by Arianna Frantz, Temple Sholom From the beginning of the introduction workshop until the end, I learned a lot of useful information ranging from how to help students to where my responsibilities as a teaching assistant will lie. At the beginning of the workshop, we introduced ourselves and played some icebreakers, before being asked how we could make those icebreakers accessible to everyone or give students a bit more help. One example of an icebreaker was lining up by birthday month and day without speaking. We said using whiteboards or playdough to shape numbers would help make lining up silently easier. This is [...]

by Ben Sacks During the TAP training programs we learned a lot about making learning more accessible for everyone in the classroom, and a large part of that was creating a more accepting and comfortable learning environment, a place where every student can feel free to be themselves and learn how they want to, even if we had to encourage them occasionally. It was the greatest feeling seeing the whole class laugh together and share in a happy experience. I know that the jewish education is important, but your Hebrew school class is really about friendship and growing up together. [...]

by Anna Weinstein At the start of the TAP Program I thought I already knew how to work with kids with disabilities because to me it didn’t seem that hard. I knew that working with someone who had a disability would be different and they would need some extra assistance, but I’d never really been in a situation where I had to work with a child who needed extra help. Something I learned about people with disabilities is that you can’t assume things about the way they’re feeling or what they need because only they know what they need to [...]