d all be on the same page.
• Students started asking, ‘How can I put this into Evernote?’  I set my classroom up with a Lexmark Pro scanner so students are able to immediately capture their work and send it to their Evernote portfolio. They can also capture using any number of mobile devices where they have Evernote installed. They’re even able to access their work on their iPod Touch in class.
• When a student comes up with an interesting strategy on a whiteboard, I have them write down their name next to it and take a picture of it, or record them explaining what they came up with. Great ideas are saved to Evernote to show progress over the course of the school year.
• I’ve actually started emailing parents with these progress notes immediately after I capture them. I’m able to show the parents that their kid had a great growth moment or did something they’ve never done before. The real-time sharing was appreciated not only by the parents, but also excited the students.
• The final ‘piece’ of the portfolio work is, of course, sharing. For our Spring conference, we asked students to have one example of work from each area (math, writing, art, kinesthetic) to share with their parents. The students actually taught the parents how to use Evernote at our conference by familiarizing them with their portfolios.

He also uses it for parent teacher conferences.


I will be spending some time with our Religious School Vision Team and some members of our faculty exploring using Evernote Portfolios. I am hoping to introduce them in one or two grades next year. In our school, our students in Kitot Alef - Vav (1 - 6) have two teachers. One is for general Jewish studies and the other focuses on Hebrew. I think that the portfolios will give the two teachers a powerful tool for connecting the learning between their classes. 

And I am incredibly excited about curating these portfolios in a way that will allow us to share students' work with the entire congregation (with their permission of course). And the opportunity for kids to share their work with grandparents will open opportunities for intergenerational learning. 

Are you using Evernote Portfolios? Please share. And contact me if you are interested in exploring the possibilities with me. And also check out Van Nood's Evernote Portfolio Blog.


Cross-posted from Welcome to the Next Level

Yom Hashoa here and there

by Gary Greene

3 synagogues come togther to remember the 6 million at a joint Yom Hashoa service.  I was asked to reflect upon how Yom Hashoa is observed in Israel as opposed to the way we observe it here.  Since I tied my remarks to our visit to the Israel Museum, I thought I would share them with you.  Here they are:

I studied in Israel this past February as part of the Hebrew School Principals cohort of the Leadership Institute.  We visited The Israel Museum in Jerusalem.  It has just been recently renovated, expanded and now open to the public.  One of the wings contains Jewish life cycle and holiday displays.  Along the walls holiday artifacts are exhibited like Hanukiyas and Purim Megillahs, but in the center the two newest holidays, Yom Hashoa and Israel Independence Day are highlighted. 

Here in America unless you attend a Yom Hashoa service like ours, the day passes without notice.  The Yom Hashoa exhibit shows how differently the average Israeli marks Yom Hashoa than we do.  It touches every Israeli's life.  On a never-ending  video loop, we see a major highway with cars and trucks zooming to their destination.  A siren sounds and all traffic stops, drivers and passengers leave their vehicles, and stand at silent attention until another siren beckons them back to their cars and trucks.

As I stood at that virtual Yom Hashoa memorial in Jerusalem, my thoughts turned a Yizkor prayer by Jules Harlow found in Siddur Sim Shalom.

“Lamentation and bitter weeping have been ours, in refusing to be comforted for those who are no more.

Yet, we shall survive to sing, to flourish, to turn our mourning into gladness.

In spite of every obstacle we shall endure, nurturing our children to overcome despair.

In spite of every obstacle, we shall praise sustained by Your promise of redemption.

Our people survived the sword…

Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy, for You redeem our lives from destruction.”

Those words of prayer have taken on even more meaning tonight as I learned about our candle lighters lives (either survivors and 2nd generation) written and then delivered by our teenagers. I appreciate the candle lighters for sharing their story of triumph over despair and appreciate our young men and women for recording them to learn from those lives for us and posterity.

I conclude with the traditional words of consolation to us all: “May God comfort you along with all the mourners of Jerusalem and Zion.” And let us say amen.

Greene on greens

by Gary Greene

Nothing is insignificant when it comes to the seder.  Each symbolic food has a deeper meaning, something more than just meets the eye.  Some are more obvious than others.  Matzah is the bread of affliction which our ancestors ate in Egypt.  It is poor man’s bread.  A little goes a long way so matzah is a cost efficient means of feeding slaves.  It is also the bread of freedom for matzah was the first bread baked because the Jews couldn’t tarry and let the dough rise as they left Egyptian slavery.  I like what Rabbi Jonathan Sacks saw in this double meaning of matzah.  “The difference between freedom and slavery does not lie in the quality of the bread we eat, but the state of mind in which we eat it." 

Others foods’ meanings are not as obvious unless they are mined for the diamonds contained within the depths of the symbol.  Take Karpas, the greens we dip into the salt water, for example.  Karpas symbolizes spring and indeed Passover is the holiday of springtime, Hag Ha-aviv.  What is the deeper meaning of the Karpas?

For me, Karpas or spring represents God’s love for the Jewish people.  The Holy One was most thoughtful when He redeemed the Jewish people.  If he redeemed us during the raining winter months, the joy of the Exodus would have been dampened.  This past winter was one of the rainiest in recorded Israel’s short history.  It rained 27 days out of 31 during the month of January alone!  Although Israel needed the rain because the Kinneret, the Sea of Galilee, has been at its all time low, no tourist is thrilled to walk through all that rain and ensuing mud.  When we were in Israel as part of our Israel Seminar, we were blessed with beautiful tourist weather for the most part.  Certainly the weather added to the enjoyment of our trip.  Can you imagine how the Israelites would have complained about leaving Egypt during the rainy season?! 

If God would have redeemed us during the hot summer months, the Exodus would have been just as unbearable.  I know how the heat zaps a person as he travels for when I rode my bike from Jerusalem to Eilat back in October 2010. The first day out on the road the temperature hit 113 degrees F!  I remember sitting on the ledge of the water truck for over a half hour just guzzling water so I could continue on until the next water stop. Can you imagine how the Israelites would have complained about leaving Egypt during the hot summer months?

But the spring months are a delight.  The rains have stopped falling. Every thing is green and the wild flowers are blooming thanks to the rain.  The weather is neither too hot nor too cold.  It is just right for a tiyul, hike, or an Exodus from slavery.  God choose this perfect time of year for us to leave Egypt because He loves us so and wanted us enjoy our freedom in every way.   

Disciples of Rabbi Menachem Schneersohn collected and adapted his teachings as a commentary on the Haggadah called The Kol Menachem Haggadah. They offer another Karpas diamond for our consideration.  In the commentary on Karpas, the Lubuvitcher Rebbe wrote: “According to the Kabbalah, tibul, is symbolic of bitul (or negation) of the self, which is why in Hebrew we find that one word is an anagram of the other: kuchy=kuyhc.  And one does not need to be a mystic to appreciate why.  The purpose of dipping a food into a flavoring agent is so that the food should surrender some of its own taste and “give away’ to a more desirable quality found in the flavoring agent. (page 25)”  “The only way we can transcend the limitations of our own existence is by surrendering to something greater than ourselves.  This is the inner message of dipping, where one food surrenders its flavor into the liquid in which it is dipped.” (page 23)

I quoted Rabbi Sacks in an earlier blog: “A free society is always a moral achievement.  It rests on self-restraint and regard for others.”  The Lubuvitcher Rebbe is teaching us freedom demands even more than just self-restrain and regard for others.  Free human beings who want to live a meaningful life, need to pay attention to what’s really important in life.  The focus of our being shouldn’t be on us, our needs, our ego, but rather the focus should be on the needs of the other.  When we give our lives over to a cause greater than ourselves, we achieve the ideals of Passover, living a meaningful life as free human beings.

The Karpas asks us where our true passions lay, what noble causes animate our lives, when do we do transcend our own limitations by surrendering to something greater than ourselves, and why we must take an active role in those causes for the sake of our future redemption.  These are certainly worthy 4 questions to ask at the seder table and other every night.