By Gloria Becker, Director, Learning Initiatives in Jewish Education
“I plan to reenvision my school’s curriculum from start to finish.” (School director from Bucks County)
“I am going to revamp my values curriculum to include enduring understandings and essential questions.” (School director from Lower Merion)
“I will begin my own teaching work with more thoughtful planning.” (Teacher from Montgomery County)
Participants in Jewish Learning Venture’s new “Creating Curriculum” two-day intensive learned the ins and outs of creating curriculum from scratch. We wrestled with what we really wanted our students to learn in our education programs, beyond the standard list of subjects and skills.
“We’d like to help parents realize that while being able to chant the four questions at the seder twice a year is a great skill to have, but if our program is not helping our kids become good people, we haven’t done our job.” (School director from Philadelphia County)
Twenty school directors, teachers, and lay leaders from 12 congregations throughout the greater Philadelphia area worked together, talked together, and learned together during this very intensive 12-hour workshop. They came away excited and ready to go back to their own programs and apply their new learning to everyone’s summer project – the curriculum.
“This workshop MUST be presented to schools that plan to reconfigure themselves to meet the needs of our communities.” (School director from Bucks County)