Mazel Tov, Reta Emerson Fellows/TAP Teens!
By Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer, Director, Whole Community Inclusion On May 19th, we celebrated another successful year of learning about disability awareness and how to support students of all abilities with this year's Reta Emerson Fellows/Teen Assistant Program (TAP) Teens. Since participating in an intensive training last August, these teens have worked in their synagogue schools supporting students with learning differences and more complex special needs. They have come to ongoing education sessions through the year, learning about positive support strategies that they could implement with their students. They've also written about their experiences on our TAP blog, lead disability awareness education [...]
Taking B’nei Mitzvah Tutor Training On The Road
By Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer, Director, Whole Community Inclusion Last August, Jewish Learning Venture's Whole Community Inclusion (WCI) program held its first-ever training for B’nei Mitzvah tutors on how to make modifications and accommodations for students of all abilities. The inspiration for creating this training is our realization that more and more synagogues are welcoming and providing accommodations for students who have learning, physical and/or developmental disabilities in their education programs. However, when these children are ready to prepare for becoming B’nei Mitzvah, tutors and clergy do not always have the skills they need to address learning challenges and create appropriate modifications. One of the [...]
A Great Start: Exploring gender identity
By Anna Marx, Director, Jewish Education and Leadership Development The topic of gender identity has become common in recent discourse, in politics, in pop culture, in social media, and in our communities. Once a hushed conversation, it now feels front and center much of the time. And not only has the topic taken on a new public conversation, it feels to many of us like there is a different understanding of gender and identity among different age demographics. Youth today, I’ve heard educators say to me, have a whole new language around gender, sexuality, and relationships. But while the conversation might feel new [...]