Opening the world of Torah Learning to our Children

Part 1: Biographies wanted

Last week, one of the greatest Torah sages of the last few generations, Rav Ovadiah Yosef, died. As my husband described him, Rav Ovadia zt"l was a cross between Albert Einsten and Martin Luther King Jr, whose genius was unmatched and who elevated the lives of an entire ethnic group in Israel.

I wanted my third graders to have a taste of Rav Ovadia zt"l's greatness so that they could be inspired to work hard and  to appreciate the greatness & uniqueness of our Torah giants.

For the last two year, I have been presenting a Torah personality to my class once a week. Our gedolim unit is consistently the favorite period of the week for my students and myself. This past week, I presented them with the biography of Rav Ovadia Yosef. We watched a video of his funeral, saw pictures from his life and then I read a biography I had written for the occasion.

I could tell the biography truly resonated when one of my students, who happens to be my son, insisted that he read the biography aloud to the entire family at both Shabbos dinner and lunch.

Another student came in on Monday and asked if we were learning another biography that day. When I told him that we only discussed the biographies on Friday, he looked crestfallen. He said to me, "But Mrs. Hochheimer, I can't find any gedolim biographies written for my reading level!"  Sure enough, the books I found in the school library and in my home were either a compilation of stories that lacked historical context or were too long to hold the interest of a third grader. My student had already read the graphic novels of the life of Rashi, the Rambam, Rav Shmuel Hanagid, and he wanted more.

What my student wants is the Jewish equivalent of  the David Adler's Picture Biography series that includes major highlights in a person's life with some illustrations. There is a Jewish biography series with beautiful pictures, but these books focus on one or two stories and leave out the biographical data that illustrate why one gadol is different from the other and how he was a product of is time period.

Part Two: Halacha Books needed

My husband is teaching fifth grade and want to integrate Halacha and Ivrit. He felt his students were ready to write "teshuvos" where they respond to halachic questions proving their opinion by citing research from relevant seforim and books. For the project to work, the books and seforim need to be able to be understood by the students independently. This has not been a simple task. Books that have the appropriate content are written on an adult level, and the books written for children are superficial and lack the necessary information. Putting together source books for this creative project has proven more challenging than anticipated.

Part Three: Trade Books

Contrast the time invested in creating a halacha project with the resources available for a social studies project.

Today, my co-teacher showed me her fifth grade's projects. Groups of students are researching the Western Hemisphere to create annotated maps which they will present to the class. After being taught some background knowledge by the teacher, and being given supplies and access to two dozen trade books, they were set free to do the project on their own. The kids are enjoying owning their learning and discovering new information independently.

The reason this project is successful is because the students have access to appropriate trade books that doesn't frustrate them when they are learning. Trade Books, which are books found in the children section of a library, are very helpful in contrast to textbooks which had been the mainstay of classroom learning. As non-fiction literature has taken a more prominent place in the core curriculum, trade books have become an important part of the secular studies classroom. Unlike textbooks, trade books are written in a human voice, will explore a topic in depth and allows students to read different books about the same topic so that they can learn from multiple perspectives.The kids enjoy these books more than reading their textbook since the books are authentic literature and geared to their reading level. Students discover that they can learn on their own without a teacher as long as they can open the pages of a book.

Part Four: Problem Defined

The Jewish nation IS the people of the book. Yet, our students don't have access to enough Judaic trade books so that they can learn Torah without adult participation. Our students need books with pictures, simple sentence structure and complex information written appropriately  for their cognitive level. Each topic needs to be explored in  multiple books so that our students can learn how to research and synthesize new information into a cohesive whole.

There are some great children's books that teach Torah in an engaging and age appropriate manner. My book shelf at home is full of them, and my own kids have learned so much Torah from these books. However, there are just not enough of these books so that our students can begin to research and learn in our classrooms without adult help.

Judaic Publishing is a not a financially lucrative business. It would be impossible to expect publishers to publish books that schools, which are going broke, can't afford to buy anyway. So what can we do? How can we stock our classroom shelves so that our students who love to read can choose to learn about cities in Israel instead of about life in Ancient Greece? How can we gather research materials for our Torah projects without investing hours and hours of time?

Part Five: Solution

The question is how do we create literature written for kids on a wide variety of topics while keeping costs down?

Unfortunately, my question is better than my answer.  Ill offer my ideas, and I'd love to hear yours as well.

1. Our community has some great clearning houses for Jewish curricular material. Chinuch.org has the archives for the over 50 years of Olemeinu magazine online. The Olemeinu Magazine has some great reference articles about Judaic subjects that are age appropriate. Please let me know if there are other affordable content sources out there that I could make available to my students in my classroom.

2. On Jewish education websites, teachers generously share worksheets & project ideas. What if teachers would start to create books that other teachers could print for their classroom?  So many of us teachers love to write. We can self-publish and help each other. Let's get some books out there.

3. Who else can we get to write these books?  Well, middle school & high school teachers . . . here is the challenge. Your students are doing research projects anyway. They are using the internet, seforim, and research books to write about Torah topics for your classes.  What if, as part of their research projects, they had to write a children's book as well? You could teach them how to find images online that are not subject to copyright, and they could learn how modify their writing based on their audience. Knowing that their work is going to be used by other kids to learn will also motivate them to do their best.  Their hard work won't disappear once it has been graded and will provide a real service teaching Torah to other Jewish children.

4. Let's talk about the need to expand our classroom libraries. When we acknowledge the problem, solutions present themselves in unexpected ways.

Part Six: Conclusion

I started by describing the greatness of Rav Ovadiah Yosef and his impact on the world of Torah. He delved into the world of Torah as a child and never left.

Each of our students has unlimited potential. What a six year old learns will never leave him. Our students love to read. They love to explore. Let's make sure that if our students want to learn more, they have what they need to do so.

Biography of Rav Ovadia Yosef

Rav Ovadia Yosef was niftar this past Monday. I spoke to my class today about him as our first biography of the year. It is hard to capture the greatness of a man who was one of the biggest geonim of the generation but was also the greatest civil Rights leader of Israel who tranformed the lives of 50% of the Israeli population who faced discrimination, poverty, hopelessness and spiritual ignorance. Zechuso Yagen Aleinu.

Some videos & Links of Interest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3l-D0yuMV8 Rav Lau (who visited Rochester last year with Rav Ovadia)
4 minutes in the day of rav Ovadia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnEiRlxzjKg
CNN reports on his funeral - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCr525VBpD8
pictures from his life - http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=188831
Pictures from his Funeral - http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/191690/Photo+Essay:+Levayah+of+Maran+HaRav+Ovadia+Yosef+ZATZAL+(Photos+By+Chaim+Schvarcz+&+Yisroel+Baum+-+Kuvien+Images).html

RAV OVADIA YOSEF  (born 1920-2013 )

On the 3^rd of Cheshvan, Rav Ovadia Yosef was niftar. By that evening, over 800,000 people streamed into Yerushalayim for the largest funeral in the history of the State of Israel. 1 in 10 Israelis came to the funeral. There were sefardim, Ashkenazim, rich and poor, religious and secular and the greatest Gedolei Torah and the most unlearned Jewsl. There were so many people that the police warned that the buildings were in danger of collapsing.

What made Rav Ovadia Yosef so loved by so many people that they dropped everything to come to a funeral with only 4 hours notice? The reason they came is because of how much Rav Ovadia had meant to each one of them

Rav Ovadia Yosef was born in Baghdad on September 23, 1920. In 1924 he immigrated to Yerushalayim with his family. His family was very poor. His father was a grocer and worked hard to provide for his family, but they often went hungry.

As a teenager, Rav Ovadia studied at the Porat Yosef Yeshiva. He was in the top class taught by the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Ezra Attiya (1885-1970) a gadol from the Sephardic Jewish world.

Rav Attiya made sure that the young Ovadia would stay in yeshiva. One day, Rav Ovadia stopped coming to yeshiva. Rav Attiya went to his home to find out what happened. The Yosef family was shockingly poor.  R’ Ovadia Yosef's father said that he needed his son to help him in his store. The next morning, the father came to his store and found Rav Attiya there with an apron on. Rav Attiya volunteered to work for free as long as R’ Ovadia could return to yeshiva. “Your son's learning is more important than my time!" Rav Ovadiah Yosef was allowed to return to yeshiva.  

When he was in yeshiva, the dorm counselor noticed that his room always had light coming from the door. Even after all the other students  had gone to sleep, Rav Ovadia kept learning.

When R’ Ovadia was 17, Rav Addia asked him to teach a nightly class in a Persian shul in the Bukaharan Quarter. The people who came were local workers and did not know much Torah. At this time, Sefardim were treated very poorly and were poor and unlearned. They were used to learning a little halacha. Rav Ovadiah Yosef, who was already a Talmid Chacham, taught these people on their level so they would come close to Torah. He wrote that he would study each halacha until he understood it very well. He taught the halacha according to Rav Yosef Karo, the author of the Shulchan Aruch. There, he began a life long mission to “restore the glory of Jewish tradition” to try to have all the Sephardic Jews in Israel follow the halacha according to Rav Yosef Karo.

At the age of 20, he was given semicha to be a Rav.  In 1947,Rav Ovadia Yosef went to Egypt to be a Rebbe in the yeshiva and to be the head of the Beis Din and assistant Chief Rabbi of Egypt. After several years, he returned to Israel.

When Rav Ovadia first got married he was very poor. His wife had worked to put aside money to buy a closet where they could store their clothes. One day, he mentioned to his wife how he had written a sefer. She took all the money she had saved and used it to publish his seforim.

After that first sefer, Rav Ovadiah published many seforim including his important set of halacha sefarim “yabia omer” Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach wrote in the introduction to the second volume that Rav OvadiaYosef is "one of the greatest Torah scholars which have risen in Israel in recent generations.” At the time, he was only in his thirties. These sefarim have answers to many halachic questions people have asked him. It is considered very special because he included almost every source regarding a topic from very rare sources. Rav Ovadia acted like an encyclopedia for all Torah for Klal Yisrael.

When Rav Ovadia was a young man, he began to go blind, an effect of the poverty of his youth. He went to the Kever of Rav Yosef Karo (who is called Maran by Sefardim) and davened that he still had much of the Torah of Maran to teach. Baruch Hashem, his vision was saved, but for the rest of his life he wore glasses to protect his eyes.

When Rav Ovadia was in Eretz Yisroel he became a Dayan in the Yerushalayim Beis Din, then a higher level Beis Din in Yerushalayim before becoming the Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Tel Aviv and finally of Israel.  As a Rav, he took responsibility to help many people who were in difficult situations. After the Yom Kippur war, many men went missing and their wives were agunos. He learned many seforim until he could find a way so that each woman could remarry.

Rav Yosef’s biggest goal was for Sephardim to come back to Torah and Mitzvos. When the Sefardim came to Israel, they were very poor and didn’t have yeshivos. He founded school systems, yeshivos and Beis Yaakovs so that all Sephardic Jews could come close to Torah. He provided hot lunches so that the children wouldn’t go hungry. He gave shiurim every night with humor and love. He was warm and friendly to all. When two boys were left as orphans, he brought them to shul and sat with them. Despite his amkus B’Torah, he related to each Jew with joy so that they would love Hashem too.As a result of his decades of work, there are now great Rabbanim and Poskim, and many families who are Shomer Torah and Mitzvos.

After being the chief Rabbi in 1983, Rav Ovadia founded a political party which had representatives in the government. He was respected and had great influence on the government of Israel. Because of his work, the oppressed Sephardim were accepted by the other Jews in Israel and were able to have good schools and get good jobs.

Rav Ovadia continued to teach Torah until the end of his life. Even though he was one of the biggest Torah scholars of our generation, he taught Torah to whomever wanted on their level. He told stories and taught Torah so that everyone would understand.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef lived Har Nof in Yerushalayim until the end of his life. He was buried next to his wife Margalit, with whom he had eleven children and numerous grand and great grandchildren.

What does my classroom Feel like?

This year, like most teachers, parents and students, I was lucky enough to have TWO first days of school. At least that was what it felt like. My first, first day was Thursday before Rosh Hashana. We had a total of eight school days interspersed over the course of 3 weeks with frequent breaks for secular holidays, Jewish holidays, and erev holidays.

This Monday was my second, first day. Come Friday (if I make it Please G-d), I will have taught my first full week of classes this year. So, although school began over a month ago, I figure I can write about some things that teachers think about during the first few weeks of school.

This year, I hope to write about how to improve learning in the classroom. But, before we can even begin to discuss the nuts and bolts of pedagogy, Ed-Tech, or PBL, we teachers need to figure out what our classroom culture is going to be like.  Planning how our classroom feels emotionally is just as important as planning lessons and learning content. 

Here are a few principles that have worked for me and are easily transferable to all grades.

1. Develop a relationship – Teaching a child is not the same as programming a computer. The child has this funny thing called "free will." No matter how well a teacher teaches, the student needs to want to learn. One of the biggest motivators for a student is their relationship with a teacher. 

How does a teacher purposely develop a relationship with students? Rabbi Noach Orlowek says, "If it is important to you, it is important to me” When I care about my students' interests and lives because they are interested in them, I create a bond. 

If they like baseball, I better know who won the game last night. My students know I don't care about baseball. But they know that I know that they care about baseball. If they are absent, sad or distracted, I let them know I notice and care. 

Goal for the year: Try to make a connection with at least 2 students a day about something that is important to them. 

2. Each student is his own world - Students want to know that a teacher sees them as individuals. Our students are in big classes and come from big families. They want to know that someone gets who they are as a person, not as a member of a group. During the first few days, I try to do ice breakers and have the students tell me about themselves. As I learn more about them, I direct comments to them in and out of class to let them know that I know them for who they are as important individuals in their own right. 

Some teachers ask students to write numbers on their papers for ease of sorting. What a shame! Our students are not just a number in our classes. They have dignity - they have a name! We need to use their names when speaking to them and when writing comments to them. During class, I also direct comments to them as individuals. 

"Shimon, I know you are a lefty, so just listen to this pasuk in Navi" 

"Kiryas Arbeh was  a city of GIANTS, no Akiva not THAT kind of GIANTS"  

"Leah, I know you are the class expert on sweeping, can you help us out by teaching us how to do it better?"  

When students feel proud of who they are as an individual and not just as part of a group, they take pride in what they do, become independent thinkers, and are more thoughtful in their choices.

Goal for the year: Reinforce that each student is an individual by addressing each student by his name at least once a day.

3. Fix myself first – I have expectations for how my students act, talk and treat others. I want them to respect themselves, their time, other people and other people's property. I can’t teach respect if I don’t practice respect. 

To model respect, I need to be thinking about my own character. I'm not perfect, and have plenty of flaws that need to be improved. When I focus on my own character, I am less critical of my students' mistakes and have more patience to help them improve. Self-improvement also sets an example for the class that learning and growth are life-long processes. Students don't feel threatened when they realize they are not perfect because they have a model of how to accept their process of growth as a positive rather than being embarrassed that they are not perfect. 

One day, a colleague commented how calm I was when some students were acting like children. I was surprised at his assessment but also proud. I have a tendency to get emotional. I had been working on my own emotions so that I could deal with classroom interruptions calmly. It was gratifying to hear that a colleague perceived me differently than my inherent nature. 

Goal for the year: Pick character goals of my own, and reflect on them on regular basis. Think aloud about self improvement to model the process for my students. 

4. Plan routines – Things go smoother when the transitions and common tasks are on auto-pilot. Getting students into routines at the beginning of the year means that I don’t constantly have to be involved in negative interactions by constantly correcting and being critical. I can focus on the positive and the learning instead. 

Routines don’t just happen though. They require time, planning and reinforcement. At the end of the summer, I thought of classroom events that happen regularly. How will my students hand in papers? How will they line up for recess? How will I get their attention? What happens if a student bullies? It takes a lot of time to  to practice the routines but it is  well worth the pay off after a few short weeks.

Goal for the year: Spend the first few weeks practicing routines even if students learn less content. If there are times of chaos in the class, think of systems and routines that could improve the situation.

5. Plan well – I try to stuff my classes with as much learning and engagement as possible from bell to bell (and beyond if possible). Human beings want to improve. It’s part of what improves the universe. I have confidence that if I give opportunities to learn, my students will try to grow.  I try to make these learning opportunities active and student-centered with multiple learning modalities so every student has a way to access the learning if they want. 

Goal for the year: Review my lesson plans nightly for multiple learning modalities and active learning. Look for down time and incorporate learning of some sort. 

6. Humor and Positivity - Students are more engaged when they are relaxed.  They can focus on learning when they feel comfortable and there is a light atmosphere of good cheer rather than pressure and stress.  You can do serious work even if the mood is not serious. 

As a teacher, I set the mood in the room. I force a smile on my face even if I am tired. My students are looking at me all day. Looking at a sour face is a real downer. In my classroom, I need to be a positive person and to use humor to diffuse many difficulat situations.

Goal for the year: Smile. Get enough sleep so that I can find humor even in tough situations. Bring humor and joy into the learning. 

7. Teach optimistic thinking– on the top of my tests, I write “The best you can do is to do your best!” I encourage my class to recognize that they are special, that nothing is ever the end of the world (except perhaps the end of the world) and to believe in themselves that they can be successful . 

Some of our students grow up in critical homes and need to learn how to view the world more optimistically. They need help retraining their thinking from highly critical to self-nurturing. When students are more forgiving of themselves and celebrate their successes, they don’t need to engage in negative conflicts for attention.

The first weeks of school is an important time to reinforce this message. Kids don't want to make mistakes. They are scared that they will be mocked by peers and lose the respect of their teacher. I always try to celebrate mistakes that come from hard work and effort so students learn that hard work, effort and perseverance is more important than getting it right.

 

Goal for the year: Praise effort over aptitude.

8. Realize no one is perfect, not me and not them – sometimes I have a bad day. Sometimes, they do. Rather than letting that set the tone for the rest of the year, I need to be able to let the day go and start over the next day. 

Goal for the year:  Reflect on the many positive parts of my day and let go of the negative. Problem solve rather than getting annoyed.

With these few tips, I hope that my classroom will be one of joy, learning and cooperation. I hope to enjoy myself this year and I hope that my students do as well.